LUXURY LIST..

 
I firmly believe everyone should have a luxury list, whether you are walking the plains of Africa daily for firewood or living the high life of a corporate raider in Manhattan..  Clearly if your main thoughts of the day are finding sufficient water or fuelwood then you're not going to be thinking hard about Audemars Piguet watches or Bentley's.  Time to take in the horizon at night or time with your family might be on your luxury list. And that's important to remember.

However, there are too many people in this life who try to deny anyone aiming for something a little higher - a car, a bigger or better located home, a luxury yacht etc.. Somehow these targets in life are made out to be crass or vulgar? Would these same people judge the African woman wanting to live in a bigger house? or in a different place? I think not. If the Indian entrepreneur from the ghetto starts a business to make himself richer and in the process lifts a few friends out of (relative) poverty and provides them with a better wage is this vulgar? Try asking the same question of someone with a successful business in the UK. Are they now vulgar because they drive around in a Rolls Royce or have a million pound plus home?

Some of these same quick to judge people also have their own secret luxury lists. But they dare not utter a word to any of their friends lest they be judged of course. Instead they suffer in silence, which in my experience tends to make them rather bitter individuals over time.  Even worse are those who don't suffer in silence but consume in silence. Always harping on about the vulgarity or bad impacts of someone with obvious wealth to enjoy but then disappearing off on holiday to the Caribbean or filling their homes with mindless tat.

The reality that such inverted snobs have not stopped to consider for one moment is that everyone wants for things. Everybody has a view on what would make their life better.  There are a million and one reasons why someone might want a luxury item. If people only just stopped and thought about the incentive or the psychology of the situation for a brief second. They might even find it interesting why someone owns or uses a certain item.

Everyone and everything has its own unique story. I have an old car that some might see as a luxury and others might judge me as showing off that I can - luckily - afford to buy and run it. But underneath that paintwork the truth is deeper as it always is. I remember seeing these cars being raced when i was younger and always wanted one. I also wanted to buy something older that I could work on and in the process better myself in a practical and constructive way. I also wanted to buy an older car rather than a new sports car because this has lower environmental impact through avoiding the two big hits a car, any car, has on the environment - negative impacts of vehicles are much larger in their production and their final disposal than all the miles driven added up.  See? Deeper reasons that others do not know about when they judge.

So, to Polko's Top 10 Luxuries list...

1. Time to chill out with my close friends - I'd say high on most people's list of life's small luxuries?

2. Every now and then I love browsing on over to a website called Edmiston Yachts.  A dreamy world where people own yachts worth tens (some even hundreds) of millions of dollars.  I always wonder at what these people have for houses given their yachts are so costly?! I would just love to sail the seas with a trading room hooked up to the worlds markets via satellite internet, making money shuffling investments around the globe whilst being completely independent of anybody on the planet.  A staff to take care of me and who can go to the nearest port to stock up on local food.  Drop in on a glamorous marina town for evening meals and to catch up with friends every now and then. Heaven. Edmiston website - click here!

3. Range Rover Vogue - this is borne of my youth growing up in a smallish town in the eighties in England. One of the ultimate cars of the 80s (when luxury cars really were only for the people with riches beyond my imagination rather than a personal lease deal under their arms - or should that be around their necks?) was this ultimate luxury cruiser / 4x4 car. Well before the days of SUVs and the plethora of cheap far east copies that line suburbia these days. In terms of cars it's my only unticked box really, so maybe one day... and the ultimate luxury RR would be a Holland and Holland by Overfinch whilst I was at it. $300,000 well spent I'd say!

4. Lazy Sunday walks with my son - a real luxury that often reminds me that a) some people are not as fortunate as me to have such a cool and rooted child (please don't tell him I've posted this blog!), and b) some fathers rarely get to spend good times with their kids due to the arrogance and awkwardness of some mothers.

5. Time and resources enough to take trips to California with my partner, cruising around, taking in everyday life and deaming of being able to magic up a green card to live there permanently - very much a luxury in many ways due to the cost, the time it takes and the less than green impacts of the flight there (which can always be offset).

6. A multi-million pound house with ocean views - linked to the above and hey! come on, most people have something like this on their list.  Whether it be the sea views off the North Yorkshire coast, Cornwall, the Mediterranean or West Coast California that house with your own space to enjoy nature is very fulfilling indeed. Me, I prefer eating French food with a view of the Med and a backdrop of mountains so it's Languedoc-Rousillon for me..

7. An i-Phone or Windows MobilePhone to keep in touch when not sat in front of a PC! A luxury? I'd say so - but this is also a lot of people's idea of a nightmare!

8. Expensive underwear - I know, how strange? but once you start wearing quality and feel better in them there's no going back! Bjorn Borg are my tipple, others prefer other brands as is their want or desire.

9. The sheer luxury of having an independent income that needs no tending to, no time input whatsoever beyond checking the balance.  Even some of the wealthiest people in the world never achieve this. I'm not saying I want to sit there and do nothing at all while money miraculously rolls into a bank account. That would not be fulfilling. But to have done something in the past (or one of your ancestors to have done something) sufficiently impressive to now have enough money to live until you drop without having to work.. now that would be great!

10. Given that a lot of my luxury list somehow appears to be linked to time in different ways, fitting that #10 is an Audemars Piguet watch - I love these watches for their sheer elegance, their micro-engineering and style. Not for me the brashness of a Rolex, I love the subtlety of A P timepieces but alas cannot afford the £62,000 price tag of the one below!

Strange for me there was no food on the list? I guess #1 and #5 have food involved somewhere.

So there you have it. List done.