Fatal floor in DIY viewing

YOUR Royal Highness," I said to the Queen Mother recently, as I helped her to dip her head in a bucket of vinegar (that's how her teeth retain that distinctive yellow sheen), "why is your son-in-law so consistently rude about the Orientals?" She thought for a moment, then replied: "I think it's because he's seen through their so- called ancient Eastern wisdom, and knows it's all just a con to dupe gullible westerners. Take Tai Chi, for example. That's not a martial art, that's just Chinese people with haemorrhoids trying to cross the road. And I'm not impressed by that thing they do with the needles either, that supposedly makes them feel so great... what's it called? ..."

"Heroin?" I suggested. "Yes, that's it," she continued. "And as for Feng Shui, I have a smattering of Cantonese and can translate the phrase for you.

Feng means 'sense' and Shui means 'more money than'." And at that, she laughed so hard that her false teeth plopped into her Pernod.

While I was retrieving and rinsing Her Majesty's Hampsteads, I told her that British television crews long ago developed an Occidental form of Feng Shui. From Changing Rooms and Better Homes to DIY SOS and The House Doctor, they're constantly knocking down walls and moving doors, replacing tiles and emulsioning floors (even though the result is seldom any better than what was there before), and BBC2's Home Front Tricks is now offering viewers yet another exciting opportunity to watch other people's paint dry. Of course, the British version of Feng Shui isn't intended to promote the free flow of chi energy, nor even to increase the owner's wealth, but simply to act as obsessive-compulsive displacement activity for jaded couples. Round about the time that the excitement of sex starts to wear off, husbands (and sometimes wives) turn to DIY and, rather than admit their own boredom to each other, they get themselves a B&Q loyalty card and a Black and Decker Workmate, and set about recreating the spirit of the Blitz in their very own homes.

"Former model Marjan Debevere has invited us to give her old floorboards a new look," said the narrator as Friday lunchtime's instalment got underway, and I remembered that the last time I'd seen this woman on a DIY show, she'd talked openly about "going to bed with cucumbers". Lest you blush, let me explain that she was referring to the cucumber slices she puts on her eyes each night to retain her youthful complexion, and that particular Home Front Trick clearly works its magic on TV crews, who apparently queue up for the chance to give her house yet another free makeover. On this occasion, Nick Ronald was there to cover her perfectly good floorboards with MDF, cut into tile shapes and painted to create a "faux stone effect" (about as authentic as "imitation leatherette"), and for what? So that in 30 years' time, some couple not-yet-born can rip the MDF off again and rediscover the floorboards beneath, just as couples in the Eighties reclaimed their panelled doors by ripping off the hardboard which was put there in the Fifties by crazed disciples of Barry Bucknall.

Both of the programme's five-minute sections limited themselves to a single task, grimly followed through from start to finish. Thus it was that Nick painted the MDF until "it looks like proper stone" (about as much as red wine gums taste like real claret), after which Lloyd Farmar made a surprisingly cheap sofa from foam rubber and fabric, which looked... well, surprisingly cheap.

AS HE measured and sewed, I thought of all the stains and soilings it will inevitably be subjected to during its lifetime, and recalled what happened to me long ago, when my student sofa was sprayed by a tom cat. I squirted air freshener on it. I removed and washed the covers. And the cushions.

Then I burned the sofa. And the carpet. And the house. And dug a 50-foot crater where the house used to be, then filled it in. And moved 200 miles away. And had my olfactory nerves removed. And I could still smell it.

Just as food shows are for people who never cook, and sports programmes are watched by people who never exercise, so DIY series like this are intended for people who have to call a professional in to rewire a plug.

Being too detailed to be interesting, but insufficiently detailed to be wholly practical, it fell between two stools (which they'll doubtless be showing us how to make next week), and I strongly suspect the show's audience consists entirely of TV critics and people sitting in rooms where the paint and paper are peeling off the walls.

Admittedly, I may well be jaundiced, partly on account of having suspected hepatitis, but also because my sole foray into DIY began and ended earlier this year, when I installed a cat flap which only flapped one way, so the cat could get out but not in. It's been much ridiculed in recent months by friends and family alike, but thinking back to that long-gone tom cat, I'm starting to realise that I had the right idea after all.

Copyright 2001
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