Half-baked thought: Time is the new luxury

With the biggest chav wedding of the year kicking off last Friday, one can imagine the tremor of discomfort amongst the premier division rich. That’s the problem when you let the hoi polloi have money: the unwashed oiks only go spending it, don’t they? Those carefully chosen status symbols you bought seem tarnished by association.

It has been a well-reported trend amongst the affluent: go for well-considered experiences rather than luxury goods. Bespoke holidays. Bespoke anything. Just make sure it’s the sort of thing the Rooneys won’t do. Better still, make it meaningful to someone with an education. That’ll teach ‘em.

The trickle-down effect we see in high fashion, where the high streets copy and slightly tweak the latest designs, happens in lifestyles too. It’s a bit like yoof stuff going mainstream (except when youngsters start something off, like Facebook, it takes the grown ups to use them properly, but that’s another argument).

So, the experiential things enjoyed by the affluent will start to be taken up by the rest of us. Yes, even though there’s a credit crunch on.

Consider this: we have to be tighter with the cash because there’s less of it. Instead, we adapt those old green ethics to grow more veg and bake our own bread. It costs less money, has a miniscule carbon footprint, but it takes more time. The chic-ness comes from the proud presentation of the fruits of our efforts. That warm glow of self-satisfaction.

I bet Colleen doesn’t know how to bake, either.