Domestic

Sharing a house is hard - everybody does things a different way, and has their own beliefs and foibles. College fridges bear mute testimony to that.

Given this rule, Wife and I have differed over the years about the right way to do stuff. So I store jam in the fridge (after an unpleasant experience with sugar free jam many years ago), while she insists I don't have to. I tip quite a lot of stuff down the kitchen sink that she believes I shouldn't.

And so when I heard a bit of ' How to Get Things Really Flat' by Andrew Martin on the radio a few months back, and it seemed a witty take on, and guide to, men and housework, it was very interesting. The title comes from the section on ironing - and the tone suggests that a sensible, male, no-nonsense approach is what is being offered. I thought I'd get it - and it is out in paperback, so why not?

Unfortunately, I've now read it, and there is a problem.

Wherever Wife & I have disagreed on how to carry out a domestic chore over the years, and have agreed to disagree, (or more typically to continue arguing about it), and wherever I was hoping for some moral and well-researched support from Andrew Martin, the book is 90% certain to get the answer wrong. To side - dare I say it - with her.

This is most unhelpful. Apparently you don't need to store most jam in the fridge, and you shouldn't chuck fat down the kitchen sink, and you should empty bins when you see they need emptying. Or so he claims. And it isn't enough that his wife is clearly mad:

Tasteful people, it seems to me, wear black clothes and live in white houses. The walls in our house are all white, as are the blinds (we don't have curtains: 'they block the light', even when open, apparently); most of our upholstery has white covers, and our lampshades, duvet covers and pillowcases are all white. (p.199)

He is clearly giving advice I don't want to hear (and certainly don't want anyone else in my family to find out about).

Thankfully, however, I then came across this:

...I especially enjoyed those episodes of Thunderbirds in which the more obscure rescue craft crawled from the belly of Thunderbird Two: the rarely-seen Mole, for example... (p.77)

Rarely seen? Rarely seen!!? The Mole not only appears on the end-credits for every episode, it is the pod vehicle that is used in rescues most often (apart from Thunderbird 4, of course). Check if you don't believe me. And it is the pod vehicle that appears in the appallling and yet strangely appealing live action film from 2004. Amongst my coterie, growing up in North London in the 1960s, the problem with Thunderbird 6 was that we all already knew that the Mole was secretly T6, so what was the point?

It is clear that Andrew Martin cannot be trusted. If a man can't get his knowledge of Thunderbirds right, the kind of straightforward material that should be readily at everyone's fingertips, then how can he be trusted regarding more abstruse data, such as that associated with, say, cleaning or hoovering? The man clearly doesn't do research properly.

Thank goodness. I thought I might have to change my ways. But no, I can safely ignore him.