Why the posh live in grubby chaos

The upper classes don't worry about something so trivial as a dirty house.

A survey suggests more than 60% of Britons think their friends' houses are filthy. Sounds accurate to me. I'm not always struck by the cleanliness of my friends' houses and I'm sure they're never amazed by the cleanliness of mine.

Boris Johnson's sister, Rachel, takes the same view. She once read a piece in the Daily Mail about her Somerset farmhouse, which began: "The carpet looks filthy, the fireplace brims with ashes and a dog is shedding hair on the floor. The chair cushions are on their last legs, propped on decrepit armchairs, showing no signs of ever having been cleaned. Worst of all, the lady of the house seems to be wearing wellington boots in the sitting room. But the thing you may find really shocking about this tableau is that it is not the home of some slovenly slattern"

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