Sunday night was the screamingly fun Girl Geek Dinner in Cork, and although our numbers dropped from twenty to a mere half dozen, we had a great time. It was more intimate than the (also fun) extravaganzas these meetups often are, and a wonderful chance not just to meet but to really talk and get to know one another.

Martha Rotter, Katherine Nolan, Ciara Crossan, GabrielaAvram, Alana James and I had a lovely meal at Proby’s around the corner from our new house; I brought my paint chips along because lately I have taken to accosting total strangers on the street and asking if they’d like to help me pick paint. We talked about everything from transatlantic moves to TiVo, and at one point during the telly phase of the discussion I confessed a shameful, shameful secret - I am in love with the recent ads from DFS:

I love this ad not because I am in the market for a new sofa (just bought mine, thanks!) but because I love the totally ordinary people rocking out in their livingrooms. Let’s face it: we have all totally done that. And hell, who doesn’t want a bathroom big enough to play baseball in? (Or a hot tub big enough for ten, for that matter…)

Of course, in the UK and Ireland, nobody who isn’t a rock star has a living room that is as spacious as any of the ones shown, let alone one that will fit most of these enormous sofas, but that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, I love the Nickleback tune used on the ad (full video) in the same way I secretly love Hello magazine and other trashy treats. It was a great choice for DFS, because home decorating is a transparently aspirational undertaking, and the Rockstar lyrics tell a transparently aspirational story.

I am, however, more than a bit mortified to discover that I am apparently DFS’s perfect demographic target. Except for the bit where I’d slit my wrists with a rusty nail before buying any of those hideous sofas, of course.