Ikea

On Thursday I went to Ikea. Maybe this counts as my first excursion – the standard retail park miles away from any concept of urban centre. Excitingly, it was set out exactly like the one in Croydon but with fewer spitting gypsies, so I felt a bizarre sense of belonging. Ikea is absolutely amazing, they have clearly thought about every tiny thing a house could ever need, sprayed it a nauseous bright green or blue, and then they sell it for an irresistible price. My entire bag of stuff came to only €28, which I was obviously pleased about (especially as I have recently discovered that Oxford considers a year of its complete absence in my life nearly two-bloody-grand), and my favourite purchase was a blob-shaped rug in said nauseous blue, which looks more like a hallucination than soft furnishing. It was either that or a white shag pile carpet, which was obviously a difficult decision. The way back featured some recently pensioned bitch and her mate grimacing at me in disgust as if I’d smashed in their dentures. I should have - all I did was gently nudge one of them by accident with my bag of pillows and blankets while getting on the tram, after which I clearly apologised. No wonder so many of them end up locked in basements round here.