The Magic Kingdom...

The IKEA experience is for everyone who has ever longed to enter those roped-off home interior constructions so beloved of swanky department stores. Unlike these places, IKEA does not crush and humble you with grandeur and opulence. On the contrary, it is gratifying to leave behind scruffy, everyday life-on-the ground and enter a dreamland of streamlined fittings and tactile, muted fabrics. It is even more gratifying to know that you can reproduce this anodised world by buying the items. On the surface, IKEA is just like any department store. There is a familiarity about the sight of goods sold cheap and piled high, the gleaming cups and glasses, the towels, sheets and cushions. But soon, the subtle differences tweak at your consciousness. There are no departmental cash registers ringing merrily in tune with nonexistent piped muzak. Troops of obliging sales’ assistants and household brand names are just as conspicuous by their absence. The actual goods have an eerie look, as if everything has been made by elves and deposited untouched by humans in the vast caverns of the store. Like Alice’s descent into Wonderland, there is no escaping the walk-through that follows the showrooms. The constant stashes of acid-yellow nylon bags never let you forget the purpose of the footslog. When you surface at the end of the trail, the sight of the warehouse, the fast-food outlet and the play area nudges you back to reality. Now, the child in you has had its day and the actual children take over. With your money spent, it’s game up and party over.

Field of the Cloth of Gold

On last week’s Culture Show, Tom Dyckhoff decided to fly the flag for that ancient construction, the tent, actually the oldest structure of mankind. Originally, “we” draped animal skins over (mammoth?) bones. These structures later developed into the elegant yurt and the majestic tepee. With Glastonbury approaching, Dyckhoff punched the air for eco-friendliness and portability in matters of accommodation. The plus points of the tent are myriad. In less developed societies, tents are made of the detritus of everyday life; wooden poles, animal skins and pieces of felt. Tents can be erected and dismantled with the minimum of disruption to the environment. Tent dwellers own the minimum of possessions and are less likely to be the carbon guzzlers of this earth...the pluses just go on and on. During the course of the broadcast, Dyckhoff became so excited, that he seemed to be positing the tent as the answer to all of our housing ills. For a brief moment in time, I almost agreed with him. Then, I remembered those intractable human habits of having to wash and use the loo, of needing gas and electricity for eating, heating and lighting and of simply and stubbornly wanting to settle down and in one place – and how dare we. But even if we could get over all of this, it is my guess that it would not make a darned bit of difference to the shortage of affordable housing. If tent chic caught on, this form of accommodation would become every bit as exclusive and expensive as the house, the flat and the garden shed. Just imagine what the billboards might say: - exclusive new tent development - Field of the Cloth of Gold – view our show tent today – from £1,000,000 for a two-compartment tent...what do you think?

Josef Siebel - shoes that I can walk in...

Over the years, I have griped much about the pitifully limited range of shoes available to women as opposed to the vast range for men. By “shoes” here I mean items that you can actually walk in, items that don’t pinch, chafe or irritate when you put them on your feet, items that don’t threaten to trip one up, catch in gratings or fall to pieces as you walk along. Hearken to this older post of mine: There are plenty of shoes out there that look good…if you lead the Jolie/Kidman lifestyle, tripping from chauffeur-driven car to movie set, and then home again. Mock-croc patent and suede ankle fringes over impossibly spindly heels are useless on rough, urban terrain, bedevilled by the elements…plenty that are no doubt comfortable…but what if you don’t want to negotiate the world in fleece-lined, slipper-like booties that flap around your ankles like a pair of toothless gums? After a while searching (in a shoe store) I thankfully grasp a streamlined, leather walking shoe, only to be told: those, Madam, are for men…

All that may have changed. I may have found the answer in Caspian,(left) by Josef Siebel, a pair of comfortable, leather lace-ups with soles that actually touch the ground as you walk along – revolutionary, eh! There are no finicky embellishments attached to the uppers, just a clean and lovely styling that teams beautifully with contemporary feminine clothing. By the way, the Josef Siebel company has been making shoes since 1886, ensuring its status as Europe’s largest footwear manufacturer. Now, a fourth-generation family business, its shoes, sandals, boots and clogs for men and women offer the “highest level of comfort” – but don’t ask me…

Shake for the Sheik: why I love belly dancing...

