Once Upon A Time

I often ponder the ability of society to deal with the challenges that it faces, everything from alienation of the individual to degradation of the environment gets a look in. My general conclusion is a depressing one, to put it succintly we are screwed – the reason for this conclusion is simple….IKEA.

That’s right a budget flat pack furniture company founded by an alcoholic Nazi sympathiser will be the downfall of modern civilisation. Not because anything you buy from there comes with two left legs and the wrong size Allen key but because earlier this week some 5,000 fat bogans got up in the dead of night to stand in line for the opening of their latest superstore here in Melbourne. Seeing pictures of the wood ducks who queued up for hours my guess is they were lured in by the chance to buy hot dogs for $1 each. I would imagine that if someone had told them they had to walk some 2km from one end of the store to the other they might have thought twice about turning up.

It used to be that people stood in line to witness either an historic event or someone who had actually achieved something like making the first trans-Pacific flight to Australia in a tin can aeroplane. I am certain there are people who still do things and whose achievements should be lauded. Unfortunately they seem to get lost in the sea of mediocrity that passes for achievement.The days of honouring such people  seem to be long gone. Now we turn up to the opening of a furniture store.

The only positive I can see in this is that there is not much competition out there.