Let’s dispense with the obvious question first. Are they common? While there’s a clear temptation to consult Nicky Haslam on such matters, I don’t think I can be bothered. Not least because first, I am a Prusso-Italian immigrant, second, I was born in Essex and third, I adore fridge magnets.
We should be honest and admit that, like everything in life, they are signifiers. The aim is to show our friends how cultured, travelled, well-read, ironic and amusing we are. They are our lives writ in ceramic.
Where to begin? One of my favourite magnets, designed to strike fear and dread into any intruder, dates back to Iraq circa 2004: ‘Caution Stay 100 metres back or you will be shot.’ No punctuation, not even an exclamation mark! The trespasser is put in an impossible position: our kitchen is less than 100 metres long. Another American memento of the Operation Iraqi Freedom genre features a character with baseball hat worn backwards, holding a bright red can emblazoned with the words: ‘WHOOP ASS.’ Beneath it is the legend: ‘DON’T MAKE ME OPEN THIS.’ It is a homily to American military might and sophistication.
War is regretfully over-represented on our fridge. Another cherished objet is ‘Russian warship, go fuck yourself’, commemorating the Ukrainian border guard who refused to surrender Snake Island to the Russians in 2022. New York is represented in similar vein with a Museum of Modern Art memento: ‘White House’, an Ai Weiwei screenprint of a middle finger foregrounded against 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, expressing, I suspect, a growing sentiment around the world.
We must give art – as well as peace – a chance. Hence the pair of exquisite, 16th-century Iznik tiles, a couple of Picassos, a Turner (‘Dunwich, Suffolk’), a Van Gogh (‘The Starry Night’) and Winterhalter’s serene portraits of Emperor Franz Joseph I and his wife, the Empress Elisabeth.
Try to keep things lively and up to date. Prune those which look tired or no longer give pleasure. My most recent non-swanks acquisition is a piece of Arabic calligraphy by Princess Wijdan, a Hashemite princess in Jordan. It sits next to Chant Avedissian’s portrait of the Egyptian songbird Umm Kulthum, ‘Star of the East’, resplendent in her trademark sunglasses.
The flotsam and jetsam of life should be represented with serendipity. Even though my wife and I completed the Camino de Santiago by elderly Porsche 911, rather than on foot, a bold yellow arrow on a blue background (if you know, you know) pays homage to our grit and piety.
On a well-balanced fridge door, there is a role for practicality as well as beauty: a corkscrew cunningly disguised as a bottle of Monbazillac, and a bottle opener from Antigua, shaped like a palm tree.
What else? Space, surely, for a much- loved pet portrait, in our case Maisie, a mutt who continues to chase muntjac, hare, partridge and pheasant in canine Elysium.
Critics will sneer and scoff at these simple pleasures. Don’t worry about them. As Michael Aspel once told the nation: ‘This Is Your Life.’ Don’t be shy. Go big. Be bold. Let a thousand fridge magnets stick forever to your door.
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