Kay Town
Andrew Kay is in the pink and sitting pretty, well almost
Life in Kemp Town is sweet. I love my new home even though, for now, I am sleeping on an inflatable mattress and have few of my real chattels around me. That was until I decided that a new sofa was required.
Now sofas are difficult beasts, not only to find but to tame. By that I mean I have very exacting criteria for what will and will not do and once those criteria have been met, the narrow corridors of my new home needed to be negotiated.
I set off into the sales, both on the ether and on foot but found little to satisfy my soul. That was until last Thursday when by chance I popped into Velvet in Hove after a meeting with a group of tame estate agents who, for some reason, offered me raspberry tea.
Anyway, the raspberry tea obviously triggered a pink thing in my head and before long I found myself in the interiors emporium Velvet negotiating a deal on a fabulous shocking pink studio couch in faux suede. And when I say shocking pink, I mean SHOCKING PINK (apologies for employing the Julie Burchill method of emphasis and hitting the cap shift), but it’s the furnishing equivalent of 400 watts of heavy metal.
A glorious slab of vibrant raspberry luxury that would have the purple prince of pop declaring it the divan formerly known as sofa.
“Raspberry tea triggered a pink thing and before long I was buying a shocking pink faux suede sofa”
I love it. It will be the key to my new look and already the shocking pink slab has gathered a collection of equally vibrant soft furnishing to add to the impact. It makes me smile every time I walk in the room and the fact that it not only looks great, but folds down to make a double bed for guests is a boon, I think, and it may mean that I am never rid of guests.
Life here so far is good yes, although a brass sign on the door does give me a few concerns. In bold caps it declares ‘NO HAWKERS, NO CIRCULARS‘. Do you think I should keep secret that I actually write for what in one sense is a circular publication? If they find out, will I be banned, hounded out of the building and told never to darken its doors again? I do hope not because so far everyone I’ve met has been so nice.
So far I have not resolved what to do with my recycling, which grows by the day as I replace so many of the items missing from my life. The pile of unwanted packaging simply grows and grows. So at one extreme life is in the pink, rose-tinted and delicious and at the other I look like I am living in cardboard city, a homeless refuge built from the profligate packaging that dominates a retail world as yet unprepared to face the issues of global waste.
