The Front
I THE OPINION
God’s gift to home improvements?
Open all ours
r atria
i u ‘
Flat—pack religion
So the lkea catalogue now officially shifts more copies than the Bible. You sad, sad people. Words: Paul Dale ne of my earliest memories of school is being given a copy of the (inml News Bible. You remember — that‘s the one with all the hippie line drawings and deconstructed fundamentalism. l was told to bring the Bible back the next day with paper wrapped around it to protect the precious gift.
My mother is of Austro-llungarian. devoutly (‘atholic extraction. She and I spent that evening racking through the wallpaper samples to find something fitting. There was going to be no brown-paper-bag-minimalist Protestant-style- affair Bible leaving in my school bag the next day. that was for sure. We settled on a lime green and mustard vertical flock paper that ensured l was bullied and excluded from most social groupings for the next few years. I was. however. immenser proud of that Bible. and today it still winks out at me from my bookcase. the old paper slowly splitting up the spine.
My childhood faith has long since waned — much to my mother’s chagrin — but that old Bible anchors me in a way few books can. This vulgar coloured tome reminds me of the basic tenets of most religions: treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. love is generally better does than hate and that the few true moments of bliss in life come from the spiritual. not from the financial.
OK it‘s a slightly cheesy simplification. Offer us, but what are the alternatives‘.’ Flicking a art from through an lkea catalogue and wondering p how I can furnish my house to make it look overt like everyone else's‘.’ Investinv rare emotion " I' in pasta machines and Swedizh sofas while mater!a '8'“
a cold futility and disaffection eats its way dlseases into the hearts of my family and friends? soul?
Christian. Muslim. Judaic. Hindu or '
Buddhist faiths are far from the answers to
everyone's problems. but their core texts do at their very heart work on assumptions that human frailty. love and selfeffacing kindness can really be the only true rewards in a fairly pointless world. What does the lkea catalogue offer us. apart from overt materialism that diseases the soul and leads to spiritual bankruptcy“?
Decorate your home however you want. lead your life however you want — just don't tell me you will still be stroking the faded paper on the front of an old lkea catalogue in 20 years’ time. Or maybe you will be wondering why you never went to your own father's funeral and why none of your old friends seem to call round anymore. which is a good job really because you simply don’t have the time. what with all those out-of-town trips to the palace of blue and canary yellow.
Disagree? react@list.co.uk
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2 Death in Vegas
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3 AI Kennedy
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4 Alaska
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5 Calum Colvin
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6 Beth Orton
Music Frail she may be but with her new album Daybreaker, Orton proves she’s a contemporary heavyweight in the singer- songwriter field. Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow.
7 Daniel Kitson
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8 The Delgados
Music Summer anthems, psychedelic grandeur and tender nursery rhymes help make the Glasgow band's latest a classic. Prepare to love Hate. See review, page 112. Mantra.
9 Six Stages
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1 0 My Little Eye
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3v if Oct 20 )2 THE LIST 9