LONDON LIVES 1
DAVE MARSHY

Dave Marshy lives in N16 and works for Foxley’s, a large estate agent with branches all over London. He is 29 years old.

Every morning I go down to Starbucks for a coffee and a tiny biscuit. It used to be a second hand bookshop, but we hiked up the rent and sold it to Starbucks because N16 is ‘on the up’. I prefer coffee to books. Books are all the same - loads of lines and symbols and pieces of paper all stuck together. Once you have looked at a book it is done with and you have to throw it in the bin with the others. But there are loads of different kinds of coffee. Black, white, instant. Some people at Uni used to read books. Where are they now? Teaching. In Zone 6! Losers.

Next I drive to work at Islington Green in one of our green Foxley’s BMW Minis. Last year was the thirtieth anniversary of punk rock, which was invented here in London at The Screen On The Green in 1976. The city became a world centre of culture and fashion, adding at least 40% to current property values. To celebrate punk we had the entire fleet of Foxley’s BMW Minis decorated in a standardised Punk Rock livery. On the boot it says ‘Punk Is Not Dead’, and there can be no greater indication of punk’s ongoing importance than its adoption as a brand recognition tool by a vibrant estate agent like Foxley’s. An old punk stuck his head through the window when I was in a traffic jam on Essex Road and spat in my face. For a moment, I fell silent. As the spit dribbled down my chin, I realised that I deserved it.

Things like this seem to happen more and more often. Once I was showing a client round a live-work space in Cannonbury and she asked if there was access to the shared garden and I just looked at her and said, “What does it matter? It’s just property. We’re all prisoners. Prisoners of London! Do you think I wanted to be a Foxley’s estate agent? Isn’t there a country you’ve always wanted to visit? Let’s go! Let’s go there together now!” And then she walked out of the flat silently and drove away, leaving me there alone, staring at a crumpled up copy of London Lite.

Sometimes I forget that I am actually at work. Foxley’s has been designed to look like a cool Shoreditch type bar. There’s no boring desks or annoying chairs, just a long chrome fridge full of beer and energy drinks, and XFM piped in on a loop for ever and ever and ever and ever. Buying a home at Foxley’s is as much fun as spending the whole weekend at Jongelurs with all your mates from the office, drinking and laughing and drinking and laughing, with the music in the after-show club just too loud to hear what anyone is saying but you still manange to get off with the new girl and she hates herself for it and she hates you too and you realise London is Hell and that’s why you’re here. You’re a Foxley’s estate agent. It’s what you deserve.

After work, I go home and look at myself in the mirror and think about property prices, and my genital warts, and my impotence, and my cocaine problem and then I smash my head repeatedly into the mirror, crying and vomitting and remembering the hopes and dreams I entertained as a child. I used to play the French horn. Then I go to bed and dream of RATS TEARING MY FACE OFF! The next day I get up and go to Starbucks. And it all starts all over again.

Dave Marshy was talking to Stewart Lee