My fucking childhood
Anyone who has watched the whole 'Rola Cola' sketch that Peter Kay got famous for will know my plight. My Mum has been disabled for as long as I can remember and during my childhood, the money my Dad recieved for looking after her was a pittance - thus getting to the cheapo meals etc.
By far the worst experience was the clothes though. A big bearded man (who until recently I thought was called 'Mr. Bernardos') that looked like Tregard from Knightmare would come round every year with a black sack full of shit and me and my bro had to dive through and see what fitted best and had the least stains in. I remember finding some white Bart Simpson swimming trunks that had the phrase "don't have a cow, man!" written on them and I cherished those little bastards and couldn't wait until school let me use them.
The swimming trip came along and upon jumping into the water I noticed my shorts basically didn't exist anymore (as now you could see my cock and balls floating around in the shallow end) so I had to walk the gauntlet of shame in my see-through trunks whislt trying to hide my man bumps.
On the subject of school - I never had a uniform for the first 11 years of my life as my family couldn't afford one. I wouldn't mind, but my clothes were shit and everyone looked at me anyway because my parents could only afford 1 hair cut a year (my dad eventually bought a trimmer). I was lent a jumper from my bud to have my school pics taken and when I finally did get an 'upper school' uniform, I left my blazer on the floor when I was conker picking and a cow ate it and my cheapo replacement one that a local charity bought for me (which had Sharon written inside it... I'm a man Goddamnit) got shat on by a bird within a month of me having it (strange purple colour) and the stain wouldn't come out.
This gives you a slight insight into my shitty, cheap childhood and the only reason why we can afford the basics now is that my mum's condition has gotten worse and they allow my dad full-time pay (even though he's 66)
Happy fucking new year
(Merrick I cure cats with hammers, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 17:35, 2 replies)

John Ruskin's Common Law of Business Balance
"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money -- that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot -- it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

He was a very clever man, and never shopped at Argos.
(rogerzilla, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 17:31, 1 reply)

Can anyone else see the irony?
Of this cheap tat question?

No?

Just me?

OK
(Jugular, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 17:27, 1 reply)

*insert unsavoury title here*
As a student, I used to live on the Tesco Value range. This went surprisingly well when, for example, I discovered that Tesco Value White bread is exactly the right size to accomodate four Tesco Value fishfingers (a sandwich which has never been bettered, in my opinion).

Being a boy though, I never had much use for one product in their range, thank god. At the end of the aisle one day, my housemate and I spotted the Tesco Value Sanitary Towels.

Christ on a pogo-stick, they were MASSIVE. a pack of six towels was the thickness of a decent-sized school gym crash-mat. If they'd slipped one of these things between the mattresses in The Princess and the Pea, she wouldn't have felt a thing. I doubt they had wings, what with the risk that a sudden gust of wind could transport the wearer into the nearest jet-stream.

Ever since then, I've wondered whether Tesco Value condoms are available. If there's a god, they won't be flavoured.
(costas, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 16:42, 9 replies)

Power Tools
I used to work for a company that sold, amongst many other things, power tools.

One of the things I found out while I was there was that your average* Black & Decker, B&Q etc tools have a design-life of one hour.

So in effect they're designed to break after an hour's use.

Bear in mind that this doesn't mean they'll only last you an hour. Drilling a hole? Maybe 10 seconds. Drilling a hole in something really hard? Perhaps 20 seconds.

And so your hour of life can last for several years.

It still amazes me though... 1 hour's life. Therefore, nearly every power tool you own is cheap tat =)


*By "average", I mean the bog-standard ones. As you pay more, such as for "Professional" quality stuff, like DeWalt, then they're designed to last much much longer, apparently.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 16:23, 7 replies)

Dilbert reminds me
I saw a t-shirt once that had a big LIDL logo on it.

With the words; "Coz I'm too pikey for Iceland"
written underneath.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 16:19, Reply)

Another anti-answer
I had a "separates" Hifi system in the loft for the last couple of years. When I bought it was top-notch, 5 stars in What Hi-Fi, over £150 for each bit.

