At least us 'chavs' ain't full of hot air

SOME people - and I fear I am about to sound just like my mother here - must have more money than sense, and I have the incontrovertible proof. A few days ago, amid the hottest weather in Edinburgh for ages, I almost choked on my lunch when I read that people in the UK are going to spend £42 million this summer on using their tumble driers.

Er, excuse me? When the sun is shining, what on earth could induce people to want to tumble-dry their clothes? What could be so wrong with using a washing line or a whirly-gig, and letting the fresh air and gentle breeze dry your smalls?

The depressing answer is it seems that we're not just turning into a nation of spendthrifts, or even that we haven't got the time because we're all working so hard, but that we're becoming a bunch of snobs.

Apparently hanging out your washing is now seen as a sign of being a "chav". Having a tumble drier (no doubt installed in your utility room, not your kitchen) is now de rigueur if you want to be considered middle-class.

Well, the last time I checked I wasn't wearing any sovvies, but I confess, I don't actually own a tumble drier. In fact, let me unburden myself still further: I don't even own a garden with a washing line. I just use a clothes horse in the box room.

My social shame goes even further than that, though. Since I also don't own a microwave oven or a dishwasher - let alone a bread-maker, a multifunction food mixer, an espresso coffee maker or any other such kitchen "essential" - I fear I ought to be ashamed to invite anyone round to my humble abode. Unless I've first ascertained that it is even more humble than mine.

To be completely and utterly truthful, my kitchen is not even big enough for most of these gadgets, anyway. Such is life when you're in a slightly poky tenement flat and ain't quite middle-class enough to move up the property ladder. But do you know something? I don't miss any of them.

I used to have a rented washer-drier machine, but the tumble dryer took about three hours to dry a pillowcase, and cost so much to run that I could have employed a personal laundry woman to do my washing and ironing for me. So I got shot of it.

I also used to have a microwave, but after a couple of years of using it to zap only the occasional potato into something soggy, that only vaguely resembled being "baked", I began to wonder what it was doing to my food, not to mention my insides. So I got rid of it, too.

And, many moons ago, I shared a very nice flat in Bruntsfield that had a lovely big kitchen complete with dishwasher (and adjacent utility room!) After six months of arguing about who should load and unload the dishes, and whose turn it was to buy the tablets, and who last bought the dishwasher salt, I can safely say I still don't miss it.

But there is a serious point here. The irony is that many of those middle-class kitchen appliance addicts are the same ones who are bleating about protecting the environment.

These are the people who ever-so-diligently recycle their plastic, glass and cardboard - and then drive in their 4x4 to dump the stuff at the collection point.

These are the people who are bleating on at dinner parties about how terrible it is that Scotland might be forced into agreeing to rebuild nuclear power stations, and hasn't that silly Mr Blair got it wrong, again?

I'm afraid Tony is only responding to our schizophrenic attitude towards the environment.

Most people like to think they are going a bit green, when in reality the demand for energy has never been higher - and it's not helped by the fact people are running up massive bills on appliances that they don't even need to use.

Meanwhile, those of us who still hang our washing up to dry, or scour our dishes in the sink with a squirt of good old-fashioned Fairy Liquid are at least using fewer of nature's dwindling resources.

And if that makes me a "chav", so be it.

An own goal for soap fans

AH, now that's better! I am breathing a lovely long sigh of relief, as the World Cup is finally over!

But before you assume that I don't like football, that's not true. I do usually - I'm just not obsessed enough to want to watch it virtually every night for a month.

And it's not that I bitterly resented losing a fiver to the other half when Italy beat Germany in the dying minutes of extra time.

I even tried not to get all huffy when I was gently rebuked about "the protocol" of football-watching: ie Thou Must Not Chat During The Match (Especially Not To Ask Whether The Italy Strip Is the Best One).

The truth is that the other half's passion for football has interfered with a passion of my own - it has played havoc with my soap viewing schedules. God knows how many instalments of EastEnders, River City and Big Brother I've missed.

Don't suppose anyone's got a DVD of June's EastEnders episodes that I can borrow?

Celebrations on hold until the new St James rears its less-ugly head

HALLELUJAH! Let us all join hands and rejoice in the news that the St James Centre, that hulking concrete mass of utter repulsiveness, is to be wiped off the face of Edinburgh.

The photos in the Evening News last week reminded me of just how much this monstrosity overshadows the otherwise delicate city skyline.

Credit should be given where credit is due: the councillors and officials who are currently brokering a £200 million deal to replace the centre by the end of 2008 deserve to be patted on the back.

But, without totally pooping the party, I fear that this is where the hard work really starts.

Personally, I'm going to reserve my celebrations until I see the outline designs for the replacement. If the mall is going to have two extra floors and double in size, it will be a serious challenge for any architect to design something that is sympathetic to its surroundings.

And if it is true that many of the few decent shops we have left on Princes Street, like Zara, are thinking about moving to new souped-up centre, what's going to happen to our showcase shopping thoroughfare?

But I'm not complaining - almost anything would be better than leaving the St James the way it is.

• Helen Martin is away