House white

"I hate this," the vendor told us. "I'm sick of having people poke round my 'ouse."

"Yes, it must be an intrusion," we sympathised.

"Worst fing is," he continued, "she," he said, pointing at his wife, "won't let me 'av a curry cos it stinks the place out."

Such were the words of the vendor of - actually - one of the better properties we've seen so far. Yes, house hunting has started in earnest. (Earnest, for non-Londoners, is a small suburb just next door to Newbury Park.) Ha ha ha. I am so funny.

So today we trotted off to Plaistow, which, for non-Londoners, is pronounced Plar-stow. That one's true. We looked at two houses on the same street. The first one was owned by a Vietnamese chap. He showed us into his house. We looked round. It looked lovely inside. Very much like an upmarket Chinese restaurant. Complete with china swans and dragons and a bathroom that was in need of some attention. We moved on.

The second one was bigger and downstairs was lovely. Upstairs looked a bit like a museum to the 70s, 80s and 90s respectively. A 70s bathroom, two 80s bedrooms, and one which was littered with Take That CDs. The vendor showed us the boiler.

"Thirty-two years old," that boiler is. "People say to me, you need to modernise it, but I say, it's still working. Thirty-two years." His boiler is older than me.

"I won't lie to you," he said. "We've had a spot of trouble with the neighbours. Them next door." He pointed. "Muslims," he said. "I don't know how you feel about that. Seven kids," he continued. "Noisy buggers too. You know what them Muslims are like - popping another one out every five minutes. Dead religious. Does my head in." We weren't sure if he was more offended by the number of children, the noise, religion itself or the fact their skin colour was a bit dusky.

This pondering was quickly resolved. "I have to say," he said, "you're the first white faces I've had looking round here, and I've had the property on the market for over a year." His wife made very readable 'shut up' faces at him, but he was in his stride and paid no heed.

"Yeah, yeah, it's a nice enough area. I mean, considering it's in Newham, which - let's face it - is a hole. I mean, you do get the football hooligans on Saturdays but that's only when West Ham are playing at home, and we've only had to call the police twice, haven't we, Sheila?"

Sheila looked like she'd lost the will to live.

"I'm not moving to get away from the trouble or anything. I just want to be closer to my grandchildren out in Essex. Like I say, I've called the police only twice for the football hooligans, oh, and I had to threaten to sue the landlord next door because of the South Americans*, and I've had words with the Muslim chap, but I don't think he understood a word I said. Yeah, yeah, it's alright around here."

Sheila started crying a little bit, as she realised the chances of selling her property before her grandchildren left university were slim at best.

As we left: "Don't worry about the gate; it doesn't shut properly. This place is falling apart."

Worst. Sales. Job. Ever.

* The issue with the South Americans was left unresolved. We wondered if he fundamentally objected to their very being South American.