If you ask me, it’s nothing but a pile of Billy BoKlok

Oct 10 2007 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

HOW can you take a sofa seriously when its name sounds like a root canal patient pronouncing a popular Lancashire currant pastry? Is it possible to set about some serious cooking wearing an apron called something that resembles Chris Eubank addressing the Queen?

These are questions that designers at Ikea, stylist to pram-pushing parents, penniless undergrads and weary first-time buyers, should reflect upon before foisting yet another Sfjdkfjdksl upon an unsuspecting public.

As well as calling their peacock blue settee “Eskeskog” and a purple striped apron “Lisbet”, they have now invented a “BoKlok”.

Despite sounding like a cuckoo with a speech impediment, a BoKlok is, in fact, a flat-pack dwelling.

Already popular in Sweden, the homes are being assembled on a plot of land in Gateshead and can be purchased for between £100,000-£150,000.

For the lowest sum, first-time buyers who earn between £15,000 and £35,000 would find themselves with a one-bedroom flat.

So it must have taken some guts to be the first person to buy one of these, just in case the idea didn’t catch on and they were left with not so much as one apartment inside a whole block but a sort of flat-pack Portakabin.

Billy bookcases are complicated enough – just imagine having to put together an entire residence with the help of a torn sheet of undecipherable instructions and an Allen key. Would you still end up with several long screws left over at the end that you have no idea what to do with?

BoKlok homes have high ceilings, large windows and are energy-efficient, but it’s still hard to imagine living in what is essentially a mass produced box, delivered on a lorry to a location full of other mass produced boxes.

Therein lies the problem with Ikea – for every pro, there is most definitely a con.

For every Billy bookcase, there’s a cactus-shaped salt-cellar.

For every giant hotdog for about 6p each, there’s a cup of traditional Swedish lingonberry soft drink waiting to give you acid indigestion. And before you can experience the thrill of finally seeing your Leksvik TV stand positioned in the corner of the living room, perhaps with an Observator TV swivel rest on top, there’s the Ikea Rage to overcome.

In the same way that supermarkets pump the scent of fresh baking throughout their stores to tempt customers into bundling trays of croissants and bloomers into their trolleys, Ikea is filled with the odour of sawdust and panic.

This has a bizarre dual effect on shoppers: firstly, they suddenly get a compelling urge to carry out massive DIY projects when they had only popped in for a £6.99 Dudero floor lamp, and secondly they find themselves unable to leave the building without buying at least one pack of tea-lights.

Then comes the Ikea Rage, and under its influence even mild mannered types are transformed into impatient Victor Meldrews, glaring at babies and tripping over pushchairs in a desperate search for the fabled shortcut between lighting and kitchens.

A yellow bag under each arm filled with seven wicker baskets, a pair of luminous salad servers and a miniature artist’s dummy, they lurch their way through the bath mats and rag rugs, scattering paper tape measures and lost hopes in their wake.

Only the thought of a hot dog oozing with mustard and ketchup keeps them from curling up under a table of terracotta plant pots and assorted rubber shoes.

Then there’s the challenge of queuing alongside rows of baskets filled with yet more tea-lights and managing to negotiate the check-outs without another pack of them popping into your trolley.

But, even though the pain of Ikea shopping is all too real in the moments that you stagger back to your car, like childbirth it is forgotten somewhere between delivery and the moment you get to gaze in wonder at what you have created in the comfort of your own home.

Even as you finally take your first bite of hotdog, you are aware that resist- ance is futile. You’ll be back for another Sfjdkfjd- ksl long before you’ve run out of tea-lights.

lauradavis@dailypost.co.uk