When buildings talk: a rant.

What does your house say about you? is a question we are all encouraged to ask, but today I'm more interested in the question what does your house say to you?

I'm not talking about the odd creaks and cracks the place makes, nor the sinister gurgling chuckle that sometimes comes from the upstairs sink, nor the way the cooing of the pigeons is weirdly amplified by to a ghost-like moan by the chimney.

What I'm wondering is: does the house crowd you in, or does it make you feel as free as a bird? Does it make you feel cosy or exposed? Safe, or under threat? Relaxed, or stimulated?

The designer Kelly Hoppen has similar concerns. Well, I think she does. She has at any rate hired a healer to assess energy levels in her big and grand and very designed new West London home.

'I had my energy consultant come round when I first moved in,' she is quoted as saying. 'He said he'd never been in a building that was so clear. The only thing I needed to do was put an amethyst in one of the downstairs spaces.'

Now, it's easy to scoff, and I certainly won't be buying anything as hard to dust as an amethyst.

But I realise I have only the very dimmest idea of how the atmosphere of a place is communicated to its inhabitants - so I'd be extremely interested to know if the thing actually works.

Word To Use Today: amethyst. This word comes from the Old French amatiste, from the Greek amethustus, not drunken, from methuein to make drunk. The belief was that the stone could stop people getting drunk.

Well, I suppose that would affect your energy levels, wouldn't it.

Curious.