White lies

Avarice, Coveting and Envy.

By my reckoning, that’s one mortal sin and a couple of commandments right there. And I’m seriously guilty of all three.

I get my monthly dose via a magazine subscription. A subscription I have had for four years and really should cancel, as it’s turning me into an envious, covetous snarling monster. That magazine is Living Etc.

Living Etc is full of the homes of incredibly well off designers and architects and media nobs masquerading as real people. These are people who somehow manage to find the time to turn their “we got it for a steal” houses into little slices of white carpeted heaven. I hate these people.

Here’s are some things I’ve noticed about them:

1. They all have small kids dripping off them, yet they also have white sofas. The laws of physics dictates that this is an impossibility. Ask Steven Hawking. Some of them even have dogs. Are you nuts?

A white sofa would be covered in a mix of poop, spit, bogie, jam, mud, bubble gum, felt-tip pen and chocolate even if you whispered Junior Misssy’s name within a five meter radius of it.

2. They all have “ clever storage solutions” that do not involve stuffing crap under a bed or evicting the car from the garage.

3. They are all self confessed “neat freaks”. I hate neat freaks, but only because I wish I was one.

4. They have young children and high powered jobs and holiday homes and social lives. In the copy they talk about having dinner parties, or worse, “a room we keep just for parties”. I’m getting upset just typing this. My eyes are threatening to tear up.

5. They have bathrooms bigger than my house. All of these bathrooms have his and her's sinks and shower heads the size of diner plates. No-one needs to be THAT clean!


6. They’ve “left London behind” to “live the dream in the country” . Who are these people (and why are their shit blogs so popular?…but I’m veering off topic)?

7. They all claim to have done the renovation of their “get it for a steal” homes themselves whilst running successful businesses and popping out blonde, white clad, white sofa-respecting babies called Tristan and Camilla.

“Yes, you wouldn’t know it now but we lived in this room for 3 years, running my successful design empire, squeezing out Chloe, Petunia and Horatio, pureeing organic fruit and keeping my figure, whilst Sebastian single-handedly plumbed, plastered and re-wired the place in between writing his Orange Prize winning novel. Thank God for those welcome breaks at Champneys! And Prozac!”

8. They have glass roofs put in, entire Bauhaus-esque wings tacked on four stories up, and conservatories the size of flipping Crystal Palace installed. Yet in the County of the Home of the Flying Martinis the planning department won’t let us put in one extra dormer window.

9. They have lap pools. In the UK. With no snails living in them.

10. They always find amazing things in skips. “Oh this Eames chair? Yes, I found it just left out on the street.” Liar, you DID NOT!!!!!



The worst thing about my obsession with this rag is that I have stupidly tried to aspire to the ideal. I’ve done the white thing, I’ve done the reclamation yard thing and I’ve squeezed out the beautiful children (although I didn’t do that last thing because I saw it in a magazine, I did it because I got drunk and thought it would be cool).

But I’m living in a flipping dreamworld if I seriously think that me and the Flying Martinis can ever co-exist with anything other than wipe-clean, machine-washable, crap-coloured and cheap-to-replace-when-it-inevitably-gets-trashed items.

I’m off to growl at my kids for not being white sofa friendly, but I’ll leave you with a selection of the items from the contents page from this month’s issue:

Sexy shelving! A new way to rock this Summer! (WTF?)

Life is Tweet: The best bird boxes or the discerning feathered friends. (Oh for god’s sake!)

Precious Threads: Take a break from ubiquitous white cotton sheets and luxuriate in the latest beautiful bedlinen. (Ugh white cotton, that’s so last year!)

Head for the Hills: With its glass walls, sleek interior and sweeping views this is the house that Chris and Annabel built. (cue white sofas, dogs and children unrealistically co-existing)


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PS: Don't even get me started on Grazia....