But that was a long time ago. I checked Ebay and each bit was only fetching about £10 and nobody wanted it, so I decided to take it to Merton recycling center. They have a bit for electrical equipment, where the sign says they "repair and reuse" equipment.

So I opened the boot and proudly showed the man there what I had brought. "Its in new condition as you can see!" I said. "You won't even need to fix it, you can keep it yourself if you like!".

"Thanks very much!" said the man, as he took the CD player, amplifier, radio and speakers out of the boot one by one, and threw them as hard as he could into a pile, so that his mate could take a running jump and crush the equipment underfoot.

I don't know what I expected them to do with it, I suppose it was patronising to expect them to want the stuff, but as I drove away I hadn't felt so depressed in months.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 16:18, 8 replies)

i hate poundland
Today i had the pleasure of dragging my self out of bed at 4am to go to work in a kingdom of crap known as a pound store. I'm an auditor for a fairly big inventory specialist group and was sent on my way to a store in SE London with my waistcoat and tool belt like thing. Seven hours i spent in that store, doing the shop floor first which was fine although it was pretty surprising the amount of people banging on the door at half eight or whatever time it opens demanding to know why we wouldn't let them in. How desperate must you be to rush out in the early hours to get to a pound shop?

Upstairs it got worse.. i was put in the toiletries section and i can honestly say i'm not so keen to buy my super cheap hygiene/beauty products from them now (everything was coated in grime and dust and smelt horrid). Boxes and boxes of stuff chucked in with all sorts, old sun cream lotion, glitter gels, shaving foam had exploded leaked and soaked into every crevice it could possibly sneak into. Out of date chocolates/drinks spilling out of boxes with new ready for shop floor stuff. In a word .. GROSS. Not to mention all the rat traps under the shelving and racks. Oh and not forgetting the rat/mouse poo that was in these boxes along side all the delightful little items they sell for a pound. Nice eh?
( Threnody - Is a filthy, filthy bibliophile & you love it, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 16:12, 2 replies)

That reminds me...
It's going to be a long one...

My previous post reminded me of this...

Morrisons is the supermarket of choice for those who feel they are too upmarket for asda. A home for the troglodytes/chavs/marsupials that seem to populate our society these days...

My housemate and I decided to host a party in the style of fancy dress, as you do, and as part of the role of host i decided to whip up some flavoured vodka (favourites being skittles, werthers originals and xtra strong mint varieties).

Morrisons decided that this weeks special offer would be litres of obsure brand vodka for £5 each... bargain thought I!

Four litres of vodka, several packets of the finest sweeties money can buy, and a weeks worth of brewing/fermentation later, the evening was set... my classy ninja costume secured i was ready to wow my guests with vast quantities of alcohol, stunning choons and conversational wit...

It started well, The winter fairies from down the road were getting on well with the witches and warlocks from the other side of town... The mexican farmer was slowly trying to worm his way into Action Mans pants, and Daisy Duke seemed to be enjoying herself with the Jock in drag...

and then it all went a little hazy, the cheap vodka did not mix well with the copious amounts of beer and weed... various puddles of red, yellow and white began to appear around the garden, my stomach started to quiver in time to the bassline... things were not looking good...

By this point it was too late to warn anyone, the last of the vodka was consumed, the garden was full of vomiting fantastical creatures, the dwarves were hurling on the elves, who were in turn vomiting on the fairies. The evening had degenerated into chaos...

suffice to say, that was the end of the evening, everyone who was in a fit state left as soon as they were capable, those unable collapsed where they were in soggy heaps. I have no recollection of the remainder of the evening apart from answering the door to my loudly complaining neighbour, and when told to keep the noise down answering with a well thought out reposte of "Bleeuuughh" complete with chunks of sausage roll from my nostrils...

I learnt my lesson though, never, EVER buy cheap vodka... it'll be the death of you and quite possibly your friends...

If you click "i like this" I'll post some of the pics from the night in question...
(Nuclear Ninja like a radioactive Chuck Norris..., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 16:10, 11 replies)

This is kind of an anti-answer...
Back in 1988 we got our first house [only possible with my parents' help as it was a 2-bed terrace in Hounslow and cost a fortune: £77,000 - but that's a bit of a tangent]. With a house - especially one in an advanced state of disrepair - comes work. When skint, this work is necessarily self-inflicted; when married, it is to the man that the noisy/heavy work devolves.

Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of a small house is in need of cushions...and shelving. Shelving to put cushions on and cushions to put on shelving; when the shelving is full of cushions, it is not time to get rid of cushions, it is time to put up more shelving. I needed a drill, and by lucky happenstance, my brother had a drill he was willing to give me. It was a bottom-of-the-range Black & Decker, features included: one speed, uni-directional, smooth/hammer action, short flex, turquoise coloured. It was small and light enough to hold easily in one hand but had grooves on it enabling easy two-handed action. But hey, it worked...in fact it worked hard and long and often.

For a while I trained and then worked as a cabinet maker. The drill got even more regular use, I learned to use it carefully, got the best from it.

We did the place up, sold it just as prices were falling and moved north. Bought another do-er up-er, got the drill out, more plugs, screws, planks, shelving. Did furniture design at uni, then got a job at one point as an odd-job man at a pub (have drill, will travel), we moved house again etc. etc. The poor old drill got more and more scratched up, I'd forget to change bits and forced the drill to make holes with blunt ones. Then after a while, there was no difference between the hammer action and the smooth - it was worn down to nothing. The motor would spark like crazy and smoke a bit when pushed. The plug got loose, bits would spin in the chuck and need re-tightening after a while - I'd lose bits in walls as they unscrewed themselves deep in cavities.

1998 - another house, more work. My tool box (well, three boxes really) resembled the back of a workman's van: bits of plumbing, electrical bits, gubbings from a washing machine, wire wool, clout nails, washers, wood stain, araldite, a candle stub, rawl plugs, 13 amp plugs, 2" sink plugs, allen keys, radiator keys, chuck keys, tenon saw, dovetail saw, mitre saw, keyhole saw, jigsaw, three hammers, two planes, four chisels, two bradawls, six screwdrivers, plane blades, old drill bits, jigsaw blades and about 850 different types of screw from 1/8 inch brass slot-head No.2s to 120mm No.12 cross-head super-screws. The old drill quietly celebrated its 10th birthday un-loved and neglected.

Finally - 2004, we're wandering around the DIY store when I see a new powerful drill. It has a variable speed, slow-start, dual action, reversable motor. It has a handle attachment so it's a bit like an AK-47, it's silver, it has it's own case and a very long lead. It comes with 20 drill bits - 10 for wood, 10 for masonary - did I mention it was silver? It's on special offer, reduced from £59.99 to just £29.99...it's nearly my birthday. My dear wife says: "Why don't you get it? That old drill of yours won't last much longer anyway." So I do, and I take the old drill to the dump - carefully place it down in the metal/electrical trailer, give it one last pat and walk away.

And do you know what? I don't like the new one much; it's too heavy, it's too big to get into awkward places, the flex gets tangled, it's hard work and difficult to get it to go back into it's smart carry-case. I miss that old drill - cheap tat though it was.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:41, 5 replies)

Not really cheap tat...
But one of my favourite "skint" shopping methods is to trawl the Special offers/BOGOF deals on the ends of the aisles in supermarkets.

