Clive BigGrandad
So I’ve brushed and vacuumed the stair carpet and sofa cushions, “Swiffed” the downstairs floorboards, and “Mister Sheen Floorwiped” the kitchen, pondering as I did whether Emmy award-winning actor Martin Sheen has ever been approached by Reckitt Benckiser to promote its flagship cleaning product, and if they did, whether he’d be tempted by the natural fit of the Mister Sheen brand; or whether he’d prefer to patronise Pledge, because it’s made by SC Johnson who after all are ‘a family company’ and Martin Sheen might think this is a subtle statement about his standing by his wayward eldest child Charlie Sheen.
Is this what housewives think about?
Everything’s cleaner because a builder is coming round tomorrow to plan the removal of half of one of our internal walls, and heaven help that he might think we allow dust to settle in our house.
The half a wall (top half between kitchen and dining room) is going for several reasons. In no order of importance:
1) Because people in the kitchen will then be able converse with people in the dining room more easily, creating a middle class mise en scène where the chef waves a glass of red wine and goes ha ha ha at guests’ jokes while arranging baked beans and swiss roll onto plates.
2) The dining room, currently a bit dark, will be full of natural light.
3) The kitchen, currently a bit small, will feel a bit bigger.
4) If Sarah Beeney viewed our house, she’d recommend it as a way to add value to the property price, given that most housebuyers aspire to points one through three.
5) The more we do to this house, the more it feels ours, and although this is far more costly than a tin of Dulux Treacle Tart, I feel the need for a grand gesture.
6) Telling people “we’ve got the builders in” makes me feel satisfyingly like Margo Leadbetter.
At the weekend we stayed in an allegedly haunted house in Winster, Derbyshire, to celebrate Nick's brother’s birthday. I didn’t see or hear any jilted brides banging doors in anger, which is apparently what other folk have experienced, but we did find a very creepy painting in one of the downstairs rooms, which showed three men on horseback who looked spookily like David Furnish, David Mitchell and David Schwimmer. It’s the kind of painting that would inspire a BBC executive, taking a break with his family in the Peak District but unable to switch off from the problem of casting a new mini-series about the trials of three soldiers in the Napoleonic wars. He’s sitting there in the reading room, scratching his head when “Aha! David Schwimmer has just finished a run in the West End, David Mitchell is looking for a new direction, and… despite his lack of experience I have the curious sense that David Furnish would be perfect as Colonel Robertson Asprey. My problems are solved!” But in fact he’s just a character in Tales of the Unexpected and the shoot goes horribly wrong when all three stars perish in a faulty musket incident, after which the executive realises one of his ancestors humiliated the painter when he threw a husk of corn at him on Whitsun Tuesday in 1835 and the whole thing is a ghostly set up.
Fortunately no BBC executives were present this weekend. We shut the door on the spooky painting and played games in the main room, including MB Games’ That One Where You Have To Guess Which Celebrity You Are™, when one of the party, having guessed Clive for Clive James but being unable to recall his surname was told “It’s your Grandad’s name” and innocently exclaimed it must then be “Clive BigGrandad.” Clive James must now and forever be Clive BigGrandad.
Weird to think that one day, you might be thought of Big Grandad (or Little Grandad, or Big/Little Grandma). It’s weird I’m having a wall knocked down, that I own a house, that my closest friends have recently produced proper babies rather than revealing the bumps were just cushions up their jumpers after all. Inside my head I still feel 19 and think I always might.
I’d better get on. I’ve still got the upstairs to clean, in case the builder wants to pee.
Is this what housewives think about?
Everything’s cleaner because a builder is coming round tomorrow to plan the removal of half of one of our internal walls, and heaven help that he might think we allow dust to settle in our house.
The half a wall (top half between kitchen and dining room) is going for several reasons. In no order of importance:
1) Because people in the kitchen will then be able converse with people in the dining room more easily, creating a middle class mise en scène where the chef waves a glass of red wine and goes ha ha ha at guests’ jokes while arranging baked beans and swiss roll onto plates.
2) The dining room, currently a bit dark, will be full of natural light.
3) The kitchen, currently a bit small, will feel a bit bigger.
4) If Sarah Beeney viewed our house, she’d recommend it as a way to add value to the property price, given that most housebuyers aspire to points one through three.
5) The more we do to this house, the more it feels ours, and although this is far more costly than a tin of Dulux Treacle Tart, I feel the need for a grand gesture.
6) Telling people “we’ve got the builders in” makes me feel satisfyingly like Margo Leadbetter.
At the weekend we stayed in an allegedly haunted house in Winster, Derbyshire, to celebrate Nick's brother’s birthday. I didn’t see or hear any jilted brides banging doors in anger, which is apparently what other folk have experienced, but we did find a very creepy painting in one of the downstairs rooms, which showed three men on horseback who looked spookily like David Furnish, David Mitchell and David Schwimmer. It’s the kind of painting that would inspire a BBC executive, taking a break with his family in the Peak District but unable to switch off from the problem of casting a new mini-series about the trials of three soldiers in the Napoleonic wars. He’s sitting there in the reading room, scratching his head when “Aha! David Schwimmer has just finished a run in the West End, David Mitchell is looking for a new direction, and… despite his lack of experience I have the curious sense that David Furnish would be perfect as Colonel Robertson Asprey. My problems are solved!” But in fact he’s just a character in Tales of the Unexpected and the shoot goes horribly wrong when all three stars perish in a faulty musket incident, after which the executive realises one of his ancestors humiliated the painter when he threw a husk of corn at him on Whitsun Tuesday in 1835 and the whole thing is a ghostly set up.
Fortunately no BBC executives were present this weekend. We shut the door on the spooky painting and played games in the main room, including MB Games’ That One Where You Have To Guess Which Celebrity You Are™, when one of the party, having guessed Clive for Clive James but being unable to recall his surname was told “It’s your Grandad’s name” and innocently exclaimed it must then be “Clive BigGrandad.” Clive James must now and forever be Clive BigGrandad.
Weird to think that one day, you might be thought of Big Grandad (or Little Grandad, or Big/Little Grandma). It’s weird I’m having a wall knocked down, that I own a house, that my closest friends have recently produced proper babies rather than revealing the bumps were just cushions up their jumpers after all. Inside my head I still feel 19 and think I always might.
I’d better get on. I’ve still got the upstairs to clean, in case the builder wants to pee.