1 When IKEA was founded 60 years ago by Ingmar Kamprad, he realised that customers did not mind queuing, collecting their purchases and assembling the furniture themselves as long as the price was right. Suggest why gaps in quality of service have opened up. Next week, Jane Fillimore will move into a new flat. You can tell something about the 28-year-old music-industry publicist from Kilburn, north-west London, from the list of furniture she is buying. There is the Pax Brivic wardrobe, the Norden dining table and the Bonde media storage combination. Fillimore wants style – but on a budget. She is part of Generation Ikea.

Not that she wants to be. She hates the Swedish retailer, and only last Sunday had her worst shopping day ever at the firm’s superstore in a drab retail park near the new Wembley stadium in London.