Animal House

Let me tell you a personal and rather miserable story. For around 40 years I have rented a room in a substantial house, with a goliath reputation for parties, steeped in legend, in North London. It has multiple tenants, with even a team of staff to look after it. I feel wedded to the place, like it’s my own, like it belongs to me, but it doesn’t, it’s owned by someone else. In fact, over the decades it’s been owned by various different landlords, with a variety of tenants and staff coming and going, but I have managed to remain a constant occupant over these last four decades, something of a loyal associate. I’m a part of the character of this place. 40 years of occupation, 40 years of participation, 40 years of caring for these walls, has allowed me to witness incredible change and so it’s become a part of my life. It is me now. I am a part of its story too.

But I’m not the first to belong here. Actually the house was built way back in 1882. What’s made this place so special is it has always been a house known for its legendary parties. The first (and some say the most important) happened in 1901. It was a house party so mythical that the tenants set about trying to mark the event each decade with similarly colossal house parties every time the year ended in a one. And so as 1921 arrived, the current tenant, Peter McWilliam, who had allowed the place to fall into something of a dilapidated state, decided to reinvigorate the residents with yet another blow out.

This seemed to lift the house back onto the radar, finally setting about a full renovation when one of the tenants, Arthur Rowe, gave it a whole new style in the post war years. That led to yet more parties, none bigger than the hulking monster of all shindigs in 1951. Sadly, this party lifestyle took its toll on poor old Arthur, as he found the pressure so stressful he eventually departed in 1954. It’s not easy living in a home this taxing and Arthur wouldn’t be the last to fall by the wayside. But Arthur left us a gift, by employing a key member of staff just before he departed, who went by the name of Danny Blanchflower.

And this is where the house’s story really developed. As London’s swinging 60s swung into action, our house was perfectly positioned to take up the debauchery. The 1960s were undoubtedly its heyday, as the party monster, Bill Nicholson, moved in and set about raising hell with celebration after celebration, even throwing two parties in 1961, before following it up with more in 62 and 63. What a run that was. The staff improved further too, with Dave Mackay, John White and a certain Jimmy Greaves arriving; a team of men whose names would forever be etched into the walls of the place.

In total, Nicholson put on eight major social splurges in his 16 years at the house. The 1970s maintained for a while, before a decline in fortunes saw the building hit rock bottom mid-decade. Its key tenant, Keith Burkinshaw, was in charge during this awful low point, but in fairness he was also responsible for returning its reputation, by giving the place a complete remodelling.

As the decade turned into the 80s, I looked around and thought that I too might join in and become one of its many tenants. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the parties kicked back off again. I was now witnessing first hand these legendary events and as a couple of wandering Argentinians came looking for work. The festivities took on a South American craziness. 1981 and 1982 were insane – you shoulda seen what our party animal from Buenos Aires, Ricky Villa, was like first hand – that guy would leave entire rooms spinning in circles.

Further celebrations were enjoyed in 1984 and even though more were planned in 1987 they didn’t quite happen. Something changed in the 80s for me though, as I became aware of the landlord for the first time. A man I always had to call Mr Scholar bought the place in 1982 and set about refurbishing it, increasing the size of the gaff, but covering it in a distasteful pebble dash. He saw an opportunity to turn the house’s reputation into money and the place hasn’t quite been the same ever since. This was the new normal though and by the time Mr Scholar sold up in the late 80s, to a shady East End ‘barrow boy’, Mr Alan Sugar, who’d made his name running around market stalls before tapping into a small fortune dallying in these new fangled home computer things, we seemed to still be able to throw it down.

The 90s promised much. Sugar installed Sky Television and gave the place a lick of paint. My personal favourite employee at the time was the mercurial Paul Gascoigne. The guy totally understood what it meant to be a part of this place’s ethos, absolutely nobody partied harder, nobody. This was none more evident than with the 1991 bash, when ‘Gazza’ went in so hard he snapped his cruciate ligaments and was carried out on a stretcher. Love you Gazza, that party wouldn’t have even happened without you.

The remainder of the Sugar era became somewhat forgetful though. Unrest grew among the tenants, the staff became slack and stopped caring. There wasn’t another party until the end of the decade, in 1999, but it wasn’t anything like the parties we used to witness. It was a brief lift in an otherwise dark period. A wasted decade. A drop in form. Our reputation was dropping with it.

As the millennium turned, Sugar looked to capitalise on his investment by selling up. He was a bastard landlord, we wouldn’t miss him. He treated the place like a business, failed to fully invest into the old place and drained it of any joy. New owners meant a new chance to rediscover the lustre, to blow off the dust, to release the phosphorus once again. And so in 2001 a new landlord arrived, Daniel Levy. He represented an investment company with billionaire owners who had added our home to their portfolio of investments. It felt cold and transactional, but perhaps their funds would inject the soul back into the place.

Immediate plans were set out to party in 2002, but it never quite materialised. Was this a false dawn perhaps? Well, yes and no. No other events kicked off until 2008, when the house filled with revellers once more and although it was a welcome return to frivolities, it wasn’t the chandelier-swinging, drug-fuelled rush we’d enjoyed back in the 60s. It was a start, but it wasn’t a torrent.

We planned another party in 2014, but it never came to fruition. Something was missing. We needed to rediscover our magic. We needed a magician! It was just at this moment another legendary tenant arrived; Mauricio Pochettino was here – would another Argentinian be the man to rescue our reputation? He set everything in place, the staff improved immeasurably, and we went for it. He had it all; the swagger, the style, the ethos. He set about dusting off our soul, unifying all elements of the place, from the landlord, to the staff, to the many tenants. This was our return, our 60s moment. We’d been in a fug and here he was planning the biggest party ever.

