Is it time to bring back the chintz?
Published in The Independent, 3rd February 2011
If you stop to think about it, Ikea is the Walmart of the furniture world, and yet it hasn't featured in the rogues' gallery of brands that anti-globalization activists love to hate. This is surprising.
With its brash, cloned, super-sized blue box developments on every continent but Africa, it offers an obvious target. At the very least, it is implicated in the death of traditional town centres caused by out-of-town retail parks and the decimation of smaller furniture manufacturers.
But Ikea has been hugely successful in getting us to buy into its Scandi-chic image and the promise of good design and functionality at rock-bottom prices. However much we moan about being funneled like lab rats through its maze-like stores, lots of people have a soft spot for Ikea. Albeit with a Swedish accent, it speaks the seductive, universal language of retail democracy devised by the Walmart founder, Sam Walton, subsequently perfected by Tesco. Every little Ikea tealight holder helps to make our homes that bit more stylish, or so we think.
But if "Ikea: Bringing great design to the masses" was reading book one, reading book two shows the chain in a more critical light. Last year, the International Labour Rights Forum highlighted allegedly unsafe practices in a Turkish factory supplying Ikea with bed linen. Ikea said its own investigations and that of an independent audit concluded that there were no major labour problems there.
Now, following an investigation by Sweden's SVT TV channel, Ikea stands accused of siphoning millions into a Lichtenstein tax haven. It is alleged that its founder, the famously parsimonious and somewhat eccentric Ingvar Kamprad, has been secretly running his empire via a foundation based there, which it is alleged helps Ikea to avoid paying millions in tax.
This may sound like the opening plot line from Stieg Larsson's thriller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo but any parallel with Mikael Blomkvist's fictional investigation into the tax affairs of Swedish tycoons stops there. If SVT's allegations are founded, it has uncovered nothing illegal, just the normal business practice of "tax-efficiency". Mr Kamprad flatly denies allegations that the foundation's aim was to avoid tax and insists that Ikea pays all its dues. "An optimised tax structure gives us the possibility of flexibility in using our assets that have already been taxed in one market," he explains.
But now that a spotlight has been shone on the tax-minimizing activities of corporations, thanks to initiatives such as Christian Aid's Trace The Tax campaign, Ikea may find itself in company with other global brands such as Vodafone and Unilever that have been targeted by campaigners for more transparency in their tax dealings. Vodafone stores have been closed down by angry street protests. Were it not for the fact that the sheer vastness of their façades makes them hard to picket, Ikea could be the next in line.
It was only a matter of time before the shine wore off Ikea, tax apart. Disillusionment goes beyond the fiendishly difficult assembly of its flat packs or the short burning time of its candles. Singlehandedly, Ikea has created a culture of disposable furniture.
Like Primark's too-cheap-to-refuse clothing offer, the chain has abolished the concept of durability, as evidenced by the mountains of its non-recyclable, throwaway furniture clogging up our landfill sites. Ironically, one of Mr Kamprad's oft-quoted homilies is "waste of resources is a mortal sin at Ikea"– a sentiment that clearly does not extend to its products once sold.
As those who run antique and charity shops will tell you, our old furniture was once worth keeping. Now the nation is awash with Ikea cast-offs fit only for the bin. Well-made, enduring mass-market furniture of yesteryear, such as Ercol, is in vogue, featuring prominently in vintage home makeovers. It's unlikely that Ikea will ever replace it. The brand already looks as collapse-prone as one of its flat-pack clothes racks.
Why should we be forced to wear our hearts on our lapels?
Published in the Sunday Herald on 7 Nov 2010
On Channel 4 News, presenter Jon Snow sports an eye-catching line in “statement” ties, but he steadfastly refuses to wear a Remembrance poppy.
Snow isn’t against red poppies as such. Many people are, seeing them as a public badge which indicates unqualified support for Britain’s military role in the world. But Snow doesn’t mount the pacifist’s objection that they serve to glorify militarism; he has simply said that he’ll be wearing one in church next Sunday, but “not on telly”.
Snow won’t bend the knee to those he has labelled “poppy fascists”, people who believe that public figures should not be seen outside their front doors without one in the days leading up to Remembrance Sunday. He is out on a limb here. The poppy-wearing three-line whip had licked all BBC presenters into shape before the end of October, and Andrew Marr and Clare Balding have been wearing them for weeks. X Factor contestants are wearing them en masse – they dare not do otherwise – while the celebrity judges are studded with Swarovski crystal versions at £84.99 a pop.
