Sundown. IC, Sue and I had taken the train from Hackney to Tottenham Hale and a short bus ride to arrive at the Cathedral of Ikea slumped in the middle of some disgusting retail park like a great blue turd. I was exhausted from a combination of a lack of sleep, a dull day in the office and a lunchtime excursion to a motorcycle accessory shop in order to procure a pair of all singing and dancing armoured-gortex-waterproof-trousers for the approaching lights-out of the autumn.
I was there to pick of some shelves but hadn’t factored in Sue’s intention to furnish half of East London. Even getting through the showroom part was painful and by the time we reached the getting fields I only had enough energy to muster displeasure, which must have been right nice for IC who was doing a very good job at trying to appease my frustration. Of course in the interim, as Sue deliberated over plates and pillows, I wearily purchased stuff to clutter up my pedantically un-cluttered flat moaning relentlessly between bouts of sitting down. Gentle reader, it was fucking purgatory. By the time we arrived at the shelves section at the end I was dead on my feet. The shelves were the size of Christ’s Cross and heavier than pig iron. Further expense will be due in the form of a private taxi, I yelled weakly.
We were finally out some 2 hours after having set foot in the place and loaded our gear (most of it mine as it transpired *ahem*) into the back of one of those people mover things and driven back to Hackney at breakneck speak by a tall, loud driver who is quite simply a future pile-up. I was simply too tired to complain and somehow his idiotic driving was sated by my desire to get home.
One hour later in IC’s kitchen I was feeling much better, still knackered but with food, wine and furniture inside considerably more calm. I vow to never go to that Swedish farmyard ever again. Ever.
Before today’s tune I feel I must excuse myself. The composer (and musician, Burzum is a one man band) is a convicted murderer (21 years for the murder of a fellow black metal musician, he was realised recently) with links to Satanism and watered-down Nazism. To be perfectly honest I nearly didn’t post this, in addition to the above I can’t understand what he’s harping on about because he’s Norwegian and I don’t want to be accused of promoting unpleasant doctrines, should any be present.
Having said all that the tune blew my head off, I subscribe to the music not the sentiment of the composer, as one might Wagner. As Buzz Osbourne of The Melvins once said, what sort of a dick takes their political cues from an entertainer?
September 17th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Any trip to IKEA always takes 2 hours; makes no difference what you went for, looked at or actually purchased. Two. Hours.
I fucking hate IKEA.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I’m still not over it. I think women have an entirely different take on this mind you…
September 17th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Absolutely and it’s fulfilling two things:
1) Showroom = visualising things as they might (won’t) look in your home
2) Market place = picking things up and then putting them back again
Both of those can occupy your standard female for bloody ages…
September 17th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Fourstar, you are right. We have a self-imposed agreement not to enter Valhalla, sorry Ikea, together. My wife is half-Scandinavian, with a Viking temperament when she wants one. Worse than Grendel’s mum she is when it comes to Ikea. Although oddly, for one with Norse blood, she DOESN’T like death metal. Or fish paste in a tube, or fish made out of liquorice.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I quite like the salty liquorice fish.
Not a euphemism.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Missus got me some of those salty liquorice fish at the end of the nightmare, as one would to reward a petulant child for not throwing a tantrum. I’m not entirely sure if I like them, they sort of remind me of this taste when, as a nurse, a bit of old ladies piss went in my mouth on account of my misjudging the splash potential of the sluice seconds after hurling a bed pan of detritus at it.
She got me the tubed smoked-cod roe too, I love that without any horror attached to it.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Bluergh – Kalles fucking Kaviar
I have the opposite problem, in that I hate IKEA, but my scandinavian boyfriend loves the place, and then insists on going to the ‘food hall’ for that shit, which he then ruins perfectly good boiled eggs with.
It is all I can do to stop him getting one of those cheaper than cheap ‘no meat in this honest guv’ hotdogs at the end, too.
I have managed to wean him off the IKEA meatballs, since my balls are much better.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I bet they don’t taste of salty fish though
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 am
2 weeks ago, ikea in brooklyn, nyc
stocks the same shit as everywhere else
1 hour tour (personal best!!)
2 hours queueing to register for delivery, yes you read that correctly
my girlfriend went to the food hall for 45 minutes and came back with a pretzel for me
no public transport to get us back to the city, no taxis, nada, zip
fortunately there was an illegal albanian “private” taxi mafia just outside
full on screaming row in said 50 dollar”taxi ride”, car “driven” by a 15 year old