Spare a thought for Ivor Ingall, beleagured designer of the “garden folly” which saw Gosport MP Sir Peter Viggers (Con) resign when he tried to claim for his floating duck island.
The expenses weren’t honoured – it was more the audacity of the attempt to claim which The Telegraph (and where do I start with the irresponsibility of their reporting of the whole expenses swizz?) pounced on.
Now the charming Mr Ingall says the publicity has harmed his business, and sales of the islands have plummeted from 15 in 2007, to two in 2009.
As widely reported today on the BBC, Mr Ingall said “The trouble is that my duck island has really become the icon of the bad guys… People are not ordering the garden follies that I produce quite like they were.”
As examples of his work include Scottish Castle hen house (left, price on application) a Venetian Villa bird table (centre, £763.75) and the budget Queen Anne Dog Kennel (right, £2,232.50), is it not possible that people have better things to spend their money on during a recession? Or even that there’s been a collective realisation of the utter tastelessness of these items?
Meanwhile, on other pages of their website:
