Silly Billies

The Guardian is doing rather too much of this recently.
Taking a press release or some other spurious commercial message and turning it into pseudo-journalism. Using it to pad out a column, or create a semi-news story at best. I've written before about the annoyance caused by Stephen Fry and his obsession with all things Apple. Now (or rather a few days ago) we have Lucy Mangan banging on about Ikea Billy Bookcases.

Let's see if we can understand what happened. Ikea decide to do a bit of a publicity thing about the fact that their basic, unstylish bookcase (Billy) product range is thirty years old. As a further hook they set up a competition for people to send in their favourite Billy-related photos and hacks.

Hacks.
Yes.

There really appears to be something called Ikeafans ('Personalising the Ikea experience'). See http://www.ikeafans.com/. Whether it is a real group or a marketing gimmick I don't know, but go to the site and you can see photos of some American's glass-fronted Billy shelving that houses her stylish collection of designer handbags. You can also read the exciting story of someone who vacuumed a spider up from behind their Billy. Riveting.

Anyway, Ikea get out this publicity meme, which then promptly infects Guardian writer Lucy Mangan. She manages to eke out an otherwise wafer-thin column by going on at length about her own Billy bookcases. She manages to announce that she has 21, and specifies which size she likes best and... Oh give me strength.

Let us set the record straight:
(1) This is not journalism. It may not even be proper writing.
(2) What it is, is very annoying.
(3) The Billy is far from being the best Ikea bookcase or shelving system. For me that would be Ivar (if you have to buy Ikea). Far superior.
(4) Yes, we have one Billy. I doubt we will be buying any more.
(5) You wouldn't get that much shelving from 21 Billies. Certainly not enough for a decent collection of reading material (the Ivar now, you can also use for double stacking, another point in its favour).
(6) It is illegal in this country to write about Ikea in a national newspaper without mentioning the horrible carparking and stupid checkout arrangements (the Guardian by convention is also obliged to speculate on the stories claiming a link with the Nazis). It is a simple exercise to show that in order to purchase 21 Billies Lucy Mangan has allowed Ikea to remove a subjective seven months from her conscious life.

And finally. There is one great woman writer (ie one great writer) still with the Guardian, for whom twee and wittering are allowed in small measures. Clearly, that is Nancy Banks-Smith. Mangan still has quite a lot to learn....