Rich People’s Problems: I’m square-eyed over an 88-inch, £40,000 TV

According to the Bank of England, we’ve stashed away nearly £200bn since the pandemic began. I want something to show for my hoarded cash — particularly as we’ll soon be inviting guests back into the house.

As well as a tech upgrade for the “summer of sport”, I’m ready for a bit of an interior refresh. I’ve almost forgotten how to go shopping, yet Amazon is not the place to find talking points. Fortunately, the upper echelons of society have discovered a way to enjoy the delights of a car boot sale — rebrand it as a French “brocante”.

Held in the grounds of stately homes, you generally park up in a field under the direction of floppy-haired public-school educated marshals before browsing stalls with canvas awnings selling all manner of rich people’s junk, trinkets and artisan products.

Recently, some friends and I went on a road trip to Suffolk to attend such an event. We drove there in our matching 1982 and 1983 Mercedes SLs — the perfect modern classic for a sunny day’s excursion.

Mine has its original radio cassette player still works, allowing Madness, Haircut 100, Abba and the Bee Gees to be released from the time warp of toot (my loft). I knew it was right to keep my old cassettes. A few years ago, you couldn’t give them away, so I didn’t. Now they’ll cost you at least a fiver apiece to replace on eBay.

On arrival, we were ushered to some convenient parking spaces because our cars were “cool”. There’s a warm breeze, fluttering bunting, a light hubbub of posh chat and the reassuring crunch under foot from the shingle path. Forget the cashless society, I had fresh notes at the ready for a good old-fashioned haggle.

You’ll always get a better deal for cash, but you need to watch out for faux antiques. Within minutes, I’d snapped up some locally-made sheepskin rugs (just the thing for around the fire pit — and 20 per cent discount for cash).

Two stalls on, we depleted the artisan candle stock (if guests are coming around, we’ll have to mask the smell of chien). It’s also important to have a new objet or two as talking points. So imagine my delight when I spotted an antique copper gyroscope globe. Feeling like I was a contestant on Antiques Road Trip, I secured £20 off the £60 price tag.

The brocante turned out to be a wallet cleaner, but I also needed to inflict some more serious damage on my bank account — and invest in some new home tech.

Lockdown has exposed the vintage nature of our TVs, but television purchasing has become a highly complex art in recent years.

Given the speed at which the latest models are superseded by newer screens, money spent on TVs can hardly be described as an investment. But — and I would say this, wouldn’t I? — there are also good reasons to push your budget into the top end.

In the “man cave”, a show-stopper for watching sport or movies requires a massive screen and a lot of noise, while a TV for your living room requires art and style. Either way, you’ll have to swallow a dictionary of tech-speak to understand what on earth you’re buying.

For the man cave, I plumped for a £4,000 Sony Bravia 77-inch XR XR77A80J (2021). Its full title includes the terms OLED, HDR 4K, UltraHD Smart Google TV with Dolby Atmos and Acoustic Surface Audio. If you have no idea what all that stuff means, here’s a quick translation.

An LED telly without the preface of an “O”, “U” or “Q” is cheap — but the picture isn’t up to much. Virtually nothing is streamed in more than 4K resolution, so 8K screens are pointless (and expensive). And despite advances in tech, a TV needs everything built in, otherwise you end up with wires everywhere (ugh).

So why did I go for a Sony? For the first time since the Trinitron series in the 1980s, Sony now produces some of the best screens on the market. However, my decision hinged on availability, screen size and launch date. With fast-evolving tech, saving money by purchasing last year’s model is a false economy.

Should I buy two? No. It’s not right for the living room. I don’t have a wall big enough and putting a TV that big on a stand is vulgar. For some years, I have taken the style over substance approach to living room televisions. Bang & Olufsen are the masters.

Navigating one’s way through the B & O range may bring small beads of sweat to your brow. At £7,100, the Beovision 55-inch floor stander is neither a great looker nor worth the cash. Anyway, a 55-inch screen isn’t big enough — a bit like buying a Tesla 3 because you couldn’t afford an S. Go big, or go home!

Big means the Beovision Harmony. Three versions are available; 65-inch, 77-inch and a massive 88-inch, but even I don’t need a telly that large. In any event, the price tag of about £40,000 is a little over the top and the 8K picture quality goes to waste.

But the 65-inch at £12,900? When you switch it on, the speakers tilt from vertical to horizontal and the screen rises. Pointless, but superb. The picture looks great when it’s on, and the telly looks fantastic when it’s off.

Have I totally lost my marbles? B & O use LG for their tech and I wouldn’t buy an LG telly unless I was 30 years younger and furnishing my first flat. But I rationalise it in the same way that a Soviet wind-up tells the time just as well as a Rolex. They do the same job, just in a different wrapper.

When you switch it on, it will turn to face you. Ultimately, this isn’t a television you are buying, but a piece of furniture

Bang & Olufsen handcrafts its products and they are designed to stimulate envy. My current B & O television is nearly 10 years old, but can be programmed to remember where you sit. When you switch it on, it will turn to face you. Ultimately, this isn’t a television you are buying, but a piece of furniture.

If I push the boat out, could I offset the higher price tag by selling it on in a few years? Looking at the second-hand market for consumer electronics, the prospects of a lucrative resale are not bright.

Yes, I could take it off to eBay and sell it for £2,000. But hold on to it for longer — much longer — and I suspect the picture will change. If you try and buy B & O from the 1970s or early 1980s it is surprisingly expensive. So I will probably put it in the attic, next to the cassettes. If Madness is worth a fiver today, the old B & O might have a value in 2040.

I’ve decided the best way to think of the new purchase is as £1,290 a year for 10 years, which is a small price to pay for the show off-ability. All of this means I won’t have much money left to go out, but at least we’ll be ready for our guests — or the next lockdown.

James Max is a radio presenter and property expert. The views expressed are personal. Twitter: @thejamesmax