Surprisingly you can live on 4 for 3 cans of tuna and 50% extra free swiss rolls for a considerable amount of time...
(Nuclear Ninja like a radioactive Chuck Norris..., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:41, 3 replies)

Inner city v west country
Not a cheap useless crap story, but I often enjoy browsing the pound shops in Dalston, one of the more run-down areas of the UK's best borough, Hackney.
Quite apart from the bargains there are always a healthy population of cranks, crackheads, community cases and asorted loonies to make the trip worthwhile. If anyone wants a pre-Xmas adrenalin rush check out Dalston Argos. It scared the shit out of me.
So anyway here I am with my smug point of view and off I go to the safe west country city of Wells , with its beautiful cathedral and marvellous pedestrianised shopping mall.
Well would you believe, I went into the nearest pound shop and there's a pikey family beating the crap out of one another by the checkout till.

Made me feel quite homesick.
(tonyhrx, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:26, 4 replies)

Reminded by PKM's story
The missus and I, similarly requested to receive no wedding gifts, mostly because we weren't throwing a 'proper do' and thought it unfair, but also because we'd already lived together for years and had already accumulated an impressive array of household tat.

Our parents insisted on some form of generosity to mark the occasion (we were actually wealthier than them at the time but...) so we opted for generic vouchers to buy a few household items.

From the proceeds we bought ourselves a nice expensive new cordless phone because our old one's battery life had diminished to approximately five minutes. 18 months on and the battery life of the new one is about 20 minustes and falling.

We also bought a 'posh' kettle. Our trusty tesco value one had been going well for years, but we thought it'd be nice to have a trendy glass 'see the water boil' one. We never ever used the 'keep warm' function on it and a few months ago the cut-off switch broke, so if you don't switch it off manually it turns the kitchen into a sauna and would presumably boil dry and start a fire.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:26, 3 replies)

Student Houses and the "quality" brand goods within...
My good friend Alex and I have had many a laff over the cheap crap utensils, white goods etc. provided in the student houses we lived in over the 2 years of hedonism, booze and Trisha that constituted uni life.

We once compiled an exhaustive list (in between the hedonism, booze and Trisha it sometimes got a bit boring avoiding work) of all this cheap toot. Of what I can remember, our hoover was labelled "The Boss" & we had a "Candy" washing machine that had 12 settings and only worked on one, and even then that would take 1 1/2 hours to go through a cycle.

The drum was so small you could fit about 3 pairs of jeans in it before it was full. The walls in our first house were so thin that when a man came to fix our bathroom extractor fan he drilled into my friend's bedroom. We had "underfloor" heating because the hot water pipes were so close to the surface of the flooring.

In a similar vein, the oven in the kitchen was against the lounge wall so that when you were sat watching telly you didn't need any heating on even in the depths of winter.

However, the crowning jewel in our crappily fitted houses was our pride and joy - the Horstmann Amethyst 7 "boiler" which failed to work unless both the hot water and heating switches were turned on. It was 60% efficient - according to the engineer who came in numerous times and attempted to fix it - and was so old that the plumber (who was attending for other reasons - our last house was pretty out of shape) told us that he'd never even seen one, and he'd been doing the job for 25 years.

It eventually got replaced after a lengthy battle.

In June.
(vilestkitty, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:23, Reply)

Anyone for tennis
Bought a pair of tennis rackets and two balls for a pound! Bargain!
Got to 30-all before everything shattered into a million pieces.
(tonyhrx, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:14, Reply)

Pound shop beats Wickes
As a typical bloke, I like to buy tools. Powertools are especially exciting, although any tool I have the vaguest notion of using at some point during the remainder of my life, I'll buy to stow in the depths of my shithole, erm garage.

Hence, browsing "Everything's £1" and purchasing a medium size bricklaying trowel to sit unused for about a year. When beginning my landscaping / bricklaying project I obviously needed to splurge on a great deal of materials and new tools. Since I was in Wickes, I picked up a new bigger trowel (lovely, as I was to be laying a LOT of bricks.)

The project gets underway and the expensive trowel from wickes works well, although makes my wrist ache a bit through the weight of cement carried on the elongated 'blade'. Within a few courses of bricks, the handle decides it no longer wishes to be attached to the blade and promptly works free, I had a rummage among my 'crap' and produced the poundland trowel which was not only more comfortable to use, but has been effective through 95% of the work so far and shows no sign of failing to complete the task.

