The Bree van der Kamp effect: why are tidy women considered deranged?

[Caligula]

This is the title of the discussion Woman's Hour are going to have tomorrow and it made me LOL. So I thought I'd tell you lot about it in case anyone wants to find out a) why they're deranged or b) why they're justified in being a slob.

Radio 4, 10AM Thursday.

I'm like you pecka....

One day I will master tidy.

My kitchen is neatish at the moment.... as is my lounge, but nowhere is officially "tidy"

Drives me nuts cos I so so want to be tidy, but lack the genetic requirements!!!

Nutter. I have an aunt who used to make her house so uncomfortable by chasing the guests round with a duster/ damp cloth/ mop. Loon.

But I do buy the argument that being tidy allows you to get on with the rest of your life. I spend too many hours trying to find my purse/ trousers/ jacket. (Keys I now have under control!) I've lost count of the times I have had to give up the idea of doing something nice because I haven't been able to get ready on time, because I have spent the time I should have done doing the nice thing, trying to find something to enable me to do the nice thing. That's what motivates me to try and be tidy. Yesterday I found I had a free half hour and wanted to read. I spent the half hour looking for the bloody book. Aaaaaaaaaaaaergh!

Yes, I can see the sense in that Caligula. We spent last week at a friend's lovely, huge, uncluttered house and had to spend the last 3 hours there cleaning to restore it to pristine condition (she wasn't there). But then we got back to our house and the contrast was SO depressing. So we defrosted the fridge, cleaned, tidied, de cluttered and, actually, it is much nicer, I do have to admit. Whether we can keep it that way for more than a day remains to be seen!

I feel uncomfortable in pristine houses - scared in case I drop a crumb on the floor.

a really good friend used to offer to lend me books but I always refused because she didn't like the spine bent and god forbid a corner would get turned up! she was a clean up freak too and had to have the plug wrapped around the right tap or she'd flip

But Jools - your house is spotless too!!

well tidy - and there's only me during the week

and it certainly wasn't last week

here's and excerpt from 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' my current book

"Your father was profoundly dissatisfied with their house when it was finished, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because there wasn't. Its high-pressure shower head and hermetic glass stall were impeccably installed, and just as he trooped out for a generic who-cares selection of best-of CDs to feed his magisterial stereo, I could easily envision your father running out to roll in the dirt to provde that shower a daily raison d'etre. For that matter, their house is so neat, glossy, and pristine, so fitted out with gizmos that knead and julienne, that defrost and slice your bagels, that it doesn't seem to need its occupants. In fact, its puking, shitting, coffee-sloshing tenants are the only blights of untidiness in an otherwise immaculate, self-sustaining biosphere"

Bree eat your heart out