“Fascist” is an over-used insult, but in this context, Snow employs it with some justification. There’s a Nosey Parker, interfering, near-McCarthyite righteousness about the poppy-pushers. They start up their bucket-rattling chorus weeks before the memorial day. Nothing new here. These days, Christmas begins after the summer sales, and Hallowe’en lasts a month. Whether it’s Father’s Day cakes or Valentine’s cards, the financial imperative to spin out the propaganda and revenue-raising potential of landmark days in the calendar is powerful. Charities are also businesses, after all.
But true to the spirit of that long-gone senator’s attack on supposedly sinister fifth columnists, communists and assorted fellow travellers, there’s an inference of subversion, disloyalty, even lack of patriotism directed at anyone who doesn’t run with the pack. Remember the white pacifist version of the poppy? Most likely people were scared to wear them for fear of repercussions.
Snow isn’t seeking a fight, but he isn’t shunning it either. He has simply adopted a blanket ban on wearing “symbols” on the air. He believes that journalists should be free to question everyone and everything, and that there should be no sacred cows. This is the man, after all, who turned down an OBE, then investigated and presented a documentary titled Secrets Of The Honours System.
Snow is right to refuse to wear such symbols because it compromises his journalistic freedom to pose awkward questions. When you have an Aids charity’s ribbon on your lapel, how can you probe the organisation’s management of donor funds, or examine how vested interests in the pharmaceutical industry shape medical research?
On practical grounds alone, if Snow were to support every worthwhile cause by wearing one of the now expected symbols of support, he wouldn’t have any space left on his arm or lapel. The poppy was the precursor of the red Aids ribbon, the pink breast cancer ribbon and the Marie Curie daffodil. Thanks to the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s prototype “livestrong” wristband promoting cancer research, we have witnessed an explosion of “awareness bracelets”. Wear one to show that you want to make poverty history, or beat bullies, or help heroes, or show solidarity with the victims of Hurricane Katrina, or for kidney donation.
There’s a band for multiple sclerosis, diabetes, pancreatic cancer, epilepsy, even wrist injury. A “Godstrong” bracelet, popular in the US, reminds you to “overcome temptation through the awesome power of Christ”. Why choose among them? Just wear the lot and turn yourself into a walking billboard of conspicuous compassion. Accessorize with a red nose.
Snow’s sentiments also resonate with those of us who feel instinctively uncomfortable with stage-managed, public displays of grief and compassion, however worthy the cause. He resists that increasing modern pressure to be seen to emote in public. Let others wear their hearts on the sleeves, or rather, lapels. Whatever thoughts he may or may not have about war’s profligate use of human life, he prefers to keep these to himself, or reflect on them at a designated time and occasion, and with due dignity.
Now that conspicuous displays of grief are ubiquitous, this stance is becoming distinctly old-fashioned. From the televised police press conference with weeping parents of murdered children, to the psychobabble of those stage-managed talent shows where misty eyes and supportive cuddles are the order of the day, the expression of grief and compassionate sentiment becomes ever more in-your-face and expected. These days, there are always tears before bedtime.
This need to show we care in public is the opposite of the old-school stiff upper lip. When the Queen remained stoney-faced following the death of Princess Diana, while central London filled up with sobbing citizens and a sea of floral tributes, the red-top press exhorted her to “show us you care” by shedding a tear for the cameras. The popular thirst for conspicuous emotion demands mawkish sentiments and overt signs of distress.
Returning to Mr Snow and his lack of a red poppy, why is it that if Snow is prepared to wear one in private, he is opposed to being seen to wear one in public? I suspect he feels that this would identify him as part of the establishment, and he believes that good journalists should keep a healthy distance from it. His fellow presenter, Sarah Smith, says she is wearing a poppy. She prefers to cave into the Tea Party-type pressure not to offend. “They are so ubiquitous for the first 11 days of November that not wearing one makes more of statement than having one on,” she says. “All our guests and interviewees are wearing them.”
This is conformity in the pursuit of a quiet life. Jon Snow’s dogged, free-thinking obstinacy, on the other hand, is principled. It will earn him more public respect in the long run.
Money can’t buy you love, Cherie … not even on eBay
Published in Sunday Herald on 31st October 2010
Now that Cherie Blair has been “outed” as having an eBay habit, we can finally lay to rest the idea that bargain-hunting is driven by necessity.
The Blairs aren’t short of a bob or two: their estimated joint fortune stands at £60 million. And what with his multi-tasking work portfolio, and her demanding job as a high-flying barrister, you’d think that they would definitely fall into the “cash-rich, time-poor” demographic. In other words, loads of dosh and not enough time to spend it.
