Read all of these instructions before starting the job.

Never again will I consider it warranted to malign Ikea instructions. By comparison with the flimsy leaflet which accompanied the "Pull Cord Swish" curtain rail, they represent the acme of precision and clarity.

After labouring for sixty minutes, taking an hour out for lunch, rest and recuperation and then continuing our intensive efforts for a further hour, it was disconcerting to accept that we were still a long way from actually hanging any curtains on the aforementioned apparatus.

The diagrams thoughtfully supplied for our assistance were as much use as the proverbial chocolate fireguard. How in the name of any Deity is it possible to have every bracket for each hook made of five separate moulded pieces each of which showed a grim determination at worst to explode and at best not to click smoothly into their appropriate niche.

Even as your hopes begin to rise and you fondly imagine that success is within your grasp, the necessity of working on the top platform of the all too wobbly steps, with both arms above your head, the screw driver clenched in your teeth, frantically attempting to catch a dislodged vital part is enough to precipitate an MI.

To discover, barely four hours after the starting pistol, when within a gnats whisker of hooking on the curtains, that there are not enough runners and that in order to put more on you have to access a screw which is now cunningly concealed on the back of the rack, thus meaning you have to dis-assemble the bloody thing is simply proof that it was designed, and I use that word very loosely, by a lobotomised rabbit.