Miscellaneous

The analytic philosopher Harry Frankfurt identified a phenomenon and called it by name: bullshit. It is a lack of concern for truth and falsity. It is an indifference to sincerity and insincerity. Its motivation is not to say things that are true, or even things that are false, but to serve some other purpose. The sole purpose of this slowly growing collection of miscellaneous writing is to entertain.

On Home Interiors

originally published in Sky Island Journal issue 13

I am not a homeowner. On the issue of home interiors, I do not have the means to put theory into practice. I regard it responsible, however, to have contingencies in place should I be called to make arrangements regarding fixtures and fittings. Considerations herein are, therefore, preparatory and recorded only to provide a guiding document.

• Tastes may be considered relative. In most cases, it is baseless to posit one taste as intrinsically superior to another. But a liking for clear glass tables demonstrates obvious psychological shortcomings. Glass has no business in a horizontal position. The only other instance is the car sunroof, but car sunroofs are now insignificant in number and tolerated only out of nostalgia. Since clear glass tables have no such nostalgic quality, and since they are hideous, they should not be a prominent feature in the home. More precisely, they should be excluded altogether.

  What is more, regardless of its real strength, glass gives the impression of fragility, causing one to act tentatively in one’s own home. Full confidence can be placed only in a solid wooden table. Only with a wooden table, therefore, can a person loosen and feel at ease.

  Ownership of a clear glass table cannot be defended with the claim that despite its repulsive appearance and associations of fragility, it is in fact a flat, sturdy surface which serves as good as any other in practical terms. The defence falls short because functionality is necessary but not sufficient. It is the central and most fundamental tenet of design that products must have both form and function.

• Net curtains consist of a loose weave that provides daytime privacy whilst retaining maximum outward visibility; they are, therefore, of merit in their own right. But net curtains are now rare and so can also be installed in the name of conservation. In so doing, in reviving and sustaining a dying entity, the homeowner exercises a power over life and death itself, and thereby secures a reassuring sense of self-importance.

  Therefore, if a homeowner feels unsettled or discovers a certain emptiness to their life - that the things they do, in the end, do not really matter or contribute to anything of wider significance-, net curtains should be installed. If the homeowner has no such feelings, net curtains are advisable as a preventative measure.

• Paintings in contemporary art museums divide visitors broadly into two categories: those who openly admit the work on display is incomprehensible; and those who pretend it somehow makes sense. Paintings in the home, by contrast, do not divide people along the same lines because they remain a background feature not called forward for particular inspection, and so their meaning never comes into question.

  A painting of unpretentious composition will mitigate the brutality of a bare wall, particularly if the wall is painted a neutral colour. But, in the first instance, it would be an error to have walls painted a neutral colour; an appropriate wallpaper should be selected for more comforting results. Bathroom walls may be tiled if affordable at the time.

• To live without windowsills is deeply traumatic. Windowsills are, therefore, essential.

• The ‘wood flooring versus fitted carpet’ debate continues in all quarters, but there is a third solution: an amenable rug on a wooden floor.

  Partisans of fitted carpet contend that it is soft underfoot, providing comfort and warmth. They acknowledge a debt to underlay which underprops these qualities and ultimately determines the longevity of the carpet. The wood flooring camp only have one retort, though it is unanswerable. They highlight, correctly, that fitted carpets fall short on hygiene.

  Rugs boast similar benefits to those of carpet but can be washed more thoroughly and with less difficulty. Outside of northern Europe, if the climate is appropriate, tiles can substitute wood.

• Visitors to the United Kingdom often complain of a plumbing set-up whereby hot and cold taps are separate and distinct. Although, this occurs much less in modern homes. They find the choice between scolding and freezing unreasonable when these extremes could be combined in one tap to produce water of a more agreeable temperature. These visitors make a good case but, ultimately, must be ignored.

  Two taps above one sink serve as a healthy reminder that any living arrangement is a matter of give and take, and it is through give and take that balance and harmony in the home is truly achieved. Thus, Feng Shui need not be practiced.

Staffroom Anthropologists

When a post-colonial turn exposed the link between power and ethnocentric representation, certain Western academics on the rebound increasingly thought it best to leave the exotic elsewhere alone. They steered their gaze closer to home and studied people who looked like them. It followed that aspiring anthropologists who had not had the means to intrude on native Amazonians discovered they were always already in the field - in the supermarket, in the hairdressers, at work - only they had not taken care to make observations.

Thereafter, there developed amongst some an almost palpable penchant for prosaic practices. The Far East was still far away but now far from their concern. They devised a new methodology, which was only a variant of the old one, and began to integrate themselves as admin assistants in various HR departments across the North of England. Their aim was to access and interpret a plentiful cultural text that lived and breathed: the staffroom phenomenon of Dawn and Naheed.

A preliminary survey of the staffroom’s spatial composition proved worthwhile when they noticed the sink was plumbed in and guaranteed to go nowhere. A tower of Avon brochures was under construction and scheduled to hit the ceiling soon. It was going nowhere either. But the tower was not firmly fixed in place. Unlike the sink, the tower did not have deep tubular roots and it was not stubbornly entrenched in a kitchen style work surface.

If Dawn and Naheed perceived objects to have a stable location, they owed it all to that reliable, invariable reference point still going nowhere: the sink. (Semi-clean mugs were cached on the shelf above. Toaster, microwave and kettle lined up adjacent. Abrasive blue carpet tiles extended outwards from beneath towards a quite orthodox seating area three metres in front.)

The astute anthropologists began to detect habits and patterns of behaviour. Every break time alike, Dawn and Naheed would occupy the seating area as if it was made specifically for sitting down. The seating area was an unflinching coffee table encircled by low-lying steel frame chairs, block padded and upholstered beetroot. In the Middle Ages, it became possible to build chimneys inside the house and familial congregations formed around the hearth. In a similar fashion, when seating areas were installed into staffrooms, common employees gathered around a biscuit tin. In the case of Dawn and Naheed, the biscuit tin was generous.

In every society, the body has been a site of attention, subject to obligations, constraints and prohibitions. Hence, the anthropologists were quick to record that Dawn and Naheed claimed to follow a Slimming World regime. Yet, the biscuit tin testified to the contrary. The women had only a loose concern for losing weight.

Between custard cream and chocolate digestive, Dawn turned to Naheed,

“We off to Fat Club this Saturday?”

“Well, I ought to. I’ve been terrible this week, me.” Naheed replied.

“I know. Our Paul brought cheesecake home from work. And we had chips.”

But underneath it all, the surplus calories seemed to come with a certain surplus enjoyment. Slimming World served to impose limits that were safe to breach, there was a thrill of transgression, and scones were more delicious when they were not permitted. Diogenes of Sinope said that hunger was the best sauce, but Slimming World offered a better one: the pretence of prohibition.

Naheed showed Dawn a picture of her garden. Dawn asked Naheed if she wanted a Cup-a-Soup. Naheed declined. Finally, the anthropologists attempted to engage the ladies and probe deeper cultural themes,

“What do you think about death?”

Dawn was not so keen on the idea. Naheed, likewise, didn’t fancy dying just yet