We have an enormous sofa. We call it The Beast.\r\n\r\nIt’s a Tetrad four person sofa that only fits in one place in the room – in front of the radiator. It’s so big it absorbs probably three quarters of all heat emitted.\r\n\r\nWhich should make it great to sit on. Hot and Big.\r\n\r\nBut no. It’s too deep to sit on without tucking legs and feet on the cushions. Imagine a sofa larger than a single bed. And the cushions are so big that people don’t sit on them as much as climb into them, and it’s hard to see out, let alone get out, once in there. And of course guests feel uncomfortable sitting without their feet on the floor.\r\n\r\nWe bought it as part of a three sofa strategy developed to allow at least nine people to sit comfortably in the room.\r\n\r\nWhy? I really can’t remember. It was something to do with growing a church.\r\n\r\nSo we have a very big sofa.\r\nGuests don’t want to sit on it\r\nThe room is cold.\r\nAnd we never have nine people in the room at the same time.\r\n\r\nWhich made us think, if buying the sofa didn’t bring people in, maybe if we got rid of the sofa we’d have more people over?\r\n\r\nWe paused for a moment.\r\n\r\nWhen spoken out loud that sounded as farcical as the weekly Sunday conversation about removing the pews in church.\r\n\r\nAs if removing the pews would grow the church …