8 April 2026

Do you qualify as Down and Out?

It is nowhere near as easy as you might think

Photo by Fiona Bailey/ Millennium Images, UK

I rarely comment on readers’ letters, when they mention me, for various reasons. But since the appearance of Mr Colin Cubie’s letter in the Easter double issue of this magazine, I have had plenty of time to think. In case you missed it, it was written in Hove, and pointed out that he, too, lives in a Hove-l, shops at the same branch of Waitrose as I do, and even goes to the same dentist as me. Should he, he asks himself and us, call himself Down and Out?

A good question. However, there are more factors than just location, favoured supermarket and dental practice involved in determining whether you are fit to claim the title of “Down and Out”. To help you decipher if you fall into this category, I have devised a simple quiz for you to take. Here we go.

1. How financially secure are you?

(a) Reasonably, I suppose. Things are a bit tricky at the moment, but I have a secure job, or at least as secure as you can get these days.

(b) I am badly in debt. I usually have about £0 left to spend by the end of the month, and I put the chain on the door to my flat because I am scared the bailiffs will try to gain entry without my permission. I recently received a decent lump sum from ALCS and it all had to go, immediately, on various bills and debts. I had a period of about five minutes of pure financial security, and it was quite the sensation.

2. How tidy are you?

(a) What an odd question. Of course there are times when I let things slide; an unmade bed one day, a pan left in the sink overnight the next. But I pretty much keep up with things.

(b) You ever seen Withnail and I? Remember the scene with the sink early on in the film? Well, there you go. Meanwhile in the bedroom, I have to walk on magazines, books, towels and clothes to get to the curtains. In the living room? Let me put it like this: scaffolding has recently gone up, and during working hours I have to close the curtains so the builders can’t see in, thus cutting off the view, which is the only really nice thing about the place I live. Although I very much appreciate having somewhere to live, because I’ve been homeless, and there are very few things that are worse than that. As for making a bed, how do you “make” a bed? As long as most of the duvet is on top of me when I am in it and the pillows are all soft and do not have foam interiors, it’s good enough for me.

3. How many times have you been to Ikea in the last year?

(a) Oh Lord (chuckles). Rather more times than I’d like, if I’m going to be honest with you. Still, their prices are unbelievably cheap and I do rather like their meatballs.

(b) Twice. Once, when it opened, with my friends Ben and Janine, because it had just opened and I thought I could get a column out of it. I bought a bog brush and a washing-up brush that has a sucker on the end of it so you can stick it on the wall. This became my sole decoration last Christmas. The last time I went was a couple of weeks ago because I had to replace the fitted sheet that had developed a rip in it that was becoming too large to ignore. I got the wrong size but too big is better than too small, so on it stays. I also got eight wooden coathangers for £5, which is frankly astonishing. I haven’t actually hung anything up on them yet, but I did break the seal that made them look all neat and now they have cascaded on to the floor from the chairdrobe and you wouldn’t believe how messy and depressing they look, all in a jumble.

4. Are you in a relationship?

(a) Yes, and though we have our ups and downs, we rub along pretty well. How long has it been now, darling? Oh.

(b) No. I haven’t had a sniff of a romance since Covid ended, and the last woman to share my bed ended up having an episode of full-blown paranoid psychosis that was so terrifying I had to escort her off the premises, hide at a friend’s house for the night in case she came back, cease all contact with her, and then report the incident to the police. After that I kind of don’t mind being alone so much.

5. When do you get out of bed?

(a) What a silly question. The usual time, of course, although we like a lie-in on weekends, before going off to Ikea.

(b) Ideally, never.

So there you go. Five simple questions, and it would be otiose to say that if your answers veered more towards the (a)s than the (b)s then you are not Down and Out. Sorry about that, but it’s a rather select club, and the membership terms and conditions are very strict – not to say punishing.

[Further reading: Kanye West has always been a poet of self-pity]