Lessons with Mr Makeover: This is my kind of home schooling

I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately. Ahhh, remember the good old days when you could pop out to the supermarket with just your purse and bag for life? Now a trip to Asda feels like preparing for chemical warfare – mask, latex gloves, hand sanitiser and anti-bac wipes at the ready.

Spending more time online has me hankering for the pre-internet days and simple pleasures, like chatting to a colleague while waiting for the office kettle to boil.

I’ve even found myself enjoying the classic Eastenders reruns that have been airing while filming is on hiatus. Watching Den and Angie scrapping at the Queen Vic is strangely comforting.

This week’s big interview with Changing Rooms star Laurence Llewelyn-bowen has satisfied my need to revisit the past. I was a big fan of the ’90s home makeover show. It was simple TV at its best. Let two couples redecorate each other’s home, stand back, and watch them cry during the “big reveal”.

It made Laurence a household name, alongside fellow designers Linda Barker and Anna Ryder Richardson. But it wouldn’t have been as entertaining without his willingness to completely ignore the brief and transform boring old beige bungalows into something resembling an Ann Summers fitting room.

You can’t accuse Laurence of compromising his design philosophy which, he tells us on pages 6&7, is about expressing your true self, something he reckons is lost in this age of identikit social media stars.

There’s beauty in chaos, he argues. I shall try to remember that the next time I’m queueing for my weekly shop.