AT the risk of sounding like one of Monty Python's infamous Four Yorkshiremen (you know the ones: "We used to live in one room, all 26 of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling ..." "Eh, you were lucky to have a room.
We used to have to live in t' corridor..." "Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor..."), I have inhabited some pretty grim places in my time.
As a callow, inky-fingered youth just starting out in this profession, I rented, with a couple of colleagues, a flat in Aberdeen which made the septic tank of Yorkshireman No 1's childhood seem like a mansion. It was so damp, we didn't have mice in the skirting board, we had tadpoles. A flatmate with a deft touch with a magic marker was able to turn the mould on the walls into a passable mural (if you closed one eye it resembled a map of the British Empire). There was no heating; and, after a frozen pipes incident, no toilet facilities for two months. The pub next door was a godsend in more ways than one.
There were a couple of other dwellings later on that were almost as grim (at least interior ablutions were possible). I shudder to think, then, what the 20-year-old me would have thought of the prospect of taking on Leonardo DiCaprio's flat; the fiftysomething me is gobsmacked as it is.
It has emerged that the actor's two-bedroomed New York apartment is being rented out at £15,000 per month (£14,990 more than I was paying back in the day). It not only has heating and a loo, it has one or two other amenities that would reward a keek through the keyhole.
To trump the luxury of a flushing toilet, it boasts a vitamin C-infused shower. This had me confused; do you drink the shower water to ward off a cold? No, it seems that vitamin C reduces the amount of residual chlorine, which promotes healthier skin and hair. So, there you have it: shower in orange juice and ward off dandruff.
It also has "posture-supportive heat reflexology flooring". This, as far as I can make out, involves a scattering of heated pebbles which "activate and support the muscular system". Not so very far, then, from our Aberdeen flat before its annual Hoovering.
Other attractions of the Greenwich Village pad include pumped-in aromatherapy, a built-in juicing station, endlessly-circulating purified air, and window box herbariums. However, there is no mention anywhere of there being a pub next door. Sorry, Leo, not interested.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article