Working on home improvements

If you look from a helicopter at any English town, you will see that the residential areas consist almost entirely of rows of small boxes, each with its own little patch of green. In better-off areas, these boxes will be further apart, and the green patches attached to them will be larger. The principle, however, will be clear: the English all want to live in their own private houses with their own private gardens.

What you cannot see from your helicopter, you will learn as soon as you try to visit an English home. You may have its adress and a map, but you will have great difficulty in finding the house you are looking for. Some humorists claim this is the result of 'a conspiracy to mislead foreigners', pointing out that our streets are never straight, every time a street bends, it is given a different name, there are at least 60 confusing synonyms for 'street', and the numbering of the houses is hopelessly illogical.

The house numbers are at least as well camouflaged as the street names. They are either hidden, or even not there at all. One taxi-driver explained: 'An Englishman's home is his castle, right? We can't actually have massive walls around it, but we can make it difficult to get to'.

The Englishman's home is much more than just his castle; it is also his identity and his prime obsession. This is why a house is not something you just passively 'have', it is something you constantly 'work on'. The mania for home improvements is wide-spread. Research shows that only 2% of English males and 12% of females have never done any Do-It-Yourself.

Working on home improvements is an opportunity to exercise our creative talents. Or at least that's how we like to think of it. Although it may sometimes be an economic necessity, we see the arrangement, furnishing and decorating of our homes as an expression of our unique personal taste.