Susan Morrison: Men will always be a part of the furniture

Published on Tuesday 14 July 2009 09:49

SOME scientist has managed to manufacture fake bake sperm. Apparently, this is the beginning of the end, the dawn of a woman-only age where men will be surplus to requirement. I suspect some commentators would like to see a mass of rioting peasants seizing their flaming torches and storming the castle screaming: "Burn the Professor! Save Men!" Otherwise, they say, the future will be female.

Tosh. As any woman who has just moved house will tell you, men will always be required as long as self-assembly furniture exists.

Yes, back in May, I bought a house. The housing boom is back. I fully expected a note of thanks from Gordon Brown and a Darling welcome basket of muffins. I was delighted, thrilled and didn't give a moments thought to moving house. Now, a lot of people will tell you that moving house is the second most stressful thing you ever do. Actually, everyone told me. Hahahaha, I laughed (and I did, foolish gurning idiot that I am) surely it can't be that bad?

For those wondering, the most stressful thing you do in life is getting divorced. I have told my husband that he is safe from the writ. But not the hit man.

We went utterly mad and indulged in new furniture (told you, the boom's back. Listen – that's the sound of a banker's bonus thudding on the mat). So, said pragmatic Yorkshire husband, removing people are not required, we shall cope ourselves, wife, with only a van and some boxes. Righty oh, said I, somehow thinking he knew what he was talking about. I mean, look at the Bedouin, with those black, graceful tents. Off they go, all packed up with only an obliging camel for a helpmeet.

Of course, this is totally overlooking the fact that the Bedouin, as a rule, do not spend ten years living in the same house.

Suffice to say I managed two trips in a clapped out Citroen before realising I'd been sold a pup here, and fired husband as House Removal Advisor. A man, who has a van, calmed me down and sent round chaps and boxes, thus we did move. And it was stressful. Oh yes.

I made some fascinating discoveries when moving. Someone in this house has bought nearly 1,000 books. About twenty of those are about the building and the sinking of the RMS Titanic. For some reason men collect screwdrivers, hammers and strange metal things that have no obvious use, but Are Important. A ten-year-old boy can never have enough Lego, Bionicles, Transformers and bits of railway. And a teenage girl can, given time, create the perfect conditions in one bedroom to rival the primordial soup from whence all life was created.

The de-cluttering was not always intentional. Day two of life in new house and I realised my underwear had gone AWOL. By lunchtime, I slowly realised I had sent the wrong box to the charity shop. Sorry to Cancer Research UK, but could I suggest "Gussets against Cancer" for your next campaign?

I also discovered just how misleading the term self-assembly is. There are two bedside tables currently sitting in the bedroom who haven't made a move to assemble themselves since I bought them. One is still neatly boxed. The other is strewn about like some sort of appalling furniture murder. This is because I attempted to make sense of the instructions.

It took me seven minutes and 35 seconds before the first serious profanity escaped my lips and nearly three sweaty, screaming, head-banging hours before I hurled the funny-shaped screwdriver thing across the bedroom and went looking for the one tool I can use, the corkscrew.

And this is how I know that scientists can get as clever as they want, but the Swedes, with infinite cunning, have ensured that men will always be needed. They have designed furniture that women covet, and men build. No wonder we look to the Scandinavians to mediate in world conflicts. Presumably they tired of Viking running amok and going berserk. They probably realised they had a way with wood and that you could even build a longship by putting Rawlplug A into matching pre-drilled hole B. From there, it's a short step to: "Haw, Sven, enough with the burning and pillaging, let's drive them mad building bedside tables with names they can't pronounce."

I know, there are women out there who can assemble a three-door wardrobe, blindfolded in a force ten gale, and sisters, I salute you. I'm not one of your number. God knows what I could have done to the war effort in a Spitfire factory.

But we have landed safely in Leith now, and can confirm that good neighbourliness still exists. Behind our new front door we found welcome to your new home cards, and were inundated with offers of tea, sugar and cake. A ring at the new doorbell and there was a lovely lady with a bag of tangerines to say hello.

Still nothing from the Browns or the Darlings, though.