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‘Britain has finally joined the 21st century,’ announced James Trotman, managing director of Fox Trotman Country Living, at a special ceremony to mark the conversion of the last barn in the UK. ‘For too long, these buildings have been eyesores; now they are stylish rural retreats that are sustaining the British economy through dark times by stimulating local housing markets.’
The barn was one of ten that formerly blighted the landscape in the small Norfolk village of Shotesham. It is believed to have been used to house grain for reasons which are not yet clear and the smells coming from it were described by local homeowners as ‘a jolly nuisance’.
The other nine are now all occupied by the families’ senior doctors at the local hospital but this one had been overlooked until quite recently, when Fox Trotman responded to an anonymous tip-off. Consultant ophthalmologist David Bradley, his wife Victoria and their two children will move in next week.
‘It’s marvellous news for us and the local community,’ commented Victoria Bradley. ‘For the best part of a year, we were all crowded into a six-bed in Dereham, but now we have enough space for us, the 4-by-4, the Morgan and the children, when they are home from boarding school. If they could only put some nice pavements in around the village to finish it off, that would be just perfect.’
Updated: Jan 1, 2022
Much to the surprise of art historians, Malcolm Broadbridge (of Shanklin's 'Red Lion') has confessed that his eclectic décor
was not acquired during five years at La Sorbonne but was, in fact, a job lot of brick-a-brac. Customers were shocked to discover that Damien Hirst did not create 'Industrial farming equipment on rope', 'Brass doodads' or the eponymous 'Grainy photograph of village paedophile'.
The publican further admitted that the authentic charm of his oak-panelled urinal trough and his flock wall-papered tables, were just a cynical marketing device to lure people into purchasing drinks. Any attempt to create an aesthetically pleasing environment was purely coincidental - and very much in the beer-goggled eye of the beholder.
Throughout the decade, aesthetes had flocked to experience Broadbridge's audacious post-modern choices; be it the Tudor beams combined with 1970’s light fittings, the wagon-wheel dartboard or to experience the chef's salad in the 'brutalist style'. Malcolm was philosophical: 'I may have to hand back my Turner Prize, but I just felt guilty, I couldn't keep passing off a pile of shite as art. I don't know how James Corden does it'.
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