Sometimes (admittedly rarely) you don't get what you pay for.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:10, Reply)

And TheWeeWitch has just reminded me of another one.
When my ex-wife and I got married, we told people not to buy us stuff, but if they really wanted to get us something then just some money or vouchers would be great (yes, I know... I hate the idea of that now, but never mind, it's done and I can't change it).

Most people did indeed give us money or vouchers, mainly for Argos, which was fine.

One couple though brought this massive...

Well, this massive glass ...thing.

Seriously, it was like a giant glass copy of the FA Cup, made by someone who wasn't really sure what the FA Cup looked like.

I don't know if it was a bowl, or a vase, or something for putting dried flowers in, or what. It was about 2 feet tall, and depending on which way up you stood it you either had a massive bell-shaped bowl resting on a little inverted cone, or a little cone-shaped bowl resting on a giant bell-shaped base.

It doesn't really fit with this QOTW as I don't think it was cheap, but it was most certainly tat... needless to say, I wasn't in a hurry to take it with me when we split up.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:10, 1 reply)

More £1 headphones.
These ones were absolute cack. The wires were incredibly thin, and snapped after about 2 uses. But that didn't matter because the sound quality was so shit - both distorted AND so quiet that you couldn't hear it at the same time.

I took them back for a refund. They told me they didn't do refunds. I threw a strop.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:04, 1 reply)

Every raincloud has a silver lining...
Well - the cheapest, most useless tat I ever bought was an umbrella. £3 for about 20 seconds worth of protection from the rain, until it decides it would rather invert itself and fly off wildly.

However - it did actually also turn out to be one of the more useful items I have ever purchased. Said incident of umbrella wind buggery happened at work - right as a rather lovely member of the opposite gender was walking in the other direction... and was randomly assaulted by my flying umbrella.

Thankfully, she saw the funny side of it, and turned out to be very very nice indeed! Thanks Woolworths!
(Ant Marching And for my next trick... GWARGGHHGWWGGGH!, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 15:02, 1 reply)

Wedding pressies
Well, it was a loooong time ago, but this has just drifted back into my memory after reading Chickenlady's post below...

Neither myself nor Mr Witch come from rich families, so we didn't post a list at Jenners (then Edinburgh's answer to Harrods, now just another House of Fraser shop). We just left it up to the guests....

Don't get me wrong, we got some beautiful (and well chosen) gifts. We also got some absolute tat.

The salad bowl and servers....... the bowl had some kind of metal round the rim, which rusted the first time it was washed. The servers didn't rust, but then they were plastic! Nice. Back in the box, round to the charity shop.

The "storage jar set" it said on the box, which contained two jars, both marked "coffee". Back in the box, round to the charity shop.

Last but not least - the towel bale. M&S, not cheap. Horrible mauve colour, though. Can't live with them, thought I. Took them back to the shop for an exchange, assistant couldn't get the label to scan. She eventually checked the stock number, and found that these particular towels had been removed from stock three years before. Which, funnily enough, was the same length of time the giver had been married! So, if someone gives you awful towels as a wedding gift, hold on to them and then recycle! Yep, you guessed it, round to the charity shop.

Actually, that charity shop did really well out of us. Especially when we moved and donated another load of presents we hadn't even used.

Still, its the thought that counts.....
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 14:52, Reply)

browser's James Bond watch reminded me of this
On holiday in Turkey a few years ago I soon realised that everything was fake.

Mostly this didn't really matter - I bought a leather belt for my jeans for about £2 and although it's fake, it holds my jeans up and since my shirts are always untucked no-one will see it.

So, quietly smug because I wasn't getting suckered by all the fake items everywhere I didn't buy tons of t-shirts which would shrink in the wash and jeans which only fit deformed people.

