The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: Joy to the world

Joy points upward, according to Marie Kondo, whose name is now a verb and whose nickname is being trademarked and whose life has become a philosophy.

Last year at the Japan Society cultural centre in New York, she mounted a stage in an ivory dress and silver heels, made namaste hands (palms together gesture) at the audience and took her place beneath the display of a PowerPoint presentation.

Now that she has sold nearly six million copies of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and has been on the New York Times best-seller list for well over a year and counting, she was taking the next logical step: a formal training programme for her KonMari method, certifying her acolytes to bring the joy and weightlessness and upward-pointing trajectory of a clutter-free life to others.