At a loss over gloss

Oh, dear! Now darling old stalwart dulux is encroaching into Farrow & Ball territory with a rainbow launch of glum paints for next year.

Indeed, their Paint Of The Year for 2018 is a shade called heart Wood, which is described as a ‘smoky neutral with a hint of heather’.

Listen. That’s not something I want smeared on the kitchen doors — that’s how I like my pheasant cooked.

Of course, heart Wood is predictably awful. a kind of municipal, empurpled murk that suggests passing through the wall of a swollen liver en route to a diseased kidney.

The problem is that paint can’t be just paint any more. even your emulsion has a back story. dulux insists the pink colours in its new range excite ‘commercial interest’ and that ‘yellow sparks the synapses and encourages a creative approach’.

have they ever been inside a branch of Mcdonald’s? a creative approach there would involve cutlery and table manners. But that is not likely to happen any time soon.