However, I saw a nice watch and decided I must have it. £6 didn't seem to expensive even if it only lasted a few months, and it was nice looking, silver with a discreet (ie: small!) Ferrari logo (like this) on the face, near the 12 o'clock position. Perfect.

Only when I got it home, I noticed that the Ferrari logo was actually back to front.

So actually, I didn't have a Ferrari watch... I had a Lloyds TSB watch. Hurrah!
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 14:48, 5 replies)

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned
House Spirits, and in particular Vodka.

Was doing a pub crawl in Sawston (which is never a good thing anyway) and ended up in some even more dingy and rougher than normal place, and they were doing discounts on house doubles.

Oh.

My.

God.

it was like paint thinners would taste if you pissed in it and left it on the side for a week (allegedly!)

2 day hangover and a throat that felt like it had been raped with sandpaper didn't help either
(Halfy By light alone, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 14:44, 1 reply)

James Bond watch
I bought a watch in Bangkok that was also a lighter. You pressed the bezel and a flame came out of the top of the dial.

I was pretty smug until a girl came over and asked me for a light, and managed to give myself an almighty electric shock and burn her fringe with a giant flame at the same time.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 14:39, 2 replies)

Stroh 80
Do not drink this if you want to speak the next day. Do drink it if you want to go blind.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 14:30, 10 replies)

Young Chickenlady the snob - Cheapest EVER wedding
Back in my late teens/early twenties I dated a chap who received a wedding invitation from one of the guys he'd been at college with.

We went out and purchased a lovely china vase from one of the department stores in town - you can never have too many vases in my opinion. It was the ideal wedding present for someone I didn't know at all and my then bf knew only slightly.

The weeks rolled around and the bf was all set to go on the Stag Night. I was to drop him at the agreed pub (one of the roughest in town...) and then I planned to go home for a quiet night in front of the TV.
Reached the pub and the bf asks me to go in with him for a quick drink - I'd get to meet the groom and the bf would have the opportunity to show me to his mates....

But the pub was empty...except for the groom.

And his bride to be.

So I stayed with the intention of leaving once the best man turned up, as did the bride.

The four of us had a quiet evening.

Skip forward to the following weekend...

The Big Day

The church ceremony was in a small mining village near Dover, a village renowned for its rather 'rough and ready' inhabitants...they all had ASBOs before ASBOs were even invented....

So we go into the tin hut chapel, sit through the ceremony, the bride looked lovely in her dress and the groom looked...well...I never did like those little short jackets that were popular in the 1980s (this was the 90s), especially with red bow ties.

Anyway, at the end of the ceremony the priest begins to talk about how lovely it is to be marrying another sister from the family and how if any more of the family would like to be married there we had all better contribute to the plate now coming round. Nice.

Out we file from the chapel and walk down the street to the Miners' Welfare club. There we find trestle tables had been laid out with tablecloths and the wedding meal - a bit of lettuce, tomato and a chicken drumstick each.

Now the majority of the guests (myself and the bf included) had no problem with this simple wedding meal. The couple were very hard up - they planned to live in a caravan parked on her parents' driveway and neither family had spare cash for a flash wedding.

Unfortunately his father thought that the bride and her family were cheap, common and downright nasty.

So he refused to sit at the top table, instead he joined the rush for a seat with the rest of the guests (no seating plan). He then proceeded to shout loudly that he wasn't going to touch this shit that the bride, her mother and "those two fat bitches of sisters" had prepared for everyone.

Instead he flicked the food around the hall like a badly behaved child while the bride and her family looked increasingly upset.

Soon it came around to cake cutting.

The bride and groom got up and went over to the cake (again made by her mother and sisters) and the two sisters hurriedly took photographs as they cut into it.

All appeared to go well...until five minutes after the cake had been carved up and handed around to the guests a scream went up...from one of the sisters (who, it has to be said looked like larger versions of Selma and Patty from the Simpsons) they had forgotten to put film into the camera.

They cried, the groom's father threw back his head and laughed louder and more manically than I've ever heard someone do before or since.

