Priorities

Moving to London, a city of apparently boundless possibility, one of the first things I wanted to sort out in our flatshare was a decent-sized TV, much to the chagrin of my more highly cultured flatmates. Knowing I would be on a budget, I wanted a decent source of free entertainment and company, well, free apart from the license fee. For the first couple of weeks we made do with the old portable telly from my room at home, perched on a stool and looking a little isolated and miniature in its corner of the living room. We had the four channels and could gather round to view our favourite shows, although it began to dawn on us that maybe the screen was too small for our needs.

“Who just got chucked off X Factor?” someone asked, only for the rest of us to respond that we weren’t sure either.

“I think it was a man,” one of us eventually piped up. So the screen was too small and we had no idea who or what we were watching.

“We need a bigger telly,” someone stated.

So the next weekend, a quick trawl on Gumtree revealed an impressive incher going begging at a bargain price just down the road. Phone calls were made and we agreed to come and pick it up that night. It’s not that far away, but we realise it’s too far to carry and I can just see us arguing about who gets the heavy end of the flatscreen, inevitably dropping the whole thing while crossing the road and watching a bus run over it. Stroked by genius, I suggest we get a shopping trolley from the supermarket opposite. We put our pound coin into Budgens’ biggest and begin trundling down the hill, drawing a few confused stares from passers-by. One particular elderly lady with bright white hair is ostensibly eyeballing us as we pass.

We reach the flats in the depths of Belsize Village where the TV finds its current home. The rattles of the trolley and its wheels over the shoddy surfaces of the pathways draw plenty of attention and I’m worried my flatmate and I look like a pair of youths up to no good. As we enter the forecourt of the house, the same white-haired lady appears, having taken the bus one stop along and caught up with us.

“Vat are you boys doing?” she asks in a rich European accent. She is that glamorous that I immediately assume she is displaced royalty from the Hapsburg Empire.

“Buying a TV,” I respond.

“Oh, I thought it was some kind of bet.” She turns out to live in the same building and lets us in. Another very friendly woman agrees to our price for her set and before long we are planning our way home. The TV is not going to fit in the trolley but can only balance on top which, given the rattling and shaking of our contraption, probably means we will have destroyed the appliance before reaching home safely.

We decide we shall have to absorb the price of a taxi and seeing as no minicab services will answer our calls, my flatmate is out in the street trying to flag down a Hackney. “None of them will stop” he wails. I watch him and notice his wild gesticulations are being focused on occupied cabs.

“If the light’s not on, they’ve already got someone in,” I explain.

“Oh right,” he says. He’s been in London a year longer than my five minutes and has not grasped this basic principle.

Half an hour later, we are back nestled in the living room watching big screen X Factor in time for the results. We had found a lovely taxi driver, got our pound back on returning the trolley to its herd, and the elderly European lady had wished us well on our way, hopefully pleasantly surprised to find two polite and well-spoken young men engaging in trolley banditry on a Saturday night, rather than them hooligans you read about in the paper.