If You Don’t Clean Your House Will You Live Longer?

The answer to this question may reside in a very strange nook and cranny. It may lie in the legacy of Quentin Crisp.

For those that don’t know, Quentin Crisp was an erstwhile queer denizen of New York City, for whom the song Englishman In New York was written and performed by Sting.

Born in 1908, in London, Quentin Crisp was best known for being overtly “out” when everyone else hid their sexual inclinations. They did so to avoid inciting the puritanical wrath, and repression-fuelled contempt of the authorities.

He was a brave man. Determined to be himself despite the probable abhorrently dreadful consequences.

He was also fortunate. He had a rapier wit, in the vein of Oscar Wilde, and a winsome, self-deprecating manner, the absence of which got Oscar Wilde into so much trouble.

Quentin, acutely intelligent and astute, employed his very appealing character to defend himself, mercifully preventing the worst of outcomes for a man of his inclinations.

By the time John Hurt played him in the “fourth most successful film ever made for TV”, The Naked Civil Servant, Quentin Crisp was a household name.

But the thing he is enduringly remembered for, and deeply loved, is for liberating housewives from the tyranny of perpetual housework.

This is because Quentin Crisp famously advised against cleaning, asserting that after the first four years, dirt and dust don’t get any worse. This, of course, makes regular cleaning entirely unnecessary… and potentially redundant!

His humorous philosophy: “It’s just a question of not losing your nerve”, suggests that with enough fortitude, one can avoid housework entirely!

Quentin Crisp struck a deep seam, in the PR goldmine, for this single sentiment. Middle-aged women everywhere adored him. They could quote him verbatim on the subject.

Genius!

But, in light of the harms done by modern cleaning products, Quentin Crisp may have singlehandedly spared many a woman from neurodegenerative disorders and cancer.

To learn why this might be the case please read:

Are Purdy & Figg Products As Natural As You Think?

Safe Home Cleaning Products Debunked

Crisp, “known as a flamboyant British writer and raconteur”, lived in what was described as “squalor despite his own impeccably groomed appearance”, according to the National Portrait Gallery.

Having sought critical asylum in NYC, he lived in a single room, with shared bathroom, on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan. The NYC Hell’s Angels chapter was a couple of blocks away.

It was during this period of his life that I first met him.

Having been given the book featured in the image above, I read that Quentin solicited calls from complete strangers. As he had also published his telephone number alongside this information, I figured that he actually meant it. So, I called him and arranged to meet him at his favourite diner. (The diner where he ate eggs every day, week in, week out, year after year, for decades…)

We spent the afternoon together. I loved him.

He wrote a very gracious message in the book I received as a Christmas present from my younger brother.

A year later I asked him if I could make a film about him.

I still have the handwritten letter providing me with permission to make a documentary about him… That was some ride!

If I ever write a book about my life I will entitle it The Twelve Lives Of Rachel Wild, and I will tell the story of what it was like to try and make a film about Quentin Crisp in New York City… So much of the footage was amazing… and the characters I interviewed were all larger than life…

NYC is as kooky as it comes… I guess it’s why it was home to Genesis P Orridge and David Bowie, too.

I met Genesis P Orridge for lunch and spent the afternoon with him. Sadly, I never met David Bowie.

During the days of filming I learned that Quentin not only never dusted, but that he rarely washed up, as well. He didn’t cook that often, and I get the impression he only owned a frying pan.

Quentin’s only concession toward washing it was when he cooked fish. He said something on the lines of… “You don’t need to wash your pan until you eat fish. Then you have to wash it.”

So matter-of-fact with a twinkle in his eye and a slight curl at the corner of his mouth.

This is what the internet has to say about it…

Quentin Crisp, the English author and wit, famously held a disdain for housework, arguing that it was a waste of time and that “after four years, the dirt doesn’t get any worse”. Regarding the specific, humorous advice about cooking fish, it is frequently cited that for Crisp, washing-up was only to be contemplated “after fish”. This was part of his broader philosophy on domesticity, which included minimal housework. He argued that one did not need to clean at all, as dirt reaches a plateau after four years. He suggested that this was possible if one keeps one’s nerve and does not clean. He believed that cleaning was incompatible with a “Life of Style”. The quote, often remembered as a joke about only needing to wash the pan once a week as long as you have fish on Friday, fits into his public persona of embracing a, “dirty enough to be happy” lifestyle.

Quentin Crisp lived well into his 90’s.

He is remembered with great love and sadness.

Quentin always advised people to avoid reading his books in favour of spending their time writing their own.

So, maybe, just maybe, I will write that book!?

And, maybe one day, I will even make the film out of the 40 hours of footage I’ve got!?