I have had a glimpse of the new catalogue. The new kitchens are not thrilling, but one of them might actually work better for what I have in mind than any of the old ones.
Laying your hands on the new IKEA catalogue is a big deal. Seriously. You will all think I’m mad (well, I expect you all think I’m mad already anyway), but I have kept the last 6 years’ worth of IKEA catalogues. Not only that, in those 6 years I have moved (counts on fingers) 7 times. And 4 of those catalogues are British. Which means I’ve paid £5 / 1 cubic foot x volume of 4 IKEA catlogues to bring them back to Norway…
And yet, for all the excitement: every year the new catalogue is looked forward to with eager anticipation. And every year it arrives, and turns out to be a disappointment. Why? Well, you see, in August 1996 I was sharing a flat with Janne in Trondheim (or, rather, she was sharing her flat with me, as I was renting a room from her). The 1997 IKEA catalogue arrived in the shops (you can get it at Narvesen in Norway when it’s just out – if you live in Oslo you get it in the mail, though), we paid our 10 kr (just over a dollar) and took it home. After having passed it back and forth over the table in the living room (“Just look at that!”) for a whole evening, the next day saw us at Narvesen again, ready to fork out for another copy so that we could have one each. We spent a happy few days (weeks, months?) each sitting in her favourite spot in the living room, browsing. The quiet was interrupted at intervals with: “Check out the rug on page 176” or “Did you notice the legs on that wardrobe on page 234?” Pure bliss.
And so, every year we wait with baithed breath for August to come around. And every year we gingerly open the catalogue and start browsing. And every year the woeful cry is the same: “It’s nowhere near as good as the 1997 edition!”
Maybe it wasn’t the catalogue. Maybe it was just the setting; good friends in comfy chairs sharing architectural plans for mansions in the clouds furnished throughout with good, solid and just cool enough for us, IKEA designs. I don’t know.
What I do know is that when I get my own copy this year and have had the time to look at it for more than I few seconds, I will turn on my computer, and if Janne is logged on, MSN messenger will convey, with a sigh: “It’s nowhere near as good as the 1997 edition!”
Music in my head: 24 hours from Tulsa (yes, I know, you’d like to know where that came from, wouldn’t you? Well, so would I, so: Tough.)