AS I attempted essential DIY repairs this week I listened to Obama speeches on YouTube. In their utopian talk of progress they seemed reminiscent of the 1960s. Onward to equality and modernity, a brighter future through technology, etc.
The DIY problem I was struggling with was also to do with the 1960s. Back then some previous homeowner filled with modernising zeal decided it was best to conceal my toilet cistern behind a wall of MDF. My problem? My toilet had ceased flushing. To f
ix it I had first to get to it. If you are in any way uncertain about what is wrong with the ideal of modernity then you need to put yourself in my place and be separated from your cistern by a wall of industrial-thickness reprocessed woodchip, 25 rusted screws, 24 nails, grout, beading and three layers of paint.
As I write this, my fingers are bleeding and I have screamed with frustration and rage. I have just spent the entire day with hammer and chisel, and the room that was once my toilet has been destroyed.
So confident in his design concept was 1960s guy that not only did he board up the bog, he also tiled around the boards, meaning that floor-tiles too had to be broken to get the wall out.
Finally, after having completed my excavation, I gazed into the dark and dust at the cistern lid. Opening it as if it were a sarcophagus, I located the problem. The chain holding the handle to the flapper valve had fallen off. I reconnected the chain and the cistern flushed perfectly.
The anticlimax had me on my knees whimpering. Total cost of repair: zero pence. Total cost to repair bathroom: a hundred quid at least.
I have come across this kind of 1960s madness before. Beautiful Victorian doors – boarded over; 19th-century painted wallpaper and murals – whitewashed; hand-carved cornicing – Polyfilla-ed or chipped off. In the 1960s, along with excessive ornamentation, all of the social inequality that the riches of the past were based upon had to be swept away. Victoriana stood for oppression and class division. Modernity would start from a clean slate. In the brave new world of MDF and Formica, we would all be equal.
Tell it to the gaping hole in my toilet wall, I say.
As I tore off wood, plaster and skin, I tried to put myself into the mind of the utopian DIYer responsible for my pain and frustration. Psychologically, hiding a cistern behind a wall is deeply neurotic – as if waste disposal was so shameful it had to be concealed. As he boarded up his cistern, fully confident that it would remain flawlessly functioning for all eternity, 1960s toilet man must have stared at his flat white toilet wall (with only a discreet handle protruding) and said to himself: "Yes, in the future we won't have to deal with our own shit."
I should like to invoice 1960s utopian toilet man for the mess he has left me with. And I should here like to warn against all such modernisers and boarder-uppers, and this includes you Mr Obama. Beware of what you cover up and whitewash in your attempts to create the impression of a better future. The past will come back and destroy your dreams and it will stink of mould and dust and generations of human waste and maybe even fresh blood, and it will cost a hell of a lot of money to put right.
