Has Gwyneth Paltrow secretly been watching the Irish National Lottery ad in which a guy buys an island with his winnings? Goop, the Hollywood actor's lifestyle website, has just published a Ridiculous But Awesome Gift Guide that suggests you might like to give an entire Spanish village this Christmas.
For €149,550 you can buy an abandoned hamlet near Lugo, in the northwestern region of Galicia, that includes a 360sq m house with a new roof, mains water and electricity. According to the estate agent, Aldeas Abandonadas – the name means Abandoned Villages – the building doesn't require much work. The hamlet also comes with a pair of little bakeries, a hay barn and an hórreo, or granary.
Buying an abandoned village – of which Galicia alone reportedly has 1,949 – is quickly becoming all the rage, it seems. Elvira Fafián, who runs the agency, says demand is increasing, from both Spain and abroad. Swedes and Dutch are among those who have already shown an interest in the village in Paltrow’s catalogue, as well as Americans, particularly those “who emigrated in the 1960s and want to return to their roots and reclaim what their parents had to leave behind”.
Perhaps you just need to put the price in context. “For the price of a space in a parking building in Madrid or Barcelona, you can buy a village and leave the stress of city life behind,” Fafián says.
With Paltrow, the woman who gave us jade vagina eggs and coffee suppositories, we have learnt to expect the unexpected. And we probably shouldn’t take the buy-a-village suggestion totally seriously. Beneath its knowing title, Goop acknowledges that its guide is intentionally over the top. “Be honest: This is why you’re here in the first place,” it declares.
So, in the spirit that it’s encouraging, here are some of the other gifts in the Ridiculous but Awesome line-up:
- six pure-gold king-size rolling papers ($55, and intended only for "legal smoking herbs", not tobacco)
- a Moke electric jeep ($16,975)
- an Aston Martin (price on application)
- a zero-emissions electric yacht for the environmentally conscious billionaire (also POA)
- a swish Land Ark camper van, which sleeps six, with two lofts and a main-level flex room ($139,900)
- a Hermès surfboard ($7,700)
- an overnight tour of geysers, springs and waterfalls in Iceland, with accommodation in a Perspex bubble, so you can watch the Northern Lights from your bed (from $515)
- a Muse for a Day experience in London, from Saatchi Art, at which you'll be photographed by Miss Aniela (a tad steep, perhaps, at $150,000)
- breakfast with a giraffe, which is basically a safari in Kenya (POA)
- and, for the person in your life who already has all of those, a Tushy clip-on bidet ($69), which attaches to your loo and sprays your bottom clean, with settings that range from "gentle butt spritz" to "power wash"
“We test the waters so that you don’t have to,” says Goop. – additional reporting: Guardian