Then something unexpected happened.

It was 2016. We were lined up to blow the bloody doors off the place, with the mother of all celebrations, but out of absolutely nowhere a rival house that nobody cared for threw the biggest party of the year. Everybody loved it, except us. We were left staring into our champagne bubbles. It went down in folklore, the stars had aligned for them to throw a giant one-off celebration. They’d never even thrown one single bash before, haven’t since and are unlikely to ever again. We never saw it coming, they never saw it either, but it happened. They stole our thunder before quickly disappearing once more. We kept the faith though and figured that we could just save the unused booze and balloons and go for it once again the very next year. Everything was still in place and all we needed was to push our plans back one more year.

Then it happened again.

A house that hadn’t been on the map for years got themselves a new Russian landlord. They’d had multiple parties over the last decade since he took over, but they’d dipped in the last year or so. Their 2016 event was nothing much at all and nobody thought they were planning an event in 2017. Then just as we were swinging into top gear, peaking under Pochettino’s magical formula, they swooped in and ruined our plans. They threw so much money at the project that we couldn’t compete. It’s as if our landlords didn’t expect Pochettino to be quite as good as he was. They took their eye off the ball and rather than invest in Pochettino’s ideas, just as he was ready to pop the corks, they knocked the building down and pumped all their money and resources into a brand new building.

Pochettino never recovered. He plodded on until 2019, where he half-heartedly designed a party so big it would’ve competed with Glastonbury, but we all knew it was a false dawn. That party fell apart too, the implosion sending out ripples still felt to this day. He left the country in search of fame elsewhere and even though we moved into a new home, bigger and shinier than anything else in the land, just as we constructed a new party palace, our hearts collapsed. That was 2019 and we too are yet to recover.

The landlords have a lot to answer for. They’ve done enough to lift our expectations sky high but delivering upon those expectations is proving impossible. The palace is all set up for the mother of all parties now, they’ve put impressive staff on the roster and tried inserting impressive tenants, but they’ve been up against a changing landscape, an extreme shifting in costs and they’ve now dropped the ball so many times we are starting to wonder if they’ve taken it as far as they can. This place was never meant to bolster a portfolio. Although it’s become a mammoth money-spinner – they now charge the highest rents in the country – it’s like they’ve lost sight of what it exists for. It’s a place wedded to its legendary history, a venue wrapped up in emotions, a vessel of passions, passed down through the generations – I’ve brought up my two sons in this place.

It’s 2023 and there are rumours of new investments bubbling away. Maybe even new mystical landlords from the Middle East. Who really knows. It’ll take years before that comes to fruition and we want to party now. It’s been too long. We are party-starved! They may well have delivered us the palace, even suggested putting in a ‘cheese room’, but after four more years they’re still working on the furniture. The gardens are as manicured as an Essex salon owner; it even has a retractable lawn for events thrown when I’m away every other weekend. A run of terrible tenants hasn’t helped and I’m sure the owners would prefer it to have gone better, but there’s no denying the place is losing its coruscation.

We are lost. We are drifting and there’s no obvious path out of this mess. Do we stick with the current tenant, a strict and moody Italian called Antonio Conte, who followed the disastrous Portuguese legend, Jose Mourinho, who was just as charismatic but whose ego barely fit out of the door we booted him through. The less said about his successor, Nuno, the better. He only lasted a matter of months before we entered our current incarnation. We simply can’t keep flipping these guys over every few months, with no plans, no vision and no party. If you can’t see what the future holds, you can’t design a methodology for success and Conte’s contract comes up in just five months. He hates the furniture, doesn’t seem to get along with the landlords and will surely be gone by May.

So this is where we are at. It all feels a bit dead right now. A bit lifeless. These walls haven’t heard the chandeliers swing in decades. The place is a mess, everyone’s depressed, and the landlord hasn’t been seen in months, remaining distant and silent; and as if to rub our faces in the faeces even further, those nasty fucking neighbours in the house up the road are planning a thumping great big party come this May.

But I’m not leaving. I’ve been here nearly my entire life, I’m not going any-fucking-where. This is my home, not Daniel Levy’s, not Antonio Conte’s, it’s mine and every other tenant that’s given it life. We are the soul of this place. We’re the real investors, it’s our money that floods into it. We devote our lives to the place, we hand our children over to it. And consider this; I’m only halfway through my life, so even though I’m desperate, even though things are a mess, even though it seems listless and lifeless, I remain. Whilst our hearts still beat, we’ll remain the beating heart of this place. This is the thing with low points, with depressions – you’re only depressed FOR NOW.

Landlords will come and go. I’ll be here long after Levy. It may feel dark right now, the lights are off, the prospects are dimmed, the furniture uncomfortable, the pain real and deep, but the light will flood in once again in due time and the pain will subside. The form is temporary, we are the permanence. And we will be there when the party kicks off once again. It will be long overdue and I can assure you that we will take the roof off when it happens. It’s hard to ask for patience from anyone starved of what they crave, but give it another year, maybe less, maybe more, and we will be back in the swing of things. Things are only bad for now and they will be good again soon. Nobody parties like us, and even though we feel caged, this is the original animal house, “TOGA TOGA TOGA”!

Home is indeed where the heart is. They can try and fuck it up, they can break it, they can lose sight of what it means, they can knock it down and rebuild it, but there’s a constant always running through it: that sense of home. They might buy it, they might sell it. They can own it, others can come in and manage it, but it never truly belongs to them, it belongs to us and even though they’ve bruised us, whilst our hearts still beat this place will always be ours. Home.