Poverty of vision

The claims are so mean-spirited, so without flair, or worth the effort. If money is to be claimed on the margins of propriety - one side or the other - go for the worthwhile.

House to refurbish? Find a good cabinet maker and panel the drawing room, double the height of the skirtings, fit book shelves on every spare wall space with cupboards under and glazed fronts. Choose lovely woods and inlays. Sink your radiators into the walls and mesh and box them. Install delicious creaking, patterned wooden floors, reconsider your doors and their architraves. And then put in a decent staircase. Put back your shutters, make your windows slide smooth as silk. Fit lovely looking glasses over your mantelpieces, themselves furbished with carving and tiling, and fire fittings worth looking at. Everyone with a fireplace will spend a lot of time looking at it.

No point going on, any one with any idea of a comfortable house can fill in every tradesman's contribution. How could they? How could they despoil their reputations and silence their consciences for tat? They could have had silver, paintings, china, hangings (well, they may get those anyway), the standard appointments of a middle class house, discreetly, decently. But in choosing wet rooms, plasma screens, baby buggies and pornographic films they are revealed in all their pig ignorance.