Baked potatoes, pastries, hot pies, pizza, mountains of buttery pasta, endless cups of tea and stacks of digestive biscuits, fish and chips….comfort food for a cold, wet day but, oh, the price to pay, in the shape of a thickened waist and a pair of flabby hips, symptoms of our prolonged and miserable winter. My interest in belly dancing did not originate within an amateur class taking place inside of a gym disguised as an Arab souk, no; it stemmed naturally from looking disconsolately at my winter waistline in the mirror, of a morning, of wishing the surplus covering away and swaying in response to the need to do something about it. The instinct to move rhythmically is almost certainly a primal one, born of an atavistic link to a serpentine ancestor, perhaps? Whatever, the number of warm-weather cultures that espouse this torso-driven dance cannot be incidental; Turkey, Egypt, Morocco all have their versions of belly dancing. I’m still struggling with the hip movements, have yet to don silken veils, hang rattling gold charms from my midriff or master the use of finger cymbals – who cares? It’s great fun and I’m already down to last summer’s waist size…ready now, shake for the Sheik….

Welcome in the household fairy....

Every spring, the days grow longer, hotter, brighter, sunbeams stronger. Shine into your every room; grab the mop, seize the broom. Make your lodging clean and airy; welcome in the household fairy. Make your spaces fresh and sweet; shiny, sparkly, tidy, neat. Smudges, scuff marks, grease and grime have had their day, done their time. Don your finest gloves of rubber; start to rub and scrub and shudder. At the muck, the dirt, the fallout; fill the basin, wash it all out. Over the surface you must go; up and down and to and fro. First you spray, then you scrub; wash and polish, rinse and rub. Up the walls and down the stairs, over the cupboard, under the chairs. Clean the windows, dust the ledges, don’t neglect the mouldy edges. When it’s finished, you can feel smug; gleaming brasses, straightened rug. Open the door to your neighbours; see their jaws drop at your labours.

Lamborghini: the Italian Dream Machine...

Lawksamussy and shiver my timbers! As a soon-to-be retiree (only 4,375 days to go until I leave the world of work), I was having visions of a life of idyll-ness; my feet up all day, contemplating crosswords and puzzles, drowning in biscuits and cocoa, blooming flowers peeping in the open window, the cat dozing on the sill...perish that thought. Soon, our highways and byways are going to rock to the sound of that Italian futurist dream machine, the Lamborghini, driven by an army of doting grandmothers and delighted grandads....dearie me! Whatever happened to the humble bus pass?

The Lamborghini made its first appearance in 1963, the child of Ferruccio Lamborghini, in response to the Italian demand for fast and beautiful machines, Ferrari, Bugati, et al, no doubt a result of Tomasso Marinetti's 1918 futurist manifesto, declaring the racing car to be more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace, something like that. Now, the UK grey brigade is getting in on the act - don't ever say that this government doesn't fund performance art. Since I have not yet raised the quarter mil needed to buy my own machine, I leave you with a picture of the Lamborghini Aventador, courtesy of Google. All together now, vrrrooooooooooomm... See the kind of people who really drive the Lamborghini...

The truth about red nails...

There really is nothing new under the sun. Every time we hit upon a grand and novel idea and proceed to carry it out, we are carrying on a grand and ancient tradition. All that changes is the technology. Digital Imaging? There are prehistoric paintings of the walls of caves in Altmira. Long-distance phone calls? Our forbears lit fires that signalled to their neighbours, until the countryside was ablaze with twinkling conflagrations. This technology only worked at night, and it cannot be a coincidence that evening calls are still cheaper. Everyone knows that the Romans beat us to it with the bath, but I’ll bet that even they were channelling – ha!- more ancient technology. No, there really is nothing new out there, least of all cosmetics. We’ve long known that the Egyptians made perfume, and eye shadow, and mascara. They waxed and henna-ed their hair, and rubbed lanolin into their skins. When it comes to nail polish, we’ve got to hand it to the Chinese, who were using gold and silver pigments c. 3000 BC. Red and black replaced these colours, the polishes being made of beeswax, gelatine, vegetable dyes, gum Arabic, and egg whites – gosh! Of course, the Egyptians were not to be left out. The ordinary folk wore pale colours while royalty wore red, a pointer to the most popular colour of today. Well, the colour has taken a tumble in favour of the more sophisticated offerings from trendy nail bars, but I wiggle my fingers for Chinese cosmeticians and Egyptian royalty. To celebrate tradition, witness my “handie”….