David Craig, on October 15th, 2019(Tuesday blog)
Want inner calm and life balance?
One can’t be serious every day. So today I thought I’d introduce you all to one of Britain’s most important organisations – The Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers (APDO). No, I’m not joking this bunch of (IMHO) jokers really exists:
How do I know about APDO? Because a few days ago, I got a flyer through my mailbox offering the services of my local ‘declutter and organiser’. My local declutter and organiser offered her services “helping you find inner calm and life balance through guidance, support and organisation”.
And how did this wonderful person plan to help me “find inner calm and life balance”? She would assist with:
- Decluttering and space organisation
- Paperwork administration
- Home staging/styling (whatever that is?)
- Help with downsizing and letting go.
And what would this cost? There was a special £20 per hour introductory rate compared to a normal price of £35 a hour.
I have a couple of problems with my local declutterer. Firstly, a person who farms is called a ‘farmer’; a person who plumbs is called a ‘plumber’; a person who roofs is called a ‘roofer. But my local member of APDO proudly announces she is a member of the Association of Professional Declutters and Organisers. If she is so ‘professional’, she should know that she is a ‘declutterer’ and NOT a ‘declutter’.
But, on the other hand, perhaps my local declutter(er) is not an illiterate. Maybe she has managed to declutter the word ‘declutterer’ by removing the final ‘er’ to make the word into the tidier ‘declutter’? Perhaps my local declutter(er) is actually a genius?
Secondly, what a totally fatuous occupation a declutter(er) and organiser is in my humble opinion. If I want to throw out some old crap, I wouldn’t need to pay a professional organiser and declutter(er) £35 an hour to tell me what to bin.
However, if you sometimes feel like this:
And you want to find “find inner calm and life balance”, then perhaps you too should contact the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers:
I’m sure their highly-trained and professional members will bring you and your home inner peace and harmony:
More ‘snackbars’ in Syria
On a slightly more serious note, I’ve just come across a brief bit of video from Northern Syria. It shows some Turkish troops rounding up some Kurdish civilians. Then one of the Turkish soldiers shouts to one of his mates “film me, film me” as he proceeds to slaughter the Kurdish civilians with his machine gun while screaming something about his ‘snackbar’. But were I to provide the link, I’d probably be prosecuted for you-know-what-ophobia
Category: 
If only they could go to the Commons and declutter about 600 of them.
Actually there is a significant number of people, at least in developed countries, who are pathologically unable to throw ANYTHING away. Instances are regularly seen in the news, often apropos a crime or disaster, as well as in TV programmes on the subject. It’s a mental illness, in the same way is the pathological over-eating which leads to eventual weight gain incompatible with life. I assume it’s yet another disease of sedentary and soft consumer existence where only members of the armed forces are required actually physically to fight in order to stay alive. It’s sad and if a few people with nothing better to do with their time can help pathological hoarders clear their living space, surely that is a good thing? And not only for them but for their neighbours. I know; I lived next door to one for some years and his junk had spread into the garden. Only when the back garden was full and it started to encroach into the front garden as well, where it was an appalling eyesore, were I and my neighbours able to enlist the aid of the Environmental Health Officer to get it cleared.