The four magnificat rules for happy and stress-free household management are:

	Don't clean
	Don't wash up
	Don't iron
	Don't cook

Allow us to elaborate:

1. Don't clean  People often come up to me and say, "magnificat, how do you keep your house so neat, tidy, and clean?" And the truth is, dear reader, that I don't. It's really a terrible mess --- just that nobody ever gets to see inside it. Thus illustrating the first golden rule of housekeeping :-

Never let anybody into your house.

That way they'll never know, and what they don't know won't hurt them.
        To quote the magnificent Quentin Crisp ...
 
"Your home is your dressing room, where you prepare to go out to meet your friends."
 
Note the words "out" and "friends", as this next bit is absolutely crucial.
        You are bound to know - everybody does - friends who enjoy having tidy, neat homes, with plenty of clean things to sit on, cook at, and so on. That is their choice, interest, hobby - call it what you will -  just as yours is to not have those things.
     Visit them. Cultivate them. Say how really splendid their home looks, especially in the Spring/Summer /Autumn/Winter.

You get a helluva lot of invitations out of compliments like that, leaving you with all the time in the world to devote to fulfilling, life-enhancing pastimes.
 
Who ever wrote about Mozart's kitchen, for fuck's sake?

There are of course, exceptions to the above -  which prove the rule. I personally like a clean cooker, microwave and toilet. Call me anally-fixated if you must, but I take almost sensuous pleasure in shitting into a sparkling white bowl. (Incidentally, Boy George was telling me just the other week that coloured suites, especially avocado, are this year's fashion don't. They've gotta go, folks, no matter what the cost.)
          But not your living room floor, oh no.
     
Your carpet is not a mess, it is a living history. 

2. Don't wash up. This one mustn't be taken too literally. Of course you gotta wash up sometime - or you'd die. What we mean is that it's quite unnecessary to wash up after every meal, as if the tail were wagging the dog.

No - what you do is acquire enough crocks and cutlery (Charity Shops) so that you needn't do it more than say - once a week. That seems tolerable even to the least hygienic among us.

And anyone who takes a clean plate, when yesterday's is staring them in the face - even if it has got a few specks of raspberry jam on it - is a wasteful pussy.

How you gonna build an immune system if you never eat any goddamn germs?

  3. Don't iron. Simple one this.

"If God had meant us to wear smooth clothes, He would have made the cotton grow straight. (magnificat)

      When magnificat was young, we were taught that a man was judged on two things, the shortness of his hair, and the shine on his black shoes. Thankfully the sixties saw off both of these nonsenses, but the fixation on smooth clothes continues.
      Let's get one thing straight. There is nothing morally superior about smooth clothes. They merely demonstrate that you have too much time on your hands, and that you don't give a monkeys about the global warming your electric iron contributes to. Remember: Mony a mickel maks a muckle.
      I've lost count of the number of times I've had to pin some smooth sod to the bar room wall and shout
"Hey man! Your smooth clothes are ruining my planet!"      

Clean is hot, smooth is not.

4. Don't cook.
      What we're on about here is not basic cooking to remain alive and kicking, but the elaborate food-rituals people feel obliged to perform before they can allow a friend into their home. Let me give you an example.
        Graham is an extremely interesting man, and really good company. Three times Graham's said to me,
"Peter, as soon as I can get some money together, I want you to come up to the house for a meal."
      How tragic. I'd love to visit Graham's house, and will even take my own biscuits, if necessary. A long-skirted dinner party is simply not a requirement.
 
"I can pick up the phone and have a hot meal on the table in twenty minutes." (Julie Burchill)