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In praise of … the garden shed In praise of … the garden shed
(about 17 hours later)
According to Cuprinol, who might possibly have an interest in the result, the average Briton spends five months of their life in the garden shed. Of course, these days it's bound to be more than just a shed that this average Briton – surely a man rather than a woman – is "just popping down" to. Anything from a modular garden room, custom Dutch barn or Finnish log cabin down to the humble British overlap 4' x 5' does the trick. But what exactly is its trick? A den, a repository of all things that a man needs, or might one day come in useful, like that 40 foot roll of speaker cable that has been inexplicably and cruelly banished from the home? A retreat from the world? A refuge from domestic order? Solitary confinement of the type that all writers from George Bernard Shaw to Roald Dahl crave? (Shaw put his shed on a rotating platform so that he could keep it permanently in the sun.) Who knows? But it is one of life's enduring institutions.According to Cuprinol, who might possibly have an interest in the result, the average Briton spends five months of their life in the garden shed. Of course, these days it's bound to be more than just a shed that this average Briton – surely a man rather than a woman – is "just popping down" to. Anything from a modular garden room, custom Dutch barn or Finnish log cabin down to the humble British overlap 4' x 5' does the trick. But what exactly is its trick? A den, a repository of all things that a man needs, or might one day come in useful, like that 40 foot roll of speaker cable that has been inexplicably and cruelly banished from the home? A retreat from the world? A refuge from domestic order? Solitary confinement of the type that all writers from George Bernard Shaw to Roald Dahl crave? (Shaw put his shed on a rotating platform so that he could keep it permanently in the sun.) Who knows? But it is one of life's enduring institutions.
• This article was amended on 11 April 2012. The original subheading referred to five days of average Britons' lives being spent in a shed. This has been corrected.