Whilst the Professor was enduring his surreal encounter with Brockwell, Bernard took the opportunity to sneak off and attend to important business of his own. Slithering lithely from the Morris van's beige leather passenger seat, he soon found himself padding purposefully through the cow field behind Brockwell's office. The northern corner of the field, as he had expected from the directions provided, was perfectly yellow with daffodils. Bernard approached the flowers at a trot and gleefully nuzzled his way through them, crushing a few under his clumsy paddling paws as he proceeded. He found himself at the entrance to a burrow, where he paused. All of a sudden, a grey and somewhat unremarkable rabbit's head popped up.
"Oh, hello, daaahling!" it exclaimed in a plummy voice, putting Bernard at ease that he had indeed found the right hole.
"Why, if it isn't Bernard Snell! How utterly splendid to meet you, at last."
"And you must be Cordelia Smythe, editor of Ideal Warren magazine. Enchanted to meet you," replied Bernard with a camp flourish of his left flipper. As an accomplished interior designer, he was very experienced in handling such characters. The customary air-kissing took place, with Cordelia making particularly expressive "mwah" noises, even for the notoriously flamboyant world of interior design for burrowing creatures.
"Come on down, I'll put the kettle on"
Bernard followed Cordelia down the hole, his eyes fixed on the inescapable sight of her fluffy white tail bobbing perkily in front of him.
"I say, beautiful daffodils you have up there," he said loudly, in an attempt to make conversation as they descended.
"Yes, fabulous, aren't they? I dig up the bulbs from local residents' gardens at night. It's a riotous laugh and it makes such a mess!"
Finally, they arrived in Cordelia's sitting room. It was a cavernous space, perfectly heart-shaped and filled with big squishy beanbags. Cordelia had cluttered her space with all manner of home comforts, and, on close inspection, Bernard could not identify a single item which was not either pink or purple. This included the kettle. The platypus was handed a steaming mug of peppermint tea, and the following article appeared in the next month's edition of Ideal Warren magazine:
Well, firstly, the burning question: how did you get into interior design and soft furnishings, Bernard?
I spent my childhood in a burrow by a large body of water (I can’t remember if it was a pond or a lake or a river, I didn’t care that much for it as I don’t like wet fur). I noticed as an infantile hatchling that the walls of the family burrow was bare and frankly depressing, so I made it my goal to perk it up a bit, you know, add some spark to my surroundings. I started by throwing cold Thomas the Tank Engine pasta shapes and worms at the walls, but this just didn’t seem to scream “elegance” or “burrow chic” at me. So I got some Laura Ashley cushions in, which, in turn, moved to Ikea bookshelves and shiny things from Habitat with big words written in bold on them. I was totally, utterly hooked, from such humble beginnings.
Say you have a large warren - it’s a blank canvas, completely empty and just ripe for you to put your Snell stamp on it. How would you go about decorating it for a discerning client?
Balls. As many spherical objects as possible. I’d want my client to see their new warren and to stop, stare, and to say “wow... balls”. Lampshades, chairs, decorations, everything, should be a melee of Perspex and glass, all orange, yellow and white. A sea of 1970s disco meets 1950s sci-fi meets 2000s doing 1970s and 1950s. It’s all coming back, you see.
That does sound splendid, and I’m sure there are many out there who are reading this and feel both in awe and indeed envious of your insights. Now, what if your next clients were a family of foxes?
Foxes? Well now, they, to be bluntly and dreadfully honest, care not for interior design, aesthetics, art. Not one jot. Now, you may call this an appalling, crude stereotype, but really, they just do not help themselves. Nor do I believe that they care. I mean, take this for example: they call their abodes earths. Now, this, to us, conjures up images of a, well, honest, homely, somewhat Bohemian, rattan-rugs-and-Agas lifestyle. Earthy. But, no, that’s just not the case. They’re full of mud, spit, bones, smells, gravel and grime. Dirt.
So, is there any hope for our canine friends?
All you have to do is look at the Frederiksson case. All of us - all of us - in the spatial life creation industry know that if Frederiksson can’t change someone’s perspective and attitude on interior design then, well, in all honestly, no one can. It goes without explaining that he started with the most promising individual: a vixen residing in the garden of large Richmond villa. She would throw her litter and general flotsam and jetsam of vulpine life not just out of her burrow, but out of the garden... Well, that’s good going for a fox! Easy student we all thought. Get one to set an example and the rest will follow we all thought. Eventually, foxes will be swapping pigeon feathers for tasteful scatter cushions we all thought. What we didn’t think was that she’d eat him. Which in hindsight is a little surprising, considering he was a vole and she was a fox... but I digress! And to think that the next day he was due to travel to Berlin to pick up an award for his Patetiskt Turkos Sexhörning bread bin, it really, really is such a waste. And the whole sorry saga just illustrates to perfection why foxes don’t give one fig-roll for interior design.
Are there any up-and-coming Australian designers we should be looking out for?
Australia? I’ve no idea, to be honest. The southern hemisphere doesn’t tend to trouble my creative brain much. Unless it’s got something to do with emperor penguins. Austria, however, yes. Australia, no.
That is a surprise, Bernard...
Oh, I see, yes sorry. Common assumption, believe you me. No, I was born in Amersham.
It’s well known that you favour lederhosen when it comes to clothing fashions, and I see that you’re wearing a fine example today; do you get much design inspiration from the Bavarian district of Germany, or is it purely their clothing you admire?
To be quite frank with you I’m not a huge fan of Germans, Germany or anything Germanic since my partner of the time got run over by an Audi A4 on the M3 in 2010. But these, these lederhosen, are very comfortable. And they’ve got brown braces, which is going to be the inspiration for warren design in spring 2013. Right after the winter of balls.
That is an exciting development! Can you elaborate?
Well, all I’ll say is this: warrens of a more inspired leaning will be a festival of Farrow and Ball wallpaper with nibbled edges, Smeg fridges that have been tipped onto their back, emptied out and used as boxes for straw and droppings, and stretchy brown things with metal clasps.
That is genius! Are you working on any designs at the moment?
Yes, yes, indeed I am. It’s called the SnellShockBottle and is a personal localised heating contrivance, AKA hot water bottle. I’ve put little flippery feet on each corner, a tail on the end, and attached rattly googly eyes to it, and, voila! It looks like me when I’ve seen something shocking. I’ve shown the prototype to a good friend, an esteemed professor, and he was most impressed. His pet wasn’t as keen, though what do you expect from someone with Danish ancestry?
And, lastly, who would you say is, in your opinion, the most “now” designer in the field of burrow interior design?
Me.
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