The View From My Window

My building changed owners only ten days after I moved in. It's an old building, built in 1988 in that weird 80s futurist style that probably dated faster than any school of design in history. There's no lift, but the stairwell is wide and well lit by a bizarre jagged window that runs the entire height of the structure and makes it look like an earthquake just hit. All the public areas are covered with two-tone grey checked lino tiles; and the outside is mostly unfinished concrete (cracking now with age) with red paint highlights. At the very top of the stairs the banister is made of yellow and black striped rope woven through rings on a black metal frame - which is a design innovation I believe was invented by the set designers of Blakes 7 or possibly the decorators of Laser Quest in Acocks Green. I have to say that I liked it from the first time I saw it, even though it's lacking in a lot of respects, and now the new owners are sprucing the whole place up which (as long as they don't hike the rent) is even better.

But first they've got to cover the entire thing in scaffolding and tarpaulin.


So that's now the view from my window until I go back to England for a while.

No natural light can gain access to the building whatsoever. My appartment, the hallways, the stairwell - all dim and shadowy like a less dank episode of the Silent Hill franchise. As Will Smith once said, I "walk in shadow, move in silence, guard against extra terrestrial violence."

Well, the first one at least.