Shortly afterwards the punch up broke out.

Now...where was the cheap tat?

Well, admittedly the wedding was done on a shoestring simply because they were from a poor family and hadn't the resources for some large fancy do.

But

The real cheap tat....

The wedding presents.

All piled up by the door, not wrapped, just a pile of gifts...

Useful gifts mind you...


Six washing up bowls

Countless yellow dusters

A mop

Three dustpan and brush sets

Yes, these were the wedding gifts and not the clean up gear waiting in readiness for the end of the party.

How do I know?

Because the vase we had given was in pride of place at the front.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 14:04, 14 replies)

Not exactly cheap, but...
... within a week of having taken possession of my current house, the wind had changed direction and the bathroom walls and ceiling had fallen in.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:59, 2 replies)

Laydeeez an gennlemen...
Try this on for size:

11 mini motos off eBay for about 1300 quid.

Cheap Chinese knock offs- including "Micneleh" and "Castol Oil" decals, 2 non starters, full refunds to friends and family, with the last 3 sold to the plumber by my Dad-

"Guess what shit username- I sold the last 3 mini motos!"
"Great- how much?"
"100 quid the lot!"
"Err..."

Some 3 months later, and I'd sold the lot...


...For a loss of about 900 quid.

I make the mistakes so you don't have to.
(this is a shit username, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:53, Reply)

Me and a mate
once decided to buy pretty much every rubbish lager we hadn't heard of from a corner-shop type place, lots of random eastern european stuff with silly names, think 8 Ace from Viz sort of thing. 'Twas a good night, and for the most part they weren't as bad as we thought they'd be, but anyway.

Our main amusement came when over the next few months we started seeing these in gastropubs as apparently stylish imported beer, and see stupid people buying their Lech in Wetherspoons and thinking they're really stylish, when what they're drinking can be bought for about 50p a tin at a cornershop. The twats.

Yes, perhaps I should wait until Wednesday before wandering off topic into a bit of a rant, sorry.

Yes, I am a real ale twat, and get irritated by the "ooh, it's imported and in a bottle, therefore I'll pay three times as much for it" attitude.
(Bearded Whumpus In chav Britain, schoolgirl offers sweets to YOU!, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:38, 2 replies)

Cheap headphones
Many months ago I bought a cheap £20 Japanese mp3 player. It was actually quite good, but that's another story.

The headphones, on the other hand, were awful. They were like those ones you used to get in easter eggs before they banned them because people thought they were chocolate and ate them and died. Obviously.

Anyway, I had been not-very-happily using them for a few days when they broke. The wires connecting each earphone to the plug had snapped. Now you may think that the bits were therefore useless, but they weren't.

Me and a friend each wore an earphone in Maths, causing my teacher to come over and demand that we take them out.

We didn't.

She then told us to give her them, and whatever they were attached to. Imagine her dismay when we pulled them out and she only ended up with two earphones and a couple of bits of wire. Cheap tat? I think not :D (she threw the bits in the bin though. We retaliated by stealing her board pens.)

She was a fantastically awful teacher though. Most lessons involved playing catch with her pencil case/planner, throwing her umbrella out the window, pushing her chair downstairs (with somebody on it, the deputy head of year was coming up at the time! Unfortunately I was in isolation due to another related incident so didn't see this one). If there's ever a "crap teachers" qotw then I might have to submit all of said incidents for your viewing pleasure.

Length? About 20cm for each wire...
(tty, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:25, 4 replies)

Cheapstow...
or Chepstow to the locals, used to have a market near the race course every sunday...

pruchased my very first Spliffy Jeans there at some point in the distant past, as i obviously felt the need to fit in with all the other scum... fell apart in three days...

Also got a very fetching Spliffy jumper... that has now been relegated to "car rag" status. Crap jumper but it waxes on and off beautifully...
(Nuclear Ninja like a radioactive Chuck Norris..., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:25, Reply)