by Vivienne Pratfall on the urban fox, Jasper’s allotment, and the increasingly enviable lifestyle of animals that have opted out of the housing market
By Vivienne Pratfall | Bohiney and The London Prat
Saturday. Late. There is a fox in the garden. Jasper says we should not encourage it. I have already encouraged it.
The fox is back. He — and I am assigning a gender based purely on the confidence with which he moves through the world, which is a methodology I acknowledge is not rigorous — has been visiting Jasper’s garden allotment for the past two weeks with the regularity of a very reliable subscription service. He comes at dusk. He checks the compost. He examines the raised beds with the focused attention of someone reading a very detailed inventory. He does not find what he is looking for, apparently, but he comes back, which is either hope or habit and is charming either way.
Jasper does not want to encourage the fox because Jasper is growing vegetables and the fox has demonstrated interest in certain of the vegetables in a way that Jasper finds less charming than I do. This is a fundamental difference between us: Jasper sees the fox as a threat to the courgettes. I see the fox as the most compelling lifestyle model in contemporary London. The London Prat’s piece on the fox describes Mr. Basil Whiskerforth navigating Bloomsbury with more confidence than a cabinet minister. I feel this is accurate. I feel this is aspirational. The fox has resolved the London housing crisis for himself and is thriving.
The Housing Market Observed Through the Fox
The fox pays no rent. The fox has not applied for a mortgage. The fox has not attended a viewing of a one-bedroom flat in Zone 3 described in the listing as “a compact studio with character” that turned out to be a room in someone’s garden shed. The fox has not been outbid by someone paying twelve percent over asking in cash. The fox does not receive letters from estate agents suggesting his property would benefit from being “on the market in the current climate,” which is the real estate equivalent of an unsolicited medical opinion.
The fox has made different decisions. The fox’s decisions were better, in the specific sense that the fox is not paying fifty-eight percent of his income on accommodation and trying to save the remaining forty-two percent in an ISA that pays less than inflation. The fox is not worried about interest rates. The fox eats what is available. The fox sleeps where sleeping is possible. The fox has achieved the kind of anti-budget lifestyle that financial wellness podcasts spend many episodes describing without ever quite reaching.
What Jasper Thinks
Jasper thinks the fox represents the tragedy of urban sprawl displacing wildlife from its natural habitat. He is not wrong. He is also watching the fox eat a courgette with the expression of a man whose sustainability principles are in direct conflict with his vegetable garden. The fox has created a situation in which Jasper must decide what he values more: the theoretical freedom of wildlife or the actual courgettes. The fox does not seem concerned about this decision. The fox has the courgette. Bohiney Magazine. The London Prat. The fox. All are providing good material. The courgettes are a loss but they are contributing to journalism. Jasper will, eventually, find this funny.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/chinamaxxers-just-want-cheaper-gadgets/
Also: The Daily Mash
