"Real" This Life

The Daily Record - NEWS - NIGHTMARE FLATMATES REVEALED THIS LIFE LIE

ジャック・ダヴェンポート、アンドリュー・リンカーンとキャラの立った男前と、それに輪をかけてキャラの立ったイイ女ダニエラ・ナディーニが揃ったThis Lifeを見た後は、誰もが思わず「フラットシェア」に憧れるはず。
でもその前に、リアルタイムでThis Lifeを見ていたイギリス人記者が語る厳し〜い現実をどうぞ。・・・実際はもっとスゴい人たちと暮らす羽目にも。楽しいですよ〜v

23 September 2006
NIGHTMARE FLATMATES REVEALED THIS LIFE LIE
Brian Mciver

THEY were all glamorous, successful and sexy. The guys were cool, the women were hot and their flat was a city centre palace - 10 years ago, everybody wanted to live in This Life.

So it came as no surprise that sad 30 or late 20-somethings like myself whooped with joy this week when it was finally confirmed that Egg, Milly, Miles, Anna and Warren were returning to TV screens for a Christmas reunion.

I say whooped, but for most of us it was actually more like a short whoop, quickly replaced by a huge gulp, realising that it has actually been 10 years since the door of their gorgeous flat closed for the last time - and that we were all a decade older.

That was followed by a botox busting frown when we recalled all the pain the show had caused us - by convincing us flatsharing is fun.

I was just one of an entire generation of Nineties kids dazzled by the snappy dialogue, sexy action and laughs thrown out by Jack Davenport and Daniela Nardini.

And I couldn't wait to swap my mum's for the paradise of young and trendy multiple occupancy.

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But when I did finally make my leap into my first flatshare, I realised that living with strangers is nowhere near as cool as BBC2, Friends or Carlsberg would have you believe.

As a 23-year-old heading out to share a west end of Glasgow residence with two seemingly cool postgrad girls of a similar age, I had visions of constant parties.

But instead of living with Miles and Anna or Joey and Chandler I got Gillian McKeith and Aggie from How Clean Is Your House.

Tin of bean blockades were set up to separate food in cupboards and a Pledge SWAT team was despatched for every dust spot, while socialising after 9pm was met with abuse.

Now before the image of a stereotype boorish lad gets cemented in your head, I always washed my own dishes and I even learned to put the toilet seat down.

Although I do still feel guilty about pinning the blame on one of the girls after a friend and I returned home in the middle of the night, put some pizza in the oven and passed out, leaving the pepperoni and putrefied carbon delight to broil for four hours.

When we were both awakened by the smell, I chucked the remains out the window and sat silently hungover the next day as one girl laid into the other about her burned chicken dinner the previous night.

But the home economics twins were actually the nicest people I ever shared a flat with.

They were replaced by a student who had such a complex about other people knowing he had peed, that he took to urinating into empty beer cans and pouring them down the loo when we were all out.

And in my next flat, I shared with a man-eating girl who had more stalkers and psychos delivered to the flat per week than the cannabis fiend across the hall had takeaways.

The constantly stoned and stinky student also decided it would be a good idea to grow his own wacky baccy plants out his window, directly across the street from the bay living room of an unimpressed landlord.

Next up was the most anal (literally) human being I have ever met - she insisted we all keep our own individual loo paper in the toilet. To keep them separate, she suggested we try writing our initials on them, but I ran out of ink after the 734th sheet and had to roll it back up.

After three years, I escaped my loony lifestyle thanks to the love of a good woman, and the key to anice one bedroomed flat, when I moved in with my girlfriend and said goodbye to my last ever flatmate.

But I did gain some lessons from the This Life lie - I haven't burned a pizza since, and I always remember to put the toilet seat down.