In Praise Of The Design Queens

Love-them-or-hate them design duo, Colin and Justin, made a fleeting appearance on lunchtime tv the other day.

You can always rely on the marmite couple for a cutting but quotable comment and true to form, they didn’t disappoint.

The object of their mockery on this occasion was fellow self-proclaimed interiors expert, Ann Maurice, presenter of the House Doctor tv series.

Colin and Justin clearly aren’t fans. The Witch Doctor, one of them calls her, quickly correcting his “slip of the tongue” just in time to avoid a lawsuit (she is American, after all).

Their basic gripe is that “she’s painted Britain beige.” Warming to their well-rehearsed and brilliantly bitchy theme, they launch into a diatribe about the poor woman’s crimes against colour.

It’s all down to her, they insist, that Britain’s homes are painted in neutral shades encompassing every shade of bland from “bone or pebble to clotted cream”.

“Dull, dull, dull,” they shriek gleefully. They have a point.

But the boys are determined to combat this tedious neutrality and reintroduce colour to the nation’s homes: “We’re like a decorating douche; a designer enema flushing out all that cream; we’re Prozac with a paintbrush.”

Glaswegian design queens: loving your work.

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