Peak stuff
There is nothing like the displacement of one’s possessions during decorating to throw them into sharp relief. When they stay in their accustomed places, you cease to see them. They can hide quietly in plain sight for decades, but the minute you move them they are open to question.
Do I really need this empty wooden Turkish delight box from twenty years ago, pretty through it is? Probably not – and it’s probably junk rather than a rich legacy when my descendants come to clear my possessions.
Part of the problem is the proliferation of gadgets and devices invented to solve every conceivable problem life might throw at you, yet without which it’s possible to live quite happily. Lakeland, I’m looking at you. Their catalogue is tempting, and I’ve been known to succumb – take a bow, strawberry huller – and while we’re on the subject, why are they no longer selling plastic lettuce knives? I need another one since the last one was used as a paint stirrer.
But the LocknLock cereal dispenser for £14.99 – really? For a start, it’s more plastic. True, you could take it with you to shops where they dispense cereals in bulk, but these are few and far between. This means that mostly you will have the extra chore of refilling it from the packet. And once you’ve done that, unless you’re scarily organised and meticulous, you’ll have lost track of the ‘best before’ date. Yet people love them! Here’s a comment from a satisfied customer awarding it five stars: ‘They are very good quality and not easily opened.’ A bit of a design fault, I would have thought . . .
To do justice to the full range of Lakeland cookware, you would probably need to move house. How else would you accommodate both the usual suspects (electric kettle, microwave, toaster) and more recent artefacts: air fryer, rice cooker, slow cooker, soup maker, juicer, breadmaker, etc.?
To think that damesnet heroine and pioneer of ethical socialism Ada Salter, a member of Bermondsey Council’s housing committee, urged architects to design social housing without kitchens, but with communal cafeterias, so that women could be spared the burden of ceaseless food preparation!
To reverse this trend, we need to look for things that can be put to good use in a number of ways, such as the manta used by South American women. These colourful woven rectangles can be used as blankets, shawls, for carrying babies, timber, shopping, fresh produce, and to lay your saleable goods out on in the market. The manta is itself a thing of beauty – a single thing, rather than a sling, a hod, a basket, a folding table, etc.
The Greek philosopher Diogenes is my new role model. He lived in a barrel (admittedly easier to do in Athens than in South London), his only possession a bowl – and he threw that away when he saw a young boy use his cupped hands to drink from.
But I refer you to the Wiki article about Diogenes for some very good reasons why I should not follow his example too closely!