Sandra Harris Writes

SAYING GOODBYE TO A CHERISHED HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Well, well. A minute’s silence, if you would be so kind, for my gas cooker of twenty-three years standing. I’d had it longer than I’ve had my son, is one way of putting it. That’s right, the Appliance formerly known as ‘Cookie’ has finally given up the ghost and gone up to that big old scrapyard in the sky where old appliances go to die.  After years of me coaxing, cajoling, threatening and bribing him (we treat our appliances as part of the family and anthropomorphise them to the extent of imbuing them with genders) to keep going despite his encroaching old age, it’s all over. We’ve had a new cooker installed and made ready to use, by three gas fitters who were just about the surliest tradesmen I’ve ever dealt with. They were arguing amongst themselves even as their van was pulling into our yard, and they kept up the low-key grumbling and bitching the whole time they were in my kitchen, working away. It was act...

  SPARKING JOY (WITH MARIE KONDO): 2019. A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.  © I’m coming late to the Marie Kondo party, and I was shocked to find out that her bestselling book, THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING-UP, has actually been out since 2011. I only heard of the diminutive Japanese organising consultant about two or three years ago, when my daughter suddenly started packing her favourite childhood toys and books into bin bags.   What are you doing, I asked her, not unreasonably, I think. I’m Marie Kondo-ing my room, she said, still continuing to frantically bundle her stuff into bags. She’s an expert on getting rid of clutter. She says I can only keep thirty books in total, she added, at which point my eyebrows shot up and disappeared into my hairline. Thirty books? The cheek of the woman! I keep thirty books on my nightstand in my to-be-read pile. I keep thirty books in the bathroom to read while in the bath. I take thirty books with me...