Taste

We had a disagreement this morning on a matter of taste.

That is, I don’t have any.

I mean I really don’t have any. I never have.

I have been born with no ability whatsoever to see which colours complement each other and which ones clash horribly. I know (because I have been told) that one must not go out dressed in several different shades of pink, but for the life of me I can’t see why. If pink looks nice, then surely lots of different pinks look lovely together. I think that they do, anyway, but I know from the advice of appalled friends that one must not wear things like that. My mother once looked me wearily up and down and said with an air of surprise: “You look nice. I suppose Elspeth chose it for you.” and I had to admit, dejectedly, that she was correct.

Anyway, I have come to accept this. I know I have got no taste whatsoever. This is a serious disability when it comes to trying to keep your end up at your children’s expensive public schools. These days I have got to limit my Speech Day outfits to Fifty Shades of Beige. I know my orange dress does not go with my green shoes, but guess how I found out. When I look in the mirror and say to Mark: “Does this look all right?”  it is a genuine, desperate question, because I have got no idea. The problem is not whether my bum looks big (it looks big in everything because I need to eat less) it is whether blue shoes look all right with a pink shirt and a yellow scarf: because I simply cannot tell at all. I like blue, and yellow, and pink, how lovely it must look to wear them all at once. Probably.

The lack of taste is utterly universal. I have got no taste at all about anything. This morning’s disagreement happened because I wanted to buy some jewelled plastic frogs to put in the garden. I found out that this was tasteless when Mark laughed, but I like things like that. I have got a garden gnome and a blue tit that glows in the dark, and I like them both. I like flower beds to have as much stuff in them as they will possibly hold, preferably with a lot of different colours and really strong scent. I once bought my father a four foot high fibre glass statue of a black man playing the saxophone, which I (and he) loved: but which sent my mother apoplectic with outraged good taste, much to my complete astonishment, because I thought it was one of the nicest things I had ever seen. Only lack of funds has prevented me having life-size gold painted statues of lamp-holding Egyptian deities on either side of the front door, because I have been in love with them ever since I first saw them in a French junk shop and regrettably just couldn’t scrape together the necessary Euros, but I have yearned after them ever since, and should I ever see the like again they will be mine.

If I had a hero at all in the design department it would be Walt Disney. Disneyland is absolutely my favourite place. Not because of the films, because I think they are awfully mawkish and all the heroines since Snow White are too thin: nor even because of the rides, which I don’t really like much, especially now I am older because most of them make me feel a bit sick: but because of the glorious, detailed, over-the-top brilliance of the place. I love their colours. I love the flowers and the patterns and the lights and the way they have seamlessly blended one mood into another and then another and then another. I love the way they have managed to manipulate colour and perspective to create a place that feels safe and inviting, and draws you in further and further, inspiring you to explore and wander and look until you are overwhelmed with so many different and lovely things to see. I think they are beyond clever, the whole thing is gleaming and immaculate and fantastic. Top that off with the magnificence of the parades and the shows and the firework displays and you have a recipe for blissful exhaustion at the end of the day.

We had this in mind when we decorated our own house, and it shows. I knew I didn’t have any taste so I decided not to mind and just decorated with everything I liked best. We painted over the orange and lavender, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake even for me: but kept the rest.

My office in which I am writing now has got a green carpet, and orange and yellow walls, red and gold curtains, and (my favourite bit) stick-on flowers all over the walls. I love it passionately, I feel pleased every time I come in to it. We bought different doorhandles for every cupboard in the kitchen because they were all so lovely and we couldn’t decide. We painted downstairs orange and cream and bought a pink carpet and a blue and gold tablecloth, and I love that as well. It looks lovely with the stick on flowers and the oil painting and the grandfather clock.

This morning I have ordered some lovely bejewelled 3D stick on butterflies for the ceilings. They come in purple and pink and green, and I am very excited about it.

I don’t need taste at all. Life is much brighter without it.