aller pattinoire
mon a willy des charges de fromage stinky sous le foreskin, il sent mais le papa aime le sucer propre pour moi.
(boosh, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 12:04, 1 reply)

I like driving in my car...
I haven't, unfortunately, been party to many really crap cars. Car history, in no particular order...

A peacock blue 1995 Rover 414Si which cost £200. It was torched, sadly - great car, but not very 17 y/o boy racer at the time. Especially with the nice Rover wheeltrims.

A white 1997 Hyundai Accent 1.3Si which was passed on from a mate who lost his license... so completely terribly bad it lasted no less than four weeks before I drained the oil and ran it until it siezed. It had a handbrake only one rear wheel, steering play somewhat akin to an oil tanker, and handling so disturbing it scared me.

A black 2004 Peugeot 206 1.1LX which I had for about 5 months, not bad, but not great. Excellent heaters...

I then started to go upmarket...

My first new car, a Ford Focus 1.6 with an auto box, had its arse caned for the three years and in the 60k miles I had it only had two services, sipped oil (drank fuel like there was no tomorrow right enough) and never missed a beat barring the garage failing to fix it properly after accident damage. It was always kept tidy, so I was sad to see it go. It was cheap (well under list price, got it for about £10200.)

Worst decision of my car driving life. Took it in for a service, and Uncle Arnold Clark was having a sale. Mmmmm... new Focus... so I signed on the dotted line and got a brand new Focus 1.8 with a manual gearbox, 17 inch alloys, the works. It drinks more oil than petrol, already needs the brakes done at 5200 miles, has a scarily huge flat spot midway through the rev range, has an on board computer which reads a mix of metric and imperial units and has tyres which are no less than £155 a corner. Tat, yes... cheap... £6500 plus the old Focus.

*cries*
(clearasmud, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:56, Reply)

DVD Player
Now normally when it comes to electronics, I like to spend a fair amount of money. But considering this was my mum's birthday present and I'm a poor student, I decided to go cheap... Very Cheap. A £30 "Multi region" one from amazon, I was satisfied with the reviews and though she would be none the wiser.

So she opens it, is very excited etc. I think what a wonderful son I am, so does she, everyone is a winner.

That was until we decided to use it. She came complaining that her DVD's didn't work one it and I obviously thought it was old people vs. technology syndrome and got my brass eye DVD out to show her what to do. After some disturbing noises I quickly took my DVD out to see a disc that was now only good as a coaster. After rebuying DVD's I ruined, my cheap scheme turned into something of a bank buster. I was also left with a £30 "Comedy sized" paperweight.

I think I got a terry's chocolate orange for my birthday.
(Bennyroo, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:50, 3 replies)

Jeccy and the Land of the Nearly Dead (a honeymoon story)
This is 100% true and I don't think I've had the balls to post this before (or actually not found a decent QOTW for this to fit).

My Honeymoon. I still have nightmares to this day.

Tis seemily always down to the hubby-to-be to provide an ample and suitable holiday which we were to enjoy after the wedding. So I was having a hard time with dosh at the time and managed to scrape a lousy £500 together for the budget. I have a chat with the wife to be and she mentioned that her passport had just expired and was waiting on a new one anyway, so we couldn't go abroad. All she wanted was somewhere classy and away from the city-life. With this in mind and money in wallet, I head on out to the nearest travel agents. I grab a load of UK based holiday brouchers and get home, researching through a load of them and picking a few of the best. One of these was a hotel just to the south of Great Yarmouth. I grab the number and ring up "Warner Breaks" to find out more. I explain that we're looking for a hotel somewhere as part of a honeymoon, and they organise a room for two in a place called "Gunton Hall". Don't google it yet (like I fecking should've), you'll ruin the surprise.

We get married in Gretna Green, come back to Swansea then load the car up and drive for 8 hours straight to Great Yarmouth. It's quite dark by now (just past 8pm) and we finally manage to find the parking for this place. From the outside it looks rather large, and 1st impressions are ok with both of us. What looks like an indoor swimming pool conservatory is visible to our right, and we are both smiling.
We reach reception. The girl behind the counter is kind of looking at us odd but helps us with our luggage. She leads us through an eating area where there are a few elderly people just eating supper, then we are led to a shalley?
"Um, didn't I book for the hotel room?" asks me.
"I'm sorry, we do not have hotel rooms here, only shalley appartments" is the answer she gives. Where the fuck are we?
We get in the room; it looked like an old OLD version of Butlins. One of the cupboard doors is hanging off and there's a spider in the corner. The missus is close to tears.
"I'll have someone's head in the morning. We'll sort this out love, don't worry."

The next morning comes. We glance out of the window. There's a tennis court in front of us. Odd, but hey ho. I head to reception, say hello to some elderly couple walking past and pass the canteen. More elderly people eating breakfast. In fact, there seems to be alot of elderly people in here. Looking at me. Uh oh.
I get to reception.
"Excuse me...is this a place for the elderly?"
"Yes sir, anyone in particular you're looking for?"
"Um......no? I will be back soon." I walk off gobsmacked. I get back to the wife and tell her to pack her stuff and come for a walk. We walk around the ground while dragging our luggage besides us and pass a small field, which we bear witness to what must've been the euthanasia group; there were a group of elderies practicing archery. We see the building which we believed to be an indoor swimming pool; nope, it's an indoor bowling green.

After a huge bustup with the sales team with Warner we were eventually only able to get 50% of our money back as we did stay the one night. Fecking bastards.

The following year we got the passports done and did another cheap holiday; this time by coach to Germany and had an awesome time though, so they're not all bad.

Length, about 86 pensions and a bow 'n' arrow.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:48, 3 replies)

kitchen utensils
when i first moved to London, I was hugely skint, and couldn't really afford anything but the most basic equipment for my shabby bedsit. However, I really needed some kitchen knives. Any sensible being would say, I'll wait until I get paid, then spend more than a pound on a complete set of kitchen utensils. I am not that sensible.

I went to a wonderful poundstore where I bought a set of 5 kitchen things for £1. This contained
* a pair of scissors with a gap of about 5 mm between the blades - they didn't cut