A studio family portrait, and other signs you're in a tasteless twat's house

LOOKING to get a quick read on whether you’ve just entered the home of an uncultivated dolt? Keep an eye out for these tell-tale signs:

Wall quotes

Whether it’s ‘Let the good time beGIN!’ or a resolutely non-ironic ‘Live, laugh, love’, anyone who wants to decorate their home like a shit motivational Instagram post has zero taste. And a framed poster that says ‘Good vibes only’ really doesn’t work for a couple who spend the whole time bitching about each other whenever one of them leaves the room.

Studio family portrait

Even if you adore your family, it’s weird not to be ashamed that your guests know you spent hundreds of pounds having a photographer take awkwardly staged pictures of you all in a variety of embarrassing poses. Why not just frame a shitty group holiday selfie, like normal people?

Jacuzzi in the tiny bathroom

In this person’s mind, a jacuzzi is the epitome of luxury and they weren’t going to allow something like the minuscule proportions of their apartment’s bathroom stand in the way. As you squeeze into a corner to piss due to their awkwardly-positioned jet bath, try not to wonder whether they regularly have sex in it.

Drinks globe

Having any kind of home bar that isn’t the back of a kitchen cupboard is naff, but choosing to purchase a giant novelty globe that swings open to reveal your Campari and white chocolate Baileys is the height of tackiness. Is a mirror ball design tackier than an olde worlde map? Hard to tell.

Fake fruit bowl

Do they want people to think they’re healthy? Because a bowl of fake fruit is the quickest way to prove the opposite, as it’s obviously not real and is covered in a thick layer of dust. It serves absolutely no purpose because it doesn’t even look nice, and as a decoration is no different from having a trough of plastic meat in your living room.

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Travis Bickle, and other psychopathic dickheads from films men put up posters of

DOES your partner think the unstable nutjob from Taxi Driver is a deeply cool guy? He really wasn’t, along with these much-admired film psychos.

Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver

Your boyfriend is really keen for you to admire Travis, a gun-obsessed loner with a shaky grasp on reality. When you question whether a violent murderer whose solution to problems is a chaotic bloodbath is the ideal role model, he gets in a huff and stomps off upstairs. Don’t worry – he’s not about to leave you for a Cybill Shepherd lookalike. He’d balls it up like Travis anyway.

Tyler Durden from Fight Club

Like weedy Ed Norton, your boyfriend adores Tyler Durden because he wishes he was him: clever, witty, gutsy and handsome. Yes, he’s also violently opposed to modern society but that just makes him even better. What your boyfriend doesn’t like, though, is when you agree Tyler is very sexy and mutter ‘Wouldn’t kick him out of bed’. Then he becomes all sensible and says you can’t just go around blowing up the Natwest willy-nilly.

Arthur Fleck from The Joker

Your boyfriend thinks Arthur is a misunderstood man driven to violence by the cruel, uncaring society he has to exist in. You think he’s a pathetic incel who should get a f**king grip and stop being such a self-pitying loser. When your boyfriend realises this is your opinion he changes his tune, because the risk of being dumped and the word ‘incel’ make him very scared indeed.

Alex from A Clockwork Orange

The poster for A Clockwork Orange has been proudly displayed on your boyfriend’s wall since his student days. When you ask him why he, a grown man, has got a massive picture of a violent rapist wearing a silly bowler hat on his wall he mutters something about the importance of free will being fundamental to mankind. It’s gone the next time you go round.

Tony Montana from Scarface

Your boyfriend is at great pains to present himself as an ideal life partner and yet he idolises a coke-addled criminal so much that he has a poster of him firing a grenade launcher-equipped M16 on the wall. When you mention that’s a bit weird, he reminds you about the Michael Jackson poster you refused to take down for years, so you decide to let it go.