When I was a child I had a dream, as most kids do, of entering a toyshop and being told I could carry away with me as much as would fit in a large shopping trolley. In would go every kind of Action Man, every game of Buckaroo or Operation, and enough Star Wars figurines to people a small planet. There would be no discriminating and no sense of moderation – just a great tottering tower of swag.

This is to say nothing of the house-arrest constant deliveries impose on you

Later though, as I got into my thirties, I took a more spartan approach. I wished for a slimmed down, uncluttered life in which everything counted. Without necessarily knowing it, I agreed with William Morris’s adage: ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ I gave things away and had regular dematerialisation sessions, in which clothes I never wore and books I never read would go straight to the charity shop, shops I half-felt should be charging me a fee for freeing up my shelf and floor space. I never wanted to be one of those people with an attic full of stuff I couldn’t let go of but would never look at or enjoy again. Besides, life kept me on a knife-edge of austerity and there was never enough money to buy the things I wanted.

But moving into my own flat recently (I haven’t been a homeowner since 1999, so it feels like it’s for the first time) the habits have changed overnight. After the flat purchase, I had just enough to equip and furnish it, and there was everything to be........

© The Spectator