Feng shui is a Chinese philosophy of harmonizing everyone with the surrounding environment, since taken up mainly be interior designers. It's about promoting good, positive energy in each room of a house by making sure everything looks pretty and matches. Landlords have totally misunderstood the meaning of feng shui. As Trinidad James notably did not sing, the interior design instincts of a landlord is all beige everything. Technically, the description of the colour on the paint tins is magnolia, but that's wrong, because magnolia sounds like a nice colour. What actually ends up decorating every single wall in a student house is bloody beige. University is a time when you're discovering yourself, working out your personality and personal style. Maybe living in a house that's completely devoid of any charm, beauty of personality gives you room to do that. Or perhaps it suffocates you and makes you feel like you're living in an Ikea showroom. They aim for inoffensive, but get the other thing.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
