Absolution

Loyal Angelic supporters, of which there are a few, will know that coping with the building is an ever- pressing but constantly suppressed aspect of life here.  Now, in the WSJ no less, comes the word that it's such a  stylish way to live  people actually pay for the look.

Pictures propped against the walls as if the man hasn't yet come to hang them? Tick.

Distressed but once fine cloth upholstering the furniture?  Oh, see what Germans, cold, heat, and a Burman can do. Tick.

Walls scraped back to show how badly damaged are the once lovely, decorative affreschi?  It's 100 euros a square metre to get in the restorers so mostly it's me; anyway, I've grown to like the dappled look - and guests often pick at the edges of the over-painting to see what flower or bird is on the next bough, so it's a divertimento too. Tick.

Reading lights on the floor? Tick.

Cabinets and bookshelves dusty?  Tickety-boo.

Added to these signs of hidden wealth, the unwary here can enjoy the collapse of their chair  with the revelatory tunnelled-out-by-woodworm inner leg-workings and the pleasures of exculpation for confessing such a small sin - arrival of surprised person in big kitchen holding old  chair and pulverised leg(s):
 "Goodness, I'm sorry. What can I do?"
"Have a drink.  Are you alright?  Did you hurt yourself?  Perhaps you would take it down to the limonaia with you next time you're on the way to the garden - you'll find the others, waiting to go to the chair hospital."

The rich are missing a trick there - collapsing furniture.  But it's such a relief to know that every moment spent reading trashy novels,  looking out of the windows instead of washing them, or going out playing, has been contributing to status, not avoiding the housework.