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I was never young


34theletterbetweenB&D

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Hands up anyone who didn't do anything stupid when they were young(er).

Most of the stupid things I did when young involved alcohol, adrenalin or both.

 

I frankly wouldn't consider having a kip in a d-I-y store to offer much of a "buzz" UNLESS it was on fire. :jester:

 

Stupid? More Lame and Tame IMHO.

 

John

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'The Shop From Hell' is how I usually pronounce it. (in the original format at Brent Cross it had a labyrinthine single track one way route through the store, which sausage machine required nearly four hours to navigate; unless prepared to elbow aside or trample the other victims in the pipeline. I was and did..

Have you tried the reduced scale version in many Petrol Stations and that's just to get as far as the till to pay!

 

The same applies to Supermarkets as the bread and milk are genearally a good hike to find!

 

Mark Saunders

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Shops are not the place to sleep overnight for the reason I mentioned - and more basically it's not down to the people who do it to decide it's acceptable to sleep in someone elses property when it is not permitted - do they buy the beds and bedding that can't be sold to the public ? do they pay for the security call outs if they trigger the alarm ? - I guess it's another case of sod everyone else I will do what *I* want. If they want to be stupid they can do it on their own property.

Let's be honest, there are plenty of reasons not to sleep in a shop overnight, I'm not sure that it burning to the ground is "the" reason, or indeed a very good one frankly.

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As one who spent a near quarter century in one of the most staid and conformist of professions, I welcome all attempts to subvert conformity today! :-)

 

Dave.

 

 I too spent 30 years in a staid and conformist profession, how conformist I was is open to debate. Now I'm free to do exactly what I want, but be careful Mad McCann excessive non conformity can lead to rejection and shunning by normal society. If as I suspect you're like me, you don't give a toss, and don't care who knows we're railway modellers :jester:

 

 

 I've heard rumours that at weekends the more subversive, wild and dangerous railway modellers hold "Illegal exhibitions" in empty school sports halls without permission.

The thrill of model railways being given the extra frisson of excitement by having to be ready to hurriedly dismantle the layouts and leg it when the police or caretaker arrives. I'm not sure if such wild goings on actually happen but it does sound quite good.

 

 Sadly I now recall that this scare story started with an article in the Daily Mail so it's probably not true. :cry:

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But there are (well-hidden) shortcuts! You can cut a good 75% off the transit time if you keep your eyes open.

 However it's a maze problem, and in the first week the North Circular unit opened and rammed full with a significant proportion of the population of North London in the store, and no one including staff knowing anything about the layout, not any easy one to solve...

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"I was so much older then but I'm younger than that now"

 

 Is that a quote from some Buddhist sage or was it Bob Dylan I can't recall which Arthur. A quote I quite like though.

 

 

 

Edit: Page 267. The Little Zen Companion, Workman Publishing New York.

Yes it was Bob Dylan. The books well worth a read too.

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As one who spent a near quarter century in one of the most staid and conformist of professions, I welcome all attempts to subvert conformity today! :-)

 

100% this!!  :jester:

 

 However it's a maze problem, and in the first week the North Circular unit opened and rammed full with a significant proportion of the population of North London in the store, and no one including staff knowing anything about the layout, not any easy one to solve...

 

This is the Neasden branch, isn't it? I pass it every day to and from work. It was a total nightmare when it first opened. The displays were all upstairs, and once you were up there, that was it - you were trapped! Inadequate safety provisions, near-total lack of emergency signage for fire exits, and an internal trail that went anywhere except to the cash desks.

 

As far as being ram-packed with North London's population, it turned out that this was nothing compared to what happened when the Edmonton branch opened up some years later; on the opening evening, IKEA fed the frenzy by offering substantial discounts on nearly everything, and customers were so desperate to get in that they simply dumped their cars on the A406 outside, blocking one lane. Once they had piled inside, fights broke out over the bargains - I remember seeing a photo of two couples having a tug-of-war over a sofa - and Edmonton Police Station's finest had to be called in. In retrospect, this was just a forerunner of the Black Friday riots which have hopefully now run their course.

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...This is the Neasden branch, ...

Probably. Not being a Londoner, I think of its areas by transport access. Thus the 'North Circular' location. (It would be very helpful to visitors if the locations were painted up prominently at regular intervals with dayglo dividing lines showing where the boundaries are.)

 

And one visit to IKEA was fully sufficient for me. Since that day in 198x (it was in that decade but which precise year eludes me) on which I swore a mighty oath never to return, I have not subsequently entered their premises.  

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Back in the mid-1980s, MrsB was approached, by a then-unknown Swedish furniture company who were looking to enter the UK market, to enter their design department. She now has a small personal taste of what it was like to have turned down the Beatles (or, more recently, the guy from KTM who turned down Ewan MacGregor and Charlie Bormann), as I regularly remind her. As I also remind her, though, at least she didn't have to change her name to Bent Soderstream or something ;).

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I'm no great lover of IKEA, but I recently gave a solid pine Tele cabinet which I had "inherited" to a charity shop,.

 

It had survived 9 strip-down/rebuilds for various house moves and/or "passings on". . . The first owner said, when she saw it in the charity shop, that she thought it was a new one

 

 

You couldn't do that with MFI stuff.

 

John

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But there are (well-hidden) shortcuts! You can cut a good 75% off the transit time if you keep your eyes open.

While there is now, not sure there was when they opened. As I remember looking for something like that at the Brum one many years ago.

 

All the best

 

Katy

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Let's be honest, there are plenty of reasons not to sleep in a shop overnight, I'm not sure that it burning to the ground is "the" reason, or indeed a very good one frankly.

 

Until it happens, who said it was "the" reason ? - quit trolling.

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Until it happens, who said it was "the" reason ? - quit trolling.

You did, as I quoted:

 

Shops are not the place to sleep overnight for the reason I mentioned

You said it once, then you posted the above to dismiss other opinions, as if your answer was the definitive correct one. People disagreeing with you is not trolling.
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Is Ikea like MFI was, but with more chipboard?

 

All joking aside, for what it is, Ikea's stuff is well designed and of good quality (in the context of flatpack chipboard furniture). Whilst it's  not going to become anyone's family heirlooms, if you're trying to furnish a home on a bit of a budget and haven't the time or opportunity to scour the secondhand market (or, if you're where I live, there isn't any real secondhand market) , there are worse options.

 

Having said that, I'm spending the break installing an Ikea kitchen that's been sitting in boxes in our spare room since February. My opinion may change over the next couple of weeks :D.

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It's certainly the butt of many a joke, but everything from IKEA I've built has been really nice to put together. Well designed, clear instructions, minimal pieces left over at the end!

 

That said... an hour is plenty, no desire to spend the night there!

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