Lose That Cultural Flab!

Everything must go - unworn shoes, shirts, jackets, duplicate files, old photos, dead documents and music from the hard drive, music downloaded months ago but never did listen to properly, some massive files, several GB's worth of what you thought might be essential, but has proved not to be and those albums you liked at the time but more time lessened their value (modern music - huh!).

Make room! make room! Clutter, it fills the years, you gain more years and clutter so you look in cupboards, behind cupboards, in draws, under desks to find stuff, useless stuff you once thought was useful but the years have proved you wrong - get rid of it! I want it gone.

Get out the black plastic bin liners and get busy with the delete button!

Scraps of paper, books, yes, those books you've been meaning to read and never have and never will, probably. Time has accumulated them and it will run out before most of them get read because it's the pile that never stops growing.

The flat is small. If we lived in a big house there would be even more clutter. So I thrill to the spaces appearing on the shelves and the decreasing length of the line that tells me how much space is left on the computer.

Clouds of dust rise up, scraps of paper fall to the carpet carrying phone numbers that are meaningless, names, business cards, the buttons in plastic bags that you get with some items of clothing but forget which ones they belong too, stuff you printed out, meant to read properly but never did and never will (maybe you will but 'maybe' is a bad word in this exercise and they catchword of all hoarders).

I have a friend who's flat is so filled with stuff that he never invites anyone 'round. I'd like to see him on that Hoarder Next Door programme and if you can suggest candidates, I will. Not that he'd thank me for it but I'd love to see him in a tug-of-war match with those strict clear-out women over duplicates of comics - ha-ha! And books. he sometimes uses me as a dump for his doubles, bless 'im. What I'd really like to do is go 'round and help him but I fear it might be the end of our relationship once I fill the skip with stuff whilst he weeps beside it, pleading.

As you know, once the decision is made to have a clear out you're forced to really evaluate what you have. I like this process; cultural dieting - lose all that excess culture now! Be a lean, mean, culture machine, an assassin of the superfluous. You won't miss it when it's gone, until you go to look for it and even then you'll shrug and say "So what?"

If books, magazines, records and music really matter to you, make sure that what you have means something.

Yours Sincerely, Clear-Out Guru
(Available for hire at reasonable prices, apply via message)