SO you want to know the secret to living and happy and contented life? Well, it’s simple – buy a bigger sofa. Equally, do you want to know why so many people are desperate and depressed? It’s precisely because they don’t have a bigger sofa.

And why should a bigger sofa make all the difference when foreign holidays, sex and drink have all failed?

Because advertisements and television commercials all show us the happy, successful – and let’s not forget very attractive – people do have vast sofas. Or to be pedantic, brand new sofas they don’t need to pay for until next year.

Still, if it’s not a commercial for sofas, then it’s a commercial for a new type of floor cloth or an aerosol that cloaks those embarrassing smells in the toilet and in each and every one, a cute couple can be seen getting fresh on a sofa the size of an olympic stadium.

Is it any wonder then that so many of us who don’t own these types of sofas begin to feel unsatisfied with our lot and start wondering if we haven’t somehow failed.

Of course, it doesn’t happen overnight.

Overnight, you meet the man or woman of your dreams, marry, buy a house and produce kids. But night after night as the rest of your life passes by, these commercials – screened every 15 minutes or so – begin to get under your skin.

Stealthily.

Subliminally.

And face it, if that wasn’t their purpose, why would the brands they so keenly push pump millions of pounds into boasting about their latest tampon or baby wipe that has suddenly become the must-have item for all social climbers?

Naturally, they do it because they know it influences you big time. About every quarter of an hour or so.

So what to do if your sofa or tampon doesn’t stretch from Didcot to China?

Once upon a time I’d have said have sex. But not any more. The number of twenty-and thirtysomethings who now use new wardrobes and double glazing as a substitute for what comes naturally is truly saddening.

All they should be caring about is drinking shots and getting sweaty (and god bless the Italians for doing just that). Instead, it seems they spend their weekends milling around malls and carpet warehouses.

It depresses me more than I can express. That glazed look you see in the eyes of couples who’ve just signed away a holiday in the Maldives for a solid oak dining table. In fact it cuts so deep, I sometimes want to intervene and say ‘stop’, matching chairs can wait, get some good memories first. Can this bedside table really match the thrill you first felt when kissed in the back row of a cinema by the person you loved? No.

But for what’s it’s worth, let me state, my sofa isn’t big nor boasts built-in speakers.

It’s old, comfy, and soaks up spilled glasses and that does bring me joy...