Ikea Safari

So, the hunt was on. My quarry, the reclusive BORAT shelving system. It was dark outside and the wind was increasing. Cold rain poured from January skies and one major obstacle interposed itself between me and my prey - the M62. Has there ever been a time when there were not roadworks around Morley? I shivered, pulled up my collar and soldiered on.

Inside, the usual jungle noises were to be heard - the shrill calls of children run wild, the grunts of press-ganged fathers and the occasional "Oh for fuck's sake!" escaping under a woman's breath. And so, girding my loins, my quest began in earnest. I searched the aisles full of GRUNDSPLÅT, perused the selections of ØRZBISSKITs and stealthily negotiated the serried ranks of BAZTAAD bookcases, trying to avoid all the CLINTS. Still no sign of my elusive shelves.

Ikea is a form of torture for the half of the human race for whom shopping is never any kind of therapy. And Ikea's version must run a close second to waterboarding. Oh those fucking fiddly pencils! My, those crappy paper tape measures and what's with those long bloody item codes? You have to know the shortcuts to avoid having to walk through every section but - and here's the rub - the only way to gain that knowledge is to go to the store more often! 

Aha! I spy the objects of my desire. So, all I have to do now is take down the number, go to the warehouse and... wait... BORAT is sodding modular! I have to order uprights, brackets and shelves as separate items. And they're stored in separate aisles. I write down the handy twenty-seven-digit Dewey-decimals and set off for the shelves. After four hours I realise I've seen that sofa before; I've been going round in circles; so much for the impromptu short-cuts. I retrace my steps and dutifully follow the arrows this time until I'm rewarded and step through into a wondrous glade of treasures.

My senses are assaulted by the glitter and gleam of a thousand shining things I will never, ever need. My nose picks up the scent of candles - definitely not that way - on, on, past the soap dishes, the champagne flutes and the cutlery that can never work. On past the ridiculous rugs and throws, the knobs and handles and gadgets. Running on empty, my growling stomach warning I may starve here, I finally reach a wide clearing with tall stacks of silent, gloomy shelves. Ikea's very own Mordor.

Aisle 24, location 16. There are my brackets. I need 24 and they are all individually packaged. Bugger I forgot to get a trolley. Five minutes later, aisle 20, location 27 and I have the shelves. Now on to aisle 21. Where is aisle 21? These are all even numbers, what the f... Oh, over there. Aisle 21, location 37... is empty. Nooooooooooo! My cry echoes through the hall... I have to start over.

This all looks pretty straightforward...

So, mission accomplished, I finally have all the bits to build my shelves. I have the bits, the space, the time... now, where in hell did I put that drill?

Real Men

Real men don't push pens across paper, or scribble with mice on screens. (Yes I've had the tools out today.)

“How hard can it be?” was the popular cry from DIY have-a-go heroes of yesteryear when, armed only with a few rusty old tools, most men could make a passable job of putting up a shelf, relieving a sticky front door or adding a [admittedly potentially lethal] socket in the kitchen . All to be quietly put right when their better halves discreetly called in a professional once hubby was out at work. But at least they had a go and believed they could do it. 

Nowadays more often than not, said hubby isn’t out at work anymore so there can be no excuse (although he’s unlikely to be an actual hubby). Yet despite having available an arsenal of cheap and effective power tools it is less and less likely that those little household jobs will be carried out, er… in house. 

According to ‘research’ we are less inclined these days to pick up the screwdriver and even resort to getting a man in to tackle flat-pack furniture. Oh the shame. Gone, it seems, are the days when men could change a wheel, top up the oil and fit a fan belt. We mourn for the shed full of sharp tools handed down from father to son – for a start you’d have to work out who the father was in many cases. 

Boy Scouts used to routinely carry sheath knives and could be expected to do their best to whittle a woggle at the drop of a beret, but the fear of youth knife crime has put paid to that. In fact the fear of violence has even spread to a bid to ban glass from some pubs. What is bloody wrong with us? 

Could it be that the breakdown of a normal, family-based society and absolute paranoia about safety and fairness and self-esteem at all costs is at the root of all this? With predominantly female teachers in their early years (for fear of the paedophile tag that attaches to males involved with young children) it seems boys are destined to grow into their majority with neither a feel for nor a love of proper, manly tools. 

Coupled with our enormous brains, tools set us far apart from other animals; it’s what makes us supreme. But some would have us throw much of that away. A lack of hands-on manual education leaves many young men inept and unable to comprehend how things work. And knowing how things work is the ultimate province of boys and men – ask James May. 

Boys – academically inclined or otherwise – should learn the feel of a plane on wood, the beauty of turning a tree into a chair. They should be getting down and dirty and learning how machines work – and skinning their knuckles in the process. They should be looking forward to the smell of the metalwork shop and earning a few scars instead of ‘designing’ shit on a computer; yet another classroom simulation when the real thing is what they crave. 

Yes, yes, equality, blah, blah – the chicks can have a go too - but I’m guessing there will still be few female mechanics, plumbers, builders and so on. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for anybody being able to do anything, but don’t take the piss, eh, girls?) 

But, thankfully, help is at hand. If the Greens get their way nobody will be able to afford proper tradesmen any more – they’ll be too busy trying to pay their super-taxed fuel bills – so, sooner or later the lads will have to have a go at fettling on their own. 

If we can get manual skills back into education we’ll have a route for the non-academic, who have been sold false qualifications for years. We’ll also be able to make inroads into educating our own skilled workers, instead of importing them from Eastern Europe. And let’s call a spade a spade. It’s plumbers and carpenters and roofers and decorators we need on the ground, not inflated titles like ‘engineer’ or ‘designer’ or ‘project manager’. 

Let’s make manual work, work. Let's put the Y back into DIY.