It’s so easy to watch in awe at the recent news while ignoring everything else that we, the mere working mortals of this world actually have the ability to do anything about. Not writing to your elected official about the lack of foxes stealing little children from the park or those damned kids throwing rocks through shop windows to steal the latest 42in flat screen. Just silly things that you’re obliged to have an encounter with at one stage or another in your life, that you never consider until the moment arrives. This is one of those moments.

It’s been some time since I spent a wind-swept Sunday with a happy go lucky chum (who we can only suspect was bored to do anything else) moving home from a one room cardboard box which was called by some “the country club” into a one bedroom deluxe hive of scum and villainy (some of the residents are in fact from the cantina scene in Star Wars), and soon afterwards there was one thing that was noticeable that anything else and it’s actually a very very scary thing.

There was more room. Consider this for a moment. More room.

From the vomit on the keyboard in front of you, I can tell that you were sick at the sheer horror at such an idea, considering that in London a mere £6000 a second will get you an empty crisp packet with outside toilet aka the street. What are you meant to do with more than one metre of room in a place that is entirely your own until the landlord throws you out?

The furniture whore houses for the middle class.

Well, that’s the scary thing you see. Not only does it tell you that you didn’t have that much to begin with, which in itself makes you think that you aren’t actually doing as well as you might think even though that has no bearing on anything at all. When you have indeed take a good hard look at the additional room, the natural instinct that we urban dudes with our floor length mink coats and cheeseburgers leap upon is what crap to buy to fill it up with.

Don’t worry about it, it’s a compulsion that has been fed by the ever present onslaught of home shows where you see ever increasing amounts of expensive ornaments in front rooms where the owners happen to have about £5,473,834 just lying around along with 12 months free to spend on doing the place up in the first place.

Granted, occasionally you do actually need to buy a piece of furniture to use for a “constructive” purpose, such as a desk to place all manners of electronic equipment on instead using a dining table (not that I’m trying to justify anything that’s going to take place in this little biopic of the human condition) but most of the time we are looking for something, that will make the place “more homely”, whatever that means, can you can make a prison cell more homely with scatter cushions.

And with that, we now go to what quintessentially the new age place for those with a furniture fetish can go to satisfy their dark lust; IKEA.

The Swedish have a lot to answer for. Ulrika Johnson, Sven Goren Erikson, and the bloke who did the temperature scale. But a long time ago, someone decided that they should sell flat pack furniture worldwide and thus the yellow giant was born with a few screws missing.

It’s rather a curious discovery when taking a trip round the IKEA mothership, as I found instead of the normal level of bitterness and hatred for my fellow man, I was lulled into a false sense of wonder and amazement, and that is probably how they rope people into the maze, feeding you furniture pellets to keep you going until you get to the end. Maze is the choice word there, as after eating all the meatballs at the dinner at the start of the shop, you then follow a long winding corridor stuffed with ideas for that room which will show to everyone you know that you are complete as an individual.

Mice have died trying to navigate the IKEA maze.

Picture by Mark Hillary because I couldn’t be arsed to take any myself.

You have a compulsion to want everything on sight, even if all you come in for was a towel just in case the world ends as per the Hitchikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. One has to wonder if they are employing the tricks of Las Vegas hotels where they pump air in to make you feel happy while you p*ss away what little money you had in the first place.

You know what’s worse, the lump in the diseased throat?

They actually do some fantastic deals.

A table for £5 which is more sturdy than what you put together for £15 by using a polish boy as a table. A huge office desk for £35. When on the one hand you want to do nothing but despise what they are and what they do, you still come away impressed, fully loaded and convinced you’ve done everything right.

You know you’re going to basically turn into Edward Norton when he orders from the IKEA catalogue while having a poo from Fight Club, and everything you have ends up coming from that one place. Just another little bit here and there, to finish it off, to make the small amount of room reflect your award-winning personality, whereas instead you coming off as nothing but a smug little bugger who has nothing better to do than to go to IKEA.

Hmm perhaps the next question will be; when is Tyler Durden going to burn the place down then? Perhaps after I’ve finally escaped, having waited in at the helpdesk for 2 years back at IKEA, waiting for the trolls who work there to get me the two missing screws which would allow me to put the damned desk up in the first place.

It’s not the end of it all, oh no. There will no doubt be something else you could do with, oh how can I tidy up that collection of erotic magazines in a easily accessible but attractive way? What would go great with that wall? What vase best describes me as a person?

Welcome to the world of never-ending need to fill up empty space. Oh, and welcome to the IKEA Family too.