ANOTHER week, another complaint to the Post Office about a lost invitation. I did not mind too much about the non-arrival of the royal wedding “stiffy”, as posh sorts call invites, and frankly when you’ve been to one Met Gala you’ve been to them all. But missing out on the opening of Stella McCartney’s new London shop; that was, as posh sorts don’t say, a sore yin.

Ms McCartney has come up in the world since she gambolled on her father’s farm near Campbeltown. Dad was something in music I believe, mum took photos. Stella grew up to be a fashion designer whose clothes (ethically sourced and made, no animals exploited, good on her) would be worn by even more people if they did not cost an arm and a leg. Such is her success she has now opened a new shop in Mayfair.

What caught my attention was the cutting edge design of the place, its fixtures and fittings. The mannequins, for example, are made from bioplastic, and piped music in the changing rooms has been replaced with a tape of meditative thoughts (“Look at your backside in this outfit," one imagines it says. "Repeat after me: it’s not big, it’s beautiful").

Best of all are the boulders dotted around the floor, which I was heartened to hear hail from the old place in Kintyre. The decor took a long time to get together, Ms McCartney told the press as assorted celebs including Kylie Minogue and Kate Moss floated around. “I questioned every element of it a million times. But the only way I could create a shop was having that level of honesty. If I try to be a shop that I am not, then I am not sure it would work.” We hear you, Stella, even if we don’t understand you.

Those rocks, though. I must admit when I saw them my first thoughts were of Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle putting a brick in the middle of the living room because she had read in a magazine it was the hot new decorating idea. As the magazine promised, the look was cheap to effect. The only drawback was people tripping over it, as Ted duly did. Still, what’s a few stubbed toes in the name of fashion, even if they do belong to Kylie Minogue?

It is not easy to keep up with trends in home decor, as a survey (you knew there had to be one) showed this week. Paid for by Samsung, researchers polled 2000 people, plus some experts, and came up with a list of the 25 worst decor ideas in the last 50 years. There were some obvious items, such as avocado bathroom suites. Some odd ones, too, like “stuffed wildlife” and waterbeds, hopefully not in the same room (all those claws). Number one on the list, the home decor equivalent of Interpol’s most wanted, was furry toilet seat covers.

Daniel Hopwood of The British Institute for Interior Design, one of the experts polled, reserved a particular place in hell for such items. “I’d be surprised if there are many people out there who’ve actually got one of these,” he said. “But then again, some people love to be nostalgic with their style. Perhaps even those knitted doilies that fit on top of toilet rolls might start to come back into fashion.”

Well, excuse us, Mr Hopwood. Some of us do have furry rugs in the bathroom and toilet roll covers. Not me, obviously. I’m merely protesting on behalf of a friend. And I think you’ll find, Mr Hopwood, that John Lewis, among others, still stocks a full range of pedestal mats. Who are you to question John Lewis? Next you’ll be telling us there is no God.

But that is the thing with home decor. As with clothes, trends come and go like a karma chameleon. Today’s pedestal rug is tomorrow’s back on telly Boy George. It can be impossible to keep up. Some readers will remember the home makeover show Changing Rooms, hosted by Carol Smillie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. At first it was all the rage, then some people began objecting when Laurence took away their nice furniture and made their sitting room look like Torquemada’s torture chamber, complete with sprays of fake blood up the walls. LLB always looked genuinely shocked that his poor victims, sorry, willing contestants, would rather be comfy rather than trendy while watching Coronation Street.

Changing Rooms and its ilk illustrates perfectly why it is wise to stick with the classics when decorating a home. Yet some people still heed the siren calls of designers, believing they have to update their decor as often as they do their wardrobe. That way, a lot of expense lies.

When it comes to home decor, I like to take my cue from a couple of seriously cutting edge London designers who’ve been there, done that, and bought the lava lamps. Steptoe and Son is the name: look ‘em up before Stella does.

EVERY so often the world comes together to cheer on a noble quest. No, not Donald Trump’s continuing struggle to pronounce “denuclearisation” correctly, but one raccoon’s bid for safety.
Dubbed “spider-raccoon” by the legions watching on social media, the creature had jumped from the roof of a two-storey office block on to the 25-storey UBS building in Minnesota. Panicking, it started to climb. Up and up it went, every yard captured on phones and pinged around the world.
Tim Nelson of Minnesota Public Radio said: “It was heartbreaking to see. We couldn’t imagine how this would end well for him.”
But after 20 hours, it did. The little guy made it to the top, where animal welfare officers were waiting with food, water, and a cage. He was later released back into the wild.
Unless, that is, someone signed him up for the book and the movie. Single-pawedly (my spell checker is objecting but work with me here), he has transformed the image of raccoons from bin-diving pests – their nickname is “trash pandas” – to heroes. What a star.

HE always had the moves on a tennis court, but now it seems Boris Becker is no slouch when it comes to other kinds of court.
His lawyers went to the High Court in London this week to argue that he should have diplomatic immunity from his creditors because he has been appointed an attache for “sporting, cultural and humanitarian affairs” for the Central African Republic.
Becker said “unaccountable bankers and bureaucrats” had forced him into a “completely unnecessary declaration of bankruptcy” after he amassed £54 million of debt. Asserting diplomatic immunity would, he claims, bring the “gravy train for suits” to a halt and allow him to rebuild his life.
Oh, for the simple, good old days when Boris made the papers for telling Judy Murray that her son Andy would never win a Grand Slam until he ditched his mum. Master Murray went on to win Wimbledon (twice) and the US Open. Mrs Murray is now a celebrity in her own right and can afford to go to the kind of restaurants Boris used to frequent. How the world turns.