retire early, buy ostrich-skin elbow
patches, donate to the Guardian
website every day — or whatever it is
teachers do with half a million quid.
Or they could continue as before.
I don’t know the ‘right’ answer.
It’s not for me to judge how much the
wife values living in London. But I
do know a telling question you could
ask them. Can you imagine the same
decision happening in reverse?
Imagine a couple of teachers liv-
ing in a nice house in Norwich who
one day win £500,000 on the National
Lottery. Is it likely that one of them
would say, ‘Oh, thank God for that.
We can move to a much shittier house
in London and work until retirement
age’? This seems unlikely to me.
A large number of questions might
be illuminated — if not answered —
by imagining the situation in reverse.
If Britain had no nuclear deterrent,
would there be much clamour to
obtain one? If Scots were independ-
ent already, what sort of union would
they seek? Which eurozone countries
would now be eager to join had they
stayed outside the bloc?
And, in the case of Martin’s
friends, how many suburbanites wake
up every morning dreaming of living
in a pokey flat in the city?
The problem with many decisions
is that while the costs of change are
often immediate, salient and quanti-
fiable, the gains are yet to be expe-
rienced. Indeed, it is only when youI
n last week’s Spectator, Martin
Vander Weyer replied to a cou-
ple with a baby who had sought
his advice on accepting a low offer
for their cramped London flat to buy
a house in commuterland. Their fear
was that, if Brexit led to a property
crash, they could face negative equity.
Should they call the whole thing off?
Emphatically not, said Martin.
‘Buying a family home is a long-term
choice, rarely regretted, in which fluc-
tuating value matters far less than
whether you love the house.’
He’s right, I’m sure. But I’d like
to add a further thought experiment
which may reaffirm their decision.
I recently heard of a different
property dilemma: two married Lon-
don teachers in their early fifties
owned a small house now worth just
under £1 million. The husband was
originally from East Anglia, and want-
ed to move back there. His London-
born wife refused to leave.
The choice was clear. They could
move to a very nice house in Suffolk
and continue to teach while having
£500,000 in the bank with which to
leave London that you realise what
a monumental pain in the arse it is
to live there. Leaving London is a
bit like acquiring a shed – you only
realise how good it is once you do it.
(And you never see anyone getting
rid of a shed, do you?)
Only rarely do people move back
into London. Generally, their children
have left home and they also own a
large property elsewhere. The fact that
movement is mostly in one direction
tells you something. Few who leave
hanker to go back. This despite the
fact that we are fed unending urban-
ist propaganda on television which
portrays inner cities as packed with
sophisticated, decent, liberal-mind-
ed folk, while suburbanites are all
curtain-twitching Daily Mail readers
whose shallow materialist existence is
enlivened only by boundary disputes,
fear of gypsies and occasional dog-
ging escapades. This is highly inaccu-
rate — it’s mostly the Daily Telegraph
round our way.
But once you move there, you’ll
find suburbia is much better than you
expect. I moved to west Kent when I
had children and immediately knew
I’d made the right choice when I dis-
covered one of our neighbours had
been in the Brink’s-Mat gang. After
all, this was someone who could live
anywhere and he chose to live here.Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman
of Ogilvy UK.Q. I have happily overcome many
moments of diplomatic and social
challenge, but was stumped by
the case of the licked cutlery.
What does one do when one’s
distinguished hostess asks to taste
your soup, only to return your
spoon smeared after more than a
delicate sip? In a choice between
not implying she has germs or
benefiting from the attention of a
waiter, do you use it or lose it?
— A.D., London SW1A. This is a tricky question,
particularly as the hostess mayhave sought subconsciously to
confer a degree of intimacy or
friendship (albeit unreciprocated)
by the sharing of the spoon. The
answer is to divert the phobia on
to yourself as the germ supplier.
Call for a secondary spoon and
explain that since, within living
memory, a close relation who had
been engaged on missionary work
inadvertently infected a co-diner
with wet leprosy, there has been
a superstition in the family about
never sharing cutlery.Q. We are fortunate enough to
have various well-known writers
and other public figures among
our circle of friends. The problem
is that an otherwise charming
couple we know have become
rather predatory, and whenever
we introduce them to our famous
friends they invariably email the
next day to ask for their contactdetails. We feel that if they had
got on that well they would have
exchanged details at the time,
and that we are being put on the
spot. How can we discourage this
behaviour, Mary?
— X.W., Bury St Edmunds,
SuffolkA. Why not act daft and supply
the details of the famous person’s
agent or manager, as they could be
found anyway via the internet?Q. An anxious, slightly hygiene-
obsessed friend covers everything
in her fridge with ostentatious
amounts of clingfilm. The
problem is that her son is about
to start at the snobby London
nursery school my own children
attended a few years ago, and
I can see that the clingfilm will
count against her when other
mothers/nannies come roundto tea. I can’t afford to gift her
endless packets of eco-friendly
beeswax alternatives but how can
I, without being heavy-handed
or making her feel anxious,
persuade her to ditch the one-use
plastic and use bowls covered by
plates or greaseproof paper?
— M.J., London SW3A. Unfortunately greaseproof
paper is not eco-friendly either,
as it has paraffin in it. She could
repurpose ungummed brown-
paper envelopes, which are more
affordable than beeswax paper
(literally more than a hundred
times cheaper). Buy your friend
a selection of sizes — Lidl does
one big enough to store a chicken
carcass or joint of beef (24p).
Suggest she can still signal hygiene
as well as one-upmanship with
a fridge full of brown envelopes,
tied shut with charming twine.The Wiki Man
Backwards thinking
Rory Sutherland
It is only
when you
leave London
that you
realise what a
monumental
pain in the
arse it is to
live thereDEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED