We must apologise for the recent lapse in blog entries but Blighty has been busy on your behalf. He has been undercover investigating that relatively unknown institution, The National School for Estate Agents. After failing to pass the entrance exam on three occasion, Blighty got 14 month old Blighty Jnr to take it. She passed, although worries were expressed on her ‘innate feel for photographic composition’ and ‘ability to communicate her feelings tolerably well’. The head of the school said that they would soon train this out of her, however.

An A-graded photograph at the school

The first class was on the Art of Flash Photography. We were shown how to point the camera at the window with the flash switched on thereby creating a startling bright light in the centre of the image and throwing the room into complete darkness. Extra marks were given to students who included their shadowy figure in the reflection giving the impression of a psychopath lurking in the garden, or tilted the camera slightly so as to give the house the appearance of subsidence. Top marks, however, were reserved for those who managed to crop out any interesting features in the house. This was a tricky business as enough of the feature had to be showing for it to irritate the viewer. Blighty was marked down for almost getting it in focus.

The next class was The Art of Pros and how to Express Yourself in a Manor Sutable four yous in Estate Agent Literarchewer . We were taught how to use words and phrases not in common usage. Therefore a window becomes ‘a framed outlook with external features’, a downstairs bathroom becomes a ‘ground floor cleansing station’ and a large house becomes ‘deceptive’. Deceptive houses are a common occurrence, apparently, so you should check the shifty blighters out thoroughly before purchasing. You don’t want to buy what you think is a house only to find on moving in that it is actually an optical illusion.

The next class involved the students role-playing. They had to enter the class-room as if it was a property and irritate a possible vendor by repeating everything they said numerous times in slightly different ways and then pluck a figure from the air and, depending on the response, alter it by twenty or thirty percent. Students then proceeded to say that they were confident of selling the property as people wanted houses in this area, especially ones featuring walls and windows. ‘The front door will be of particular interest to a prospective buyer,’ they added, ‘as they will enter via it.’

Shortly after this class Blighty had to return home to show a buyer around Blighty Towers. Unfortunately they were after an optical illusion, rather that a 3/4 bedroom stone property, so they won’t be taking it any further. They said that the estate agent details were very deceptive.