Earlier in the week the Daily Telegraph reported that teams of police will be on guard to control crowds when a large new Ikea store opens in Coventry later this month. It’s hard to fathom exactly why police presence is required in the case of simply opening a furniture store. Is it that they’re they expecting hordes of middle aged couples to riot mercilessly over depleting stocks of an overpriced lampshade? Please don’t get me wrong, I realise Ikea shoppers are perfectly capable of reenacting scenes of the D-Day landings in their zealous attempts to snap up items like the Linford Christie designed shoe horn or the Wayne Sleep designed cat flap, so maybe police control is necessary after all?

Ikea’s invasion of our own nation very much seems to simulate these expectant scenes in Coventry. It rushed into our traditional pine furniture markets and killed them off in its pronouncement over the imperativeness of modernism and ergonomics. Even MFI is dying a slow death and as much as I had wished this is as a small child being dragged around its fitted office and kitchen spaces, I never stepped into an Ikea until much later.

Even then I don’t believe that I had to force my way inside, I believe I just walked in calmly and spent a nice Sunday afternoon wishing I had the money to buy a nice shiny little fork. I must admit though that I find it a little absurd this enthusiasm for people to go furniture shopping just to later be bamboozled with having to assemble nine pieces of irregular shaped wood with about seven types of screws. Still, I continue to wonder whether the citizens of Coventry will be relaxed in their response to the grand opening, or will the X-Factor be rudely interrupted by news broadcasts of an all out Ikea war in the Midlands? That would suddenly spice up a bland televisual experience of your usual Saturday night at home.