Pointless parasites

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide Galaxy, Douglas Adams describes a planet to which all the useless people are exiled. I remember that he includes telephone hygienists, hairdressers and marketing executives – I’m not sure if he also included estate agents. But if he didn’t; he should have.

In many countries the role of estate agent is a profession and has some sort of para-legal function, - a form of public notary. But not in this country.

Here you don’t need to study or sit any exams. All you need to be a estate agent is a bucket of hair gel, a flash company car, a loud tie and an ability to jabber bollocks on your mobile phone. And of course to lie pathologically - much to the frustration and enragement of both vendor and buyer alike.

Apparently an indicator of our current economic crisis is that many estate agents’ offices are down to one house sale per week.

I doubt very much that they have dropped their commission or improved their service in response. So if this recession has any silver lining, it might just be that many of this particularly parasitic and obnoxious post-Thatcherite species could be challenged with extinction.