Claire Black: 'Our habit of indulging in the entire boxset of Pride and Prejudice would have to go'

Published on Thursday 24 June 2010 13:37

'WHERE IS MY WADDFUB BAG GRTUMNI?" R and I are playing our favourite game: shout the inaudible question. Possibly the most annoying game in the whole world, we play it about five times a week.

The rules are as follows: we each pick a room in our flat so that we're just too far from the other to be heard and then we ask a question getting progressively more angry the more times we have to repeat ourselves in order to be heard.

"We're not going to be able to shout like this when we've got a lodger," R yells back in answer to my request. That might seem like quite an unusual thing to say, but round ours "when we've got a lodger" is a phrase that's challenging "shall I open another bottle?" in the most used stakes. And it's remarkably useful. "Look at the state of the kitchen. You won't be able to do that when we've got a lodger"; "Who used the last teabag and didn't fill up the jar? You won't be able to do that when we've got a lodger"; "Who left hair in the plughole? You won't…" See? Endless applications. It all started with the conversation that everybody who is a) financially insecure b) has a spare room c) lives in Edinburgh, is having at this time of year: should we rent out a room during the Festival?

What could go wrong? Yes, there is the risk that I might have a troupe of drunk acrobats or a manically depressed, nocturnal comedian with alcohol issues living with me for a month, but, hey, this is the Festival city, that's what we call sacrifice for the arts.

However, never a pair to be restricted by the petty limitations of good sense, R and I swiftly moved beyond a four-week festival let to mulling over the possibility of renting out our spare room on a more permanent basis. Why don't we get a full-time lodger?

Just think, it would mean a 33 per cent increase in the likelihood of someone being in when a parcel is delivered. It would mean a 33 per cent decrease in the frequency of having to buy toilet rolls. It would mean that R would have to stop leaving clothes in small piles all over the flat and it would mean that I would double my chances of not being the person who has to empty the dishwasher.

On the downside, it'd mean wandering around the flat in my favourite pyjamas and ugly specs combo while singing show-tunes would have to be hit on the head. And it probably wouldn't be acceptable to blast Britain's Big Bands play Irving Berlin on repeat for the entire day as I am wont to do. Our habit of indulging in the entire boxset of Pride and Prejudice (the Jennifer Ehle version, natch) while acting out key scenes might also have to go, but, still, it'd be worth it, wouldn't it?

Sitting on the sofa watching the scene where Elizabeth takes on Lady Catherine DeBurgh in the walled garden, R has a question: "So do you think that the lodger would want to sit in the living room and watch the telly with us?" Yup, I guess so. A look of horror.

"And will they want to change channel?"

I think we might have to consider this a little bit more.z