This weekend G and I decided to dip our toes into that national craze: DIY.
DIY is a British obsession. Every weekend seems to see Britons packing into their local B&Q to purchase the latest DIY accessories. And Mondays are therefore spent listening to colleagues trying to impress one another as they brag about the new terrace decks and the like that they erected over the weekend. The DIY craze is so rampant in this country, it extends beyond household renovations to include dentistry: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7881865.stm. G and I decided, however, to confine our initial DIY experiments to the house.
I will admit that, like many others in this country, I had been lulled into a false sense that DIY was easy and even rewarding. I blame the profusion of home improvement shows with their white teethed presenters. Watching Hot Property and other shows of its ilk made me think that I too could so easily single-handedly transform my home into a paradise (improving the value ten-fold of course). And, what's more, that I would find it enjoyable. Like those presenters, I could slip on a pair of very short denim shorts, white singlet and would begin sanding and drilling all while looking gorgeous and showing off my chemically whitened teeth. The fact I don't have chemically whitened teeth was the least of my problems in achieving this DIY dream, as I soon discovered.
Saturday was spent with G and I happily spending our hard-earned wages in our local DIY store and stocking up on all sorts of nuts, bolts, drill bits and hooks. Already we were brimming with pride at how we'd managed to transform ourselves from dull suited lawyers into DIY gods. We should have stopped there, really. Instead, we spent all of Sunday drilling, swearing, shouting, cutting ourselves and swearing some more. I suspect the DIY trend goes hand in hand with that other great trend in England - the rise of hooliganism. G and I both found ourselves needing a drink or ten and managing to construct entire sentences solely out of swear words. What was worse is that at the end of the day, for all our work, we had only a few crooked holes in the walls, a drill bit stuck in the wall, and three paintings still on the ground and not on the wall. And we felt like failures.
The media complains about magazines setting unrealistic and unobtainable standards of female beauty, but I think the real scourge on society is the unrealistic standards and expectations set by home improvement shows. It's time we took action! We'd be building barricades in the streets, if only we could manage to follow the F%$£*ing instruction manual...
DIY is a British obsession. Every weekend seems to see Britons packing into their local B&Q to purchase the latest DIY accessories. And Mondays are therefore spent listening to colleagues trying to impress one another as they brag about the new terrace decks and the like that they erected over the weekend. The DIY craze is so rampant in this country, it extends beyond household renovations to include dentistry: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7881865.stm. G and I decided, however, to confine our initial DIY experiments to the house.
I will admit that, like many others in this country, I had been lulled into a false sense that DIY was easy and even rewarding. I blame the profusion of home improvement shows with their white teethed presenters. Watching Hot Property and other shows of its ilk made me think that I too could so easily single-handedly transform my home into a paradise (improving the value ten-fold of course). And, what's more, that I would find it enjoyable. Like those presenters, I could slip on a pair of very short denim shorts, white singlet and would begin sanding and drilling all while looking gorgeous and showing off my chemically whitened teeth. The fact I don't have chemically whitened teeth was the least of my problems in achieving this DIY dream, as I soon discovered.
Saturday was spent with G and I happily spending our hard-earned wages in our local DIY store and stocking up on all sorts of nuts, bolts, drill bits and hooks. Already we were brimming with pride at how we'd managed to transform ourselves from dull suited lawyers into DIY gods. We should have stopped there, really. Instead, we spent all of Sunday drilling, swearing, shouting, cutting ourselves and swearing some more. I suspect the DIY trend goes hand in hand with that other great trend in England - the rise of hooliganism. G and I both found ourselves needing a drink or ten and managing to construct entire sentences solely out of swear words. What was worse is that at the end of the day, for all our work, we had only a few crooked holes in the walls, a drill bit stuck in the wall, and three paintings still on the ground and not on the wall. And we felt like failures.
The media complains about magazines setting unrealistic and unobtainable standards of female beauty, but I think the real scourge on society is the unrealistic standards and expectations set by home improvement shows. It's time we took action! We'd be building barricades in the streets, if only we could manage to follow the F%$£*ing instruction manual...
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