That's it, I'm leaving home - thanks Ikea | Rick Jackson

I’ve decided to move out of home so I am now looking for somewhere else to live. The situation has come serious.Why on earth did I not read the signs? But this is what happens when life is so busy and you take your eye off the ball.
FLATPACK: Only nine hours to go...FLATPACK: Only nine hours to go...
FLATPACK: Only nine hours to go...

If I was paying more attention I would have known my wife wanted to go to Ikea and I would have made sure I went with her to stop the inevitable.

You see, after about half-an-hour of mind-numbing walking around in a half-coma, knuckles dragging across the polished concrete unable to decipher what the time was and where on the planet I actually was, we’d leave.

But not this time.

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Sarah was free to roam around every single nook and cranny, picking up and inspecting each item individually.

You should have seen the inside of her car when she got home. Candles, zip up plastic bags, trays for my jumpers in the wardrobe which I don’t need, a lampshade, kitchen utensils, it goes on and on…

Then the bombshell.

Awaiting delivery is a double, double wardrobe to replace the two we have either side of the chimney breast in our bedroom.

Why we need to change them I do not know, but this unit will replace both our current ones and take up the entire side of one wall.

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She’s been inspired by our friends who have recently bought one. Apparently, she said, it only took NINE HOURS to assemble.

No marriage could possibly survive the construction of a double double wardrobe, especially when you have two small children running about the place.

So with this in mind, I’m looking for somewhere else to live. I don’t mind if it’s your spare room, may be you have a caravan? Just somewhere to sleep until the thing is built?

Apparently you can employ someone Ikea recommends to assemble such an item. Surely such a genius with the patience of a saint cannot exist?

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If they do, I’m happy to remortgage the house in order to pay them to put it together and save my marriage and my sanity!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Still spewing paper after all these years – check your fax

How many fax machines are still in use in the UK do you think? A request for information from the police, fire service and all councils, showed 653 are still churning out paper!

In these hi-tech days it’s incredible that the good old-fashioned written word is still needed. I checked and our fax machine at Wave 105 is still plugged in and working, but no-one knows the number. We last received a fax in 2009.

Bizarrely, football transfers on deadline day are still ratified by fax. Doesn’t a signed e-mail count? Apparently a high-profile transfer failed to go through on the stroke of 11pm during a summer transfer window when the ink ran out of the receiving fax machine!

Double standards in sport as coronavirus confusion reigns

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Italy in lockdown, no football until the end of April and travel more or less ruled out. In the UK, things haven’t got anywhere near as bad. Yet.

The government feels we wouldn’t take the banning of mass audience events seriously as the situation here hasn’t reached Italy’s heights. The Cheltenham Festival goes ahead, the Six Nations continues partially, but the Premier League ruled players weren’t to shake hands before a match.

A pointless exercise in rugby as England faced Wales at Twickenham. Obviously the players weren’t bothered about the virus considering Joe Marler’s cow-milking ‘manoeuvre’ on Welsh captain Alun Wyn Jones.

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