00:00It was kind of like living like Harry Potter, like it wasn't a cupboard under the stairs,
00:03it was a cupboard on the stairs. So you went up the stairs and there was this little tiny cupboard
00:06and in order to get into the room, the bed with the pallets, you had to climb over it to
00:11get in
00:11there. And I'm five foot three so stretching those legs over into that room, it was difficult okay,
00:16it was a muscle workout and that's the things that you do to live in this city.
00:22Luke, do you remember your first time living in London?
00:24I very much do remember my first time living in London. It was a house share in Peckham
00:29with four 50-year-olds who I knew nothing about before I moved in. We had a few issues with
00:35rats, damp, how much did it cost? $1,200 a month? Look, this is the thing with London because it's
00:42such a large area and every area is so different, it feels like you've really got to work out the
00:46place that's right for you. So I don't regret it but I think it's an important rite of passage
00:51because it's finding where you suit in this amazing city and often the first place you try
00:55is not going to be that place. I did first live in Crystal Palace right after I graduated from uni
01:00because all my friends were moving down and I was like, oh I'll do that. But I couldn't afford
01:04my own place obviously and nobody I knew had a spare room so I ended up renting someone I didn't
01:09know
01:09who was great and took me in and was very nice but did have a thing about walking around naked
01:14in the morning all the time without checking to see if I was in and then just apologising while
01:19being stood there rather than apologising from somewhere else. So that was, that was an experience.
01:24It's flat, not mine. This would have been 2010 diet and exercise in case you're wondering and
01:29it was £650 a month for a little box room in Crystal Palace. It was, it was very small,
01:35it was a bed and a wardrobe but you could see the park sort of when all the leaves fell
01:40off the trees.
01:41It should be hard and it should be unpleasant and it should be punishing because you find out a lot
01:44about yourself. Like for example, how far can you make some old vegetables and a tin of mushroom soup
01:51last year as meal prep goes? Five days it turns out for me if you water it down enough.
01:56To be able to afford to do my first job in London, I lived in a room that had no
02:00electricity to it
02:01and the bed was a plank of wood balanced on some other bits of wood with like a sort of
02:07camping
02:07mattress sitting on top of it and I did that so that I could join the media. But look, here
02:13I am
02:13today. I think I paid something like £50 a week and honestly, I hope she doesn't watch this but
02:18that was a rip off. There was no electricity in there. I had to go to another part of the
02:22building
02:22to dry my hair if I wanted to like have a shower in the morning. I loved London. It's the
02:27best city
02:27in the world and I knew that one day I would be able to afford to live there on my
02:30own terms if I
02:31just really stuck at it. I think on a serious note, you should be able to afford to live in
02:37this city
02:37and so many people can't and so many people are pushed out of it and it's a massive problem here.
02:42The rent is absolutely extortionate. We had to live in some quite questionable accommodation. Let's just say
02:47when you were going up the stairs, you might have to step over some rubbish or some blood
02:51on a couple of occasions. At that point, that was what I could afford. It was a great location.
02:56I actually never even looked at the flat before I moved in. I just looked at the location on a
03:00map
03:00and told my friend, yep, that'll do. It was worth it. We had great facilities. No, I'm joking. At a
03:06certain age, you can put up with those things. I wouldn't do it now. I had to live in a
03:09spare room
03:11house share so we couldn't vet the people coming in and the guy who moved in next door to my
03:15room
03:15was a gigolo and I used to hear him camming in the room next door and then I'd hear him
03:19getting donations and every time he'd get a donation, I'd hear it paying off and he would
03:22just say, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. I was paying like $9.50 between five people then?
03:27I should be paying less to be living in those conditions, to be honest. People just want
03:30to have a better social life and live in the city, I guess, so I think people would just put
03:34up
03:34with anything, really.
