I’m with Kirstie – let’s get rid of washing machines from kitchens... and toilets from bathrooms too

THERE are many things I love about Twitter, but one of the things I love most is how completely ridiculous comments can explode into huge, passionate debates...well, arguments really. The mad things that people get their knickers in a twist about online is wonderful entertainment.

And if there is one high profile TV personality who can get a rise out of the twitterati, effortlessly and reasonably regularly, it’s ‘Location, Location, Location’ presenter Kirstie Allsopp.

Now I should preface this by saying that I am a fan of Ms Allsopp. She’s an excellent broadcaster but what I really like is that she is her own woman. She is opinionated and reasonably fearless, or maybe it’s feckless, when it comes to expressing her views.

In the past, Kirstie has waded into trouble with Alan Sugar, who called her “a lying cow” and with fellow broadcaster Kay Burley, who told her to “shut up” when she had the temerity to criticise the Sky News coverage of the death of pop singer George Michael.

She has upset feminists (not this one, I might add) by admitting that if she had a girl (she has two sons) that she would advise her to postpone university in order to concentrate on having children before her fertility drops off that famous cliff.

I may not always agree with Ms Allsopp (pictured, right), but her candour is refreshing.

This week, she did it again. She had the audacity to post on Twitter that is has been her “life’s work” to ensure that people do not locate their washing machine in the kitchen.

She thinks it’s disgusting to wash smelly socks and jocks in the same room as one prepares food. Oh now, Twitter had a right old meltdown with shouts of “it’s alright for those with utility rooms and the like”.

Many of those who responded didn’t get the obvious humour in Allsopp’s tweet. She later pointed out the clue was her reference to “life’s work”.

BUT it’s not the location of the washing machine that I have a problem with but, rather, its distance from the bloody washing. I regularly frighten the life out of myself as I come down the stairs, clutching a huge pile of smelly

clothes, normally too close to my nose which renders me on the brink of fainting, mid-descent.

That hasn’t happened yet but I do regularly drop something and, some day, I am going to trip over it. My demise very likely will be as a result of my inelegantly tumbling down the stairs in a tangle of dirty clothes.

So, the answer is not a utility room; it’s to locate the washing machine upstairs, maybe in the hot press. Or if, like me, you love to hang your washing outside on the line to dry, houses should have a chute, so that laundry can make its own way down to the washing machine.

On the subject of bathrooms and house layout, there is one even bigger design flaw in homes in this part of the world.

And one that is far more disgusting than having the washing machine in the kitchen. And that is having a toilet in the bathroom.

Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

As for ensuites? Please. I do not want to have a ringside position and be within earshot for my partner’s nocturnal peeing. I like the loo to be at least the width of a landing away. I would be delighted to have the bath in the bedroom but we have to get toilets out of our bathrooms. Perhaps this is something that I should talk to Dermot Bannon about.

Maybe he could railroad the next clutch of hapless home owners, who subject themselves to his ministrations for ‘Room To Improve’, into dividing their bathrooms into two rooms. One tiny room for the toilet and a small wash basin. Actually, I once stayed in a hotel which had a separate room for the toilet which had a built-in tiny basin that drained into the cistern, so the water you used for washing was then used to flush the toilet. Brilliant.

Anyway, a bathroom should be just that – a room purely for bathing and showering. A divine space where one could luxuriate for hours in a beautifully scented bubble bath without being disturbed by someone banging on the door imploring you to hurry up because they need to brush their teeth.

Or worse still is when you are preparing for a glorious spa-like bathe and you hear someone rustling a book and locking the bathroom door, indicating a prolonged visit, and rendering the room unusable for some time, after which you open the window so that by the time it is, well, pleasant on the nose, it’s bloody freezing.

Dermot, give me a call. Let’s talk.