Working at home for me is like a form of lap dancing

HOW disturbing to read that a third of folk working from home have no desk at which to sit and ponder, or whatever it is that people in offices do. They’ve joined my club. Since moving house nearly three years ago, I have sat on an armchair or the sofa in the living room with my laptop literally on top of my lap.

It just became a habit, the same way that I put down a box of belongings that I’ll sort out later and, three years later, it’s still sitting there. Alas, I just get used to things. Indeed, the box situation has been far worse recently. On the brink of moving house several times, I’ve packed up my books, CDs, DVDs and vinyl records into nearly 40 boxes, ready to go into storage.

Twice in the past, having changed my mind, I’ve had to put everything back but, this time, remaining undecided, after a fit of definite decisiveness four weeks ago, the boxes remain piled up on the floor in every room, including the bedroom. I just walk around them.

I hope others working from home are better organised than I am. I used to have a fine big wooden desk. But, around seven years ago, I decided I was moving from that house, and put the desk and around 30 boxes into my mate’s garage for a month or so till I got sorted.

Six years later, having subsequently remained undecided about moving, my mate’s wife said it might be time to take the stuff away. As I couldn’t get the desk into the back of my saloon car, even with the backseats down, I had to dump it.

True, at home, I do have a wee foldout table that I tried working at in the back bedroom, which was going to be the study (it just became “The Guitar Place”), but I couldn’t get used to it and returned to the living room armchair.

It’s not ideal. The sun shines on the screen so that I need the curtains halfclosed. The armchair is also the place whence I watch the telly, and your office or study desk is supposed to be used for work only. I learned this when trying (unsuccessfully) novel-writing. Psychologically, you’re supposed to go to the same place at the same time every day so that your stupid brain knows instinctively that it’s now time to write.

Now, sitting with my laptop in front of the telly, I’ll get a call from the paper: “Hey, big nose, where’s your column?” And I reply: “I’m terribly sorry, sir. I’ve been watching Bargain Hunt instead.”

Actually, and oddly enough, I’ve found that if I angle my armchair slightly away from the telly, my brain knows that it’s now work mode and, as you will have noticed from the results, the old noggin starts to hum with amazing ideas and fantastic insights. So, it’s important to get your workstation right. Even if it is just your lap.

Dress senseless

AT a time of international discord, one thing on which the

world agrees is that “Britons” – sons and daughters of King Arthur all – dress badly.

It’s a comedown for the country

(or set of same) that, more than any other, made a thing of “dressing for dinner” and suchlike conventions. Losing the British Empire led to a decline in moral, and consequently, sartorial uprightness.

Scotland – last colony, some say – has led the slackening. We think it normal, but other countries don’t have neds in baseball caps, baggy jerkins and grey athletic trousers.

This week, fashion designer Jenny Packham, who has put claes on the Duchess of Cambridge (whichever one that is; not being flippant; I can never remember), the singer Kate Winslet and comedian Helen Mirren, condemned this country – Britain! – for being sloppy in its choice of habiliments.

She sees it as post-lockdown “laziness”, inferring outrageously but correctly that British people are appalling slobs.

Her pet hate, during the pandemic, became people who “tucked their jumpers into leggings”.

And she would wonder: “Why do you think that top went with those trousers?”

While I agree with the thrust of these remarks, I fear I’m out of my depth here. I think I know what leggings are, but don’t see many where I currently live, which is a bit outdoorsy, so to say.

I don’t give too much thought to my trousers but, asked about them (as I frequently am), here’s my timeless advice: never wear yellow ones. Ditto purple.

They rarely go with your eyes. You read it here first. And will never read it anywhere again.

My choice of clothing today is lazy, I admit. I buy the same shirts and trousers all the time. But they’re OK, kinda outdoorsy, a bit cowboy, easy to iron.

I’ve reported exclusively here before how I’m too frightened now to wear a tweed jacket or blazer. I do so detest being tittered at, but frequently it has been my lot.

For my part, good manners prevent me tittering in public at the clothing choices of others.

However, I reserve the right to criticise them later in authoritative and passionately argued newspaper columns.