It’s design season again and I’d be letting you down if I didn’t showcase some of the standout exhibitors on the blog. I found lots to like this year, particularly at 100% Design so it means you won’t have to scroll through my usual diatribe about talent-free design hacks. The beautiful sideboards are by Kate Noakes Furniture; how lovely is that ‘Bloc Repair’ sideboard? Let me count the ways. Jan Lennon also showed some really nice lighting and chairs as seen above, and I love Qlocktwo’s readable wall-clocks cos’ I’m a sucker for tech. There was loads of average to middling stuff on offer but I’ve resolved that for a change, if I have nothing good to say, I’m going to say nothing. Yes indeed, the stress is almost killing me 🙂

Over at Decorex, we have Heathfield & Co’s gorgeous Lunar lights, Rosanna Lonsdale’s Palm Beach lamp, and my fave, Lottie Davies of Coldharbour Lights’ exuberant feather chandeliers

But really, what has been amusing me this week? Invective, that’s what. Not the double-figures-IQ stuff that passes for abuse on social media – nah, the real deal. Phrases that have stood the test of time. I started thinking about this when I read about one politician describing another one (they shall remain nameless to protect the guilty), as ‘thick as mince.’ I nearly choked on my lunchtime toastie! Where has this wonderful phrase been all my life? It has instantly replaced my previously cherished ‘dumb as a box of rocks’ as a favourite phrase. Every time I did something stupid, i.e every 10 minutes or thereabouts, I described myself as being thick as mince and fell about in a fit of immoderate laughter. I have consulted my experts, i.e my long-suffering colleagues, but no one had heard it before although they are now heartily sick of hearing me use it. It sounds like a nice Northern phrase; northerners have a fine line in abuse, in my experience. Other faves include:

• mad as a box of frogs (I’ve been known to add boing! boing!! for further clarity)
• you lie like a rug
• you lie like a dog
• go boil your head (No one else seems to know this apart from me. I think it’s Scottish. For extra-emphasis, I add ‘in a vat of oil’)

AlaraApothecary: we teach you verbal self-defense, and supply oils to heal you after the local bully has beaten you to a pulp 🙂 Just in case you consider all this infra-dig, I’m merely following a well-established custom of verbal viciousness. One of my favourite stories involves one politician’s excellent riposte to a fellow politico who’d told him: ‘You, sir, will certainly either die upon the gallows or of the pox.’ To which he replied, ‘That depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.’ Have a terrific week, and don’t get bound over for a breach of the peace. Pip pip.