For a fleeting moment, I was cool. Every magazine and newspaper said I was. Michael Winner confirmed it when he declared I was uncool. What better guarantee of my new-found status could there be? The year was 1998 and I had just bought a loft in one of the first converted factory buildings in Clerkenwell. In those pioneering days, before developers started describing cupboards in Sidcup as “loft-style”, it felt intoxicatingly good telling people I lived in the fashionable near East.
No matter that I slept on a mattress on the floor, that I did not have a kitchen and that I had to take a taxi to the nearest bank or supermarket. I was the urban space man.
Alas, for me, the time has come to move on to west London, where my girlfriend, Stephanie, insists there are “four seasons, not just one season called concrete”. When we exchanged contracts my buyer — Ian Bayliss, the designer who created Bono’s Clarence Hotel in Dublin — asked me what it is like living in a loft.
Here, Ian, is my six-point guide to Lofty Pursuits.
The first rule of loft-living is, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of your stainless steel galley-style kitchen with exposed ply cantilevered floating shelf system. Loft-living is a competitive business. Behind their twitching Japanese hardwood blinds, your neighbours will be competing ferociously to demonstrate that they are hipper than thou.
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When I moved in, there was tough competition among neighbours to create an interior that would catch the eye of World of Interiors or Elle Decoration. Dan thought that decorating his flat in 17 shades of white would win him the first magazine spread. Christel decided a seventh-floor sauna would edge it.
Kennedy tried to use ironic wallpaper and grandma furniture to bring a bit of the country into the city but merely ended up creating a “Guildford manqué” look. It was the sneaky journalist who got in first because I, er, I mean he, sucked up to the magazines’ editors.
The second rule is, resist the urge to laugh at your neighbours, however much you might be tempted. And you will be. Living in a lofty building is like appearing in your own private series of Sex and the City. There are Mr Big-style City traders, busily buying up pipelines in Turkmenistan, fashionista Carries, up-all-night Samanthas, business-like Mirandas and the odd Stanford Blatch.
When neighbours are so overcome by their new Manhattan-style homes that they declare your “neighbourhood” is “midtown” and insist that their open-plan “apartment” gives them a feeling of “tantric intimacy”, bite your tongue. Do the same when Brian and Brian send you an invitation to their mince-pie-and-carols Christmas party with an explanatory note that says: “Singing is not compulsory but the no-boots and no-sharp-heels rule will be strictly enforced because the new Mexican rosewood floor is still settling.”
Rule number three is, beware the residents’ meeting. This is a social and professional minefield. Attendance, of course, is compulsory. You do not want to be accused of not being a team player. But, at your first meeting, pretend to be mute or a member of al-Qaeda — nothing is too extreme — to make sure nobody actually asks you to do anything.
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Naive and eager-to-please newcomers are always handed the job of secretary of the residents’ association. They spend the next two years chasing up neighbours who have failed to pay their service charge, which they insist is entirely reasonable “because David and I are always in New York for work”.
The fourth rule of loft living is, read Heat magazine. It is social death to fail to recognise that your new neighbour is Anna Friel or to clock that the woman in the lift who looks familiar is Ms Dynamite, who is filming a video in the penthouse. These rules do not apply to Nasser Hussain when he turns up to film an NPower commercial. Garage-music acts may be good for house prices but dull sportsmen are not.
Rule number five is, love thy porter. He may appear to be attempting to break the world record for the number of Superkings smoked in a working day, but don’t be fooled. Like your boss’s secretary, the man in the blue nylon overalls r-u-l-e-s. Be polite and give him his favourite bottle at Christmas and he will ignore that little embarrassing incident in the car park that was caught on CCTV.
The sixth rule is location, location, location. You moved to the inner city to be all urban. Any loft-liver worth his B&B Italia daybed is expressly forbidden from objecting when life becomes a little too edgy for comfort.
Subjects you may never complain about include: “nightclub-style parties”, including raves in the derelict former NCP car park across the street, drug dealers (especially the one who has moved in next door), the extension to licensing hours for the “trendy wine bar” at the end of the street and gunshots.
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Rodents in the garage and that annoying architect guy who lives downstairs and wants to sue the developer every time a door knob falls off are the only acceptable whinges.
Finally, if you ever write an article for a national newspaper poking fun at all your recent best friends and neighbours, make sure it is published after you have sold up and moved on. That way, with any luck, the new occupant of your flat, not you, will get it in the neck.
Welcome, Ian. And good luck.