If architects are, on average, truly paid less than brickies then I am pretty amazed that any architects get to go on holiday at all yet it seems to me that quite a few of the boomer generation (and their progeny), even those with the most Marxist of leanings, are regularly setting forth to France and other places to enjoy their second homes. As the population ages and the cost of looking after elderly relatives goes up I can’t see that many of the next generation are going to be privy to such delights.

It is hard not to be envious of people with holiday homes. As a child I was very lucky to spend my holidays by the coast in Ireland where my parents did up a succession of ruins to supplement their architectural income (including one castle, sold on to Jeremy Irons who painted it a tasteful shade of pink and put a jacuzzi in the battlements). They bought them from struggling farmers, one of whom had to pay for an enormous wedding.

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