Harrumph, London prices
Sunday, December 18th, 2005 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manHarrumph. I've just taken my bicycle in for repair, having bent the lug off the frame to which the derailleur is attached the other week. In London they said it couldn't be straightened without weakening it, and quoted me £120 for welding a replacement part on, and £90 for labour, plus quite a lot more for general servicing. At that rate, it would be cheaper to get a new bike. Here in Newcastle they said the lug could be straightened, and quoted something like £65 for repairs, plus £25 for general servicing.
I'm also trying to get my new place in London painted. The first estimate I got, for getting the place painted before I move in on Tuesday, was £1300. And this for a one-bedroom flat. My parents have had an entire house painted in Newcastle for a quarter of that!
As for the flat itself, for what I'm paying for the cheapest one-bedroom flat I could get in Golders Green that wasn't either grotty or out in the sticks of Cricklewood, my father tells me I could comfortably buy a semidetached house here.
I'm rather annoyed, not just at the insane London prices, but also at the previous generations of Anglo-Jewry, for making such a hash of communal continuity that there's now nowhere in the country I can go to find the sort of community I'm looking for except the big bad megalopolis.
(I'm also shocked to discover the community is considering wrapping up and selling its shul. It was only built nineteen years ago, but now the community has shrunk so much it's running at a loss. There were 6000 Jews in Newcastle when my parents grew up; 1400, with three Orthodox shuls and one Reform shul when I grew up; today, there's only a few hundred, of which only a handful beneath fifty.)
*sigh* Oh well; back to London now. (And then flat move, and then off to Nottingham for Limmud, yay!)
I'm also trying to get my new place in London painted. The first estimate I got, for getting the place painted before I move in on Tuesday, was £1300. And this for a one-bedroom flat. My parents have had an entire house painted in Newcastle for a quarter of that!
As for the flat itself, for what I'm paying for the cheapest one-bedroom flat I could get in Golders Green that wasn't either grotty or out in the sticks of Cricklewood, my father tells me I could comfortably buy a semidetached house here.
I'm rather annoyed, not just at the insane London prices, but also at the previous generations of Anglo-Jewry, for making such a hash of communal continuity that there's now nowhere in the country I can go to find the sort of community I'm looking for except the big bad megalopolis.
(I'm also shocked to discover the community is considering wrapping up and selling its shul. It was only built nineteen years ago, but now the community has shrunk so much it's running at a loss. There were 6000 Jews in Newcastle when my parents grew up; 1400, with three Orthodox shuls and one Reform shul when I grew up; today, there's only a few hundred, of which only a handful beneath fifty.)
*sigh* Oh well; back to London now. (And then flat move, and then off to Nottingham for Limmud, yay!)
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 07:23 pm (UTC)bike/painters
Date: 2005-12-20 11:52 pm (UTC)I could suggest to try to ring or email some people you know and ask them if they know cheaper painters in London. They should not be extremely messy. My landlady hired and eldery man who let it done by a young Polish man who does not understand English very well. He does not cover anything. We have no good relationship with the painter nor the landlady and I would not recommend him as he is very unreliable, too.