But this month alone, Mrs Blair has found the time to buy six Mappin & Webb soup spoons for £17.50, a fish cutlery set for £34.99, a Magimix food processor for £219, and a set of bathroom scales for £1.64. Just a few of the 100 or so objects she has traded over the past two-and-a-half years using the popular internet auction site.
Cherie’s internet purchases may in part explain how the officers from the Diplomatic Protection Unit who guard the couple’s properties – such as their £5.75 million Buckinghamshire mansion and their £4.36m Bayswater abode – pass their time. Can’t you just see them as the FedEx, Parcelforce and UPS delivery vans draw up with mysterious, oddly-shaped packages, their metal detectors at the ready and bomb disposal experts on red alert, all to find that Cherie has bagged another iPad case for 99p.
I doubt that life in the fast lane leaves Cherie time to scuttle down to the Post Office in person and wait in the queue for Christmas stamps and welfare benefits to dispatch goods for sale on eBay, but she did nevertheless manage to sell that Locman Mare titanium watch which looked awfully like the one that Silvio Berlusconi gave to Tony, the one the Blairs paid for to keep when they left Number 10.
You have to admire Cherie’s business acumen in conjuring up a profit out of thin air. Who else would think of selling her husband’s bookplate signature for a tenner, even if she did have to discount it from £20? Mrs Blair says this exercise was to make the point that people were selling his signature for a profit when you can get one for free. She promptly refunded the money thereafter. But where does she find the time for all this buying and selling?
Various explanations are advanced for Cherie’s perceived acquisitiveness. She’s mean. She’s grasping. She’s programmed to feel poor because of her straitened upbringing as a working-class Scouser. Or – and I find this more persuasive – she’s bored and a little bit lonely. It’s easy not to like Cherie, but in this respect, is she really that different from all those citizens who while away many precious hours of their lives on e-commerce?
Last week, it emerged that the UK has the largest online economy in the world. If the internet was an economic sector it would be our fifth largest, outweighing the UK’s construction, transport and utilities industries. Whether it’s the virtual vintage saleroom, or those price-comparison, shop-around-for-deals websites, e-bargain hunting has become a national addiction. It goes well beyond the realm of what people want or need. As any huntsman will tell you, it’s the chase, not the quarry that matters.
Where once the mildly obsessive could take out a subscription to Which? and analyse to death the wisdom of any purchase, out there in the e-swamp, you can lose yourself for hours, bidding for bargains and shaving pounds off totally superfluous purchases. The tragic aspect of this new compulsion is that it has become a way of passing time, a hobby. As the nights become as black as pitch and temperatures dip, an evening spent on eBay becomes a TV alternative. It’s retail therapy by another name, but because it’s nominally in aid of a bargain, we can put it down as financial prudence. If our purchase is secondhand, we can give ourselves a pat on the back for recycling.
But is e-commerce a harmless activity? Well, it certainly beats mugging OAPs or joyriding. If there’s harm involved, it’s self-harm. The problem with e-commerce is that it allows you to withdraw from the chitter-chatter of human interaction. Whether it’s standing in an elbows-out queue for the jumble sale, or mixing with the colourful, possibly dodgy fraternity at the car boot sale, or flicking through clothes rails on the high street, or laying on a bet at the bookies, commerce in the real world means you have to deal with people. You have to step outside your own door and interface with a flesh-and-blood community.
In e-commerce, technology takes over from human contact, unless you count bidding for an Afghan rug from Mr A Smith in Keswick, who won’t deliver, as dialogue. Minutes turn into hours as you pore over page after interminable page, staring into a cyber-maze, opening up one ghastly window of possibility after another. Lonely, listless people – and there are lots of them in rich countries like ours – get sucked in.
It’s not just the choosing that eats up time, it’s the receiving. All that malarkey about not being in when the purchase arrives, the trek to the sorting office or the hanging round for the redelivery that doesn’t materialise. Then there’s the disappointment when you realise that the grainy image that looked so promising after your prolonged internet hunt is just another piece of clutter that will have to be turfed. Oh for the simplicity of a real shop, with staff and objects that you can see and touch.
Typing “dining room chairs” into eBay’s ponderous search engine, I come up with 7100 hits. But do I really want to enter this Kafkaesque nightmare of infinite choice? Maybe I’ll concentrate on post-1950 antique desks instead. There are only 4560 of them.
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