Freedom News

London squatting opportunity of the week: no business, as usual

To commemorate 10 years since the criminalisation of squatting in residential buildings and the ongoing collapse of the UK’s economy under the Tories, George F spitefully presents housing opportunities and alternatives for those who would wish to take them.

What is it? What more poignant image could there be of what has become the Untied Krimdom than a derelict English language teaching academy, optimistically named “The Business School”, boarded up for 8 years with the lurid pink graffiti written in it’s windows sneering: HOMELESSNESS IS COOL, WIPE YER BUM WITH THE NEWS. Once a place for education, aspiration, finance, opportunity, now a husk of value that only exists on paper.

And the owners? None other than the Corporation of the City of London themselves.

IT’S A FUCKING LAND BANK.

Taking inspiration from – and certainly not lazily bastardizing or ‘ripping off’ – Vice shill Joel Golby’s insouciant regular column London rental opportunity of the week, we here attempt to recklessly wobble rather than reinforce the status quo via the media. Also I went to school with the fucker and I am deeply embittered that he is a ‘more successful writer than me’, as my old English teacher Mr Murgatroyd gleefully pointed out to me via email. Well, fuck you Trevor, rather than simply laughing hysterically in the ever-yawning abyss at the utter calamity of neoliberal landlordism and the nightmare of apocalyptic ecological collapse, I would like to suggest fuck paying rent – go on, squat the fucker. It’ll be funny.

The three-story building has stunning views of the City, a kitchenette, single toilet, and perhaps six or seven rooms of varying size. Before the boards went up, the windows provided bright and spacious light, and opened on to the ever teeming streets of Shoreditch.

IT’S ALSO AN EVER-SWIRLING PORTAL TO HELL.

The Business School was previously squatted back in 2014 – pre-Brexit, pre-Trump, pre-Boris and pre-COVID. There was still time, a future, the world was a bit on fire but hey, we were sure COP21 in Paris in 2015 would sort that all out … I mean, it’s the end of the world, right? How little we knew of what was to come. The occupants were IPO’d after only 6 weeks and evicted at 3am by a duo of seriously dodgy ‘bailiffs’.

There was a slight plumbing issue, also known as Diarrhactivus – a festering Shit Daemon of the ninth level of Nurgle Hell. This lesser beast of putrescence and rotten flatulence was accidentally released by the lawyers of the City of London during one of their annual team-building child sacrifice rituals, and has been trapped at this junction to prevent him from drowning East London in toxic slurry. You can smell Him in the drains, rancid chicken fat and durian shampoo, that soapy, gagging stench of babywipes and used tampons doused in greasy shit. The fatbergs are His babies, slid into the sewer system to try to escape his bondage, but heartlessly caught and aborted, torn to pieces and flushed out to sea by the heartless sanitation teams. Diarrhactivus weeps for them, His tears like milk-vomit. As 60% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to a flushing toilet, you can consider this a fantastic opportunity to become “one of the great unwashed”, and worship in honour of Him.

Surely, they wouldn’t have just left it like that? Surely they didn’t just seal off the entire building, entombing this festering shit-fountain and simply ignoring it for 8 years? Luckily, there’s a toilet in the nearby Boxpark, if you can crack the code, or you can take your chances and make offerings to Diarrhactivus.

Where is it? Technically, not within the boundaries of the City of London, which makes it kind of an anomaly to be owned by the Corporation of the City of London. It sits majestically at the junction of Great Eastern Street and Commercial Street. Just look for the tag of a pig’s arse on the top floor. Follow the skidmarks.

What is there to do locally? There’s the Crisis centre, just down the way, which, let’s be honest, you’re going to be visiting regularly if life has lead you to occupy this building. They do wing chun on Wedsnesdays, bum fu in the hobo dojo, where you can brush up on your street-fighting skills in preparation for the inevitable crack-fuelled park rumbles. You can sit in the little seating area when it’s raining and watch people’s lives wash away. They can sort you out free spectacles and lenses that are comically outdated and will make you look like a homeless librarian.

There’s also Brick Lane, should you wish to sift through the bins on a weekend looking for leftovers that probably still amount to an hour’s minimum wage. There’s the rewilded forest on the railway bridges just to the east, where if you can climb, you can elevate yourself above the crowds and wander the woods a while, safe in the knowledge that trespass of this nature is still, for now, not a crime.

So how do we get in? Obviously, this publication advocates no sort of criminal activity, but fortunately, as mentioned above, trespass on commercial properties is not illegal. This building requires some no guts, no glory climbing: up the fence, on to the first roof, along to the fire exit and up, up, up. We reckon this is the reason this building has languished untouched for so long.

Either that or the Shit Demon that has taken it over has devoured every would-be squat crew that entered it’s gullet.

ALL HAIL DIARRHACTIVUS AND HIS MINIONS OF THE CITY!

George F.

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