London Rental Opportunity of the Week: A Kitchen Made of Wire in Paddington!

What is it? Necessarily it is a studio apartment, but by the state of the exposed cables, the exposed skirting board, the wireframe kitchen unit and the sagging, joyless bed, I am inclined to say it's "a crime scene, directly after a ransacking";
Where is it? Paddington, the Euston of the west;
What is there to do locally? Paddington is just a sprawling train station with an esoteric interchange, a museum dedicated to a made-up bear and yet another one-size-fits-all glossy London street food market invented to try to lure tourists and food influencers, and that is it. Buy a skull-sized vegan donut and throw yourself in a canal. That is what there is to do in Paddington;
Alright, how much are they asking? £1,300 pcm;

I often think of dying in my sleep, and how pleasant that will be, and that is because my bed is a haven, a paradise, nirvana in blankets, and because I have 2 x special expensive pillows made of this strange bouncy sort of foam material that does not overheat when you sleep on it and fully supports your neck; 1 x duvet that cost me entirely too much from John fucking Lewis; 3 x blankets or quilts of various thicknesses and qualities that can be layered and unlayered according to the needs of the sleeper and the temperate climate of the room at night; 1 x premium-quality memory foam mattress topper from Groupon which, ngl, was an absolute ball-ache to haul home from work, I don’t know why I had it sent here; 1 x Egyptian cotton bedsheet w/ cover and pillow cases. Every time I go to sleep I cuddle up and wish for death, honestly. What a glorious place to be, my bed is. What a simply fantastic place to die.

In related news:

Longterm fans (???????????) of this column will recognise the calling card of the London property agent, here: two small towels folded neatly (-ish: these particular towels are actually quite carelessly folded) on the bed to suggest a hotel continental-style way of living, to truss up a shitty west London bedsit in the manner of a Parisian chamber. You can imagine ambassadors sleeping here, can't you? "M-my gosh!" an ambassador says, walking into this set-up. "I— it can’t be! Two small pink towels from Primark or maybe the homeware section of a Big Sainsbury's! The luxury! The unimaginable luxury! Are we at the Ritz?"

But also, please pay attention to the bed: two flat pillows; one thin single duvet stretched over a double-width mattress; the mattress, raw beneath, sagging onto the two sad box frames; the general air of misery about the whole vista. Yes, we all want to die in bed, prone and comfortable. Apart from this bed. This bed would be a bad place to die.

I'm focusing too much on dying in bed: we haven't even got to the meat of this flat, which is the— well, I hesitate to use a word as strong as "kitchen", but there’s certainly a lot of metal frame doing a sort of impression of a kitchen:

Briefly imagine your life in this flat: you could run a sink full of water above an exposed pipe; store your one pan on a shelf beneath it; heat said pan on a Buzzfeed Tasty-style induction hob; go around a small bathroom alcove to gain access to your shower; walk sideways between your kitchen wireframe and the sofa that is inexplicably there, because you cannot walk directly into your flat from the front door at a normal gait; stare at your mess of black cables and what appears to be a fucking wall-mounted Megadrive as part of your entertainment system; put your fucking net curtains up properly; figure out a way to actually open your wardrobe doors while standing in front of them, because I can’t see any possible way of doing that; store things on your inexplicably huge and ominous French dresser; glue your skirting board back on; text your friends that no, you can’t come out tonight, you’re spending £1,300 a month to live here and you can’t afford to come out for pints; text your friends no, no don’t come over, honestly lads, you don’t have to come over with beers, there’s not really room for any—; ah, you’re all here, OK; yeah no if— just move that small pile of clothes off the bed – it’s easier for me to sleep next to a small pile of clothes than actually open the wardrobe every morning, you know how it is – yeah no, put it down on the floor with those pink towels; yeah, uh, no there’s no fridge so I can’t really cool these beers down but uhhh— maybe I could fill the bath with cold water and put them in there?; "How do I wash my clothes?" Heh, good question: clothes really don't need washing as often as you think, really, and also there’s a laundrette like only two tube stops over; "Why do I have an enormous and unnecessarily intimidating dresser in the corner that is seemingly only there to hold an iron I have, despite there being absolutely no visible ironing board in the entire house?" Hehe, another good one. Listen – boys I’m bushed! I absolutely have to sleep! Haha, see ya; See ya;

Yeah: sob yourself to sleep in your sagging hell bed and pray for Paddington to explode or, better, death.

@joelgolby