Urban predicaments. The first in an occasional series.

I met a friend by chance in a local bookshop this evening, who amongst other things told me about his current 'situation' - he's sharing a sublet flat with a woman, whilst the actual tenant is overseas. So far, so good. Sub-letting is a fact of life all over London, after all.

Earlier this week, they started to smell gas in their flat, so out went a call, and in response, in came British Gas, who said they would need to do a lot of work to repair the problem, so much so in fact that they had to turn the supply off and provide emergency heating.

That's enough of a predicament on it's own; being unable to properly wash, cook, or heat, would send me spinning.

But there's a further twist: the flat he's sharing is in a Women's Co-op, and men, apparently, are n't seen as fixtures and fittings. They do things, repairs, deliveries, then go.

People living in London, probably never see their neighbours from month to month, or in some cases, ever; and as he's sub-letting anyway, the chances of him finding he was living in a Women's co-op, were never going to be high to begin with. It only came out when the residents held some sort of open meeting to discuss the lack of gas supply.

He now not only has to pretend that he and his flatmate are only looking after the flat until the actual resident returns, but that he and his female room mate are a couple which would be straightforward enough, except he's gay. After twenty or so years out of the closet, he's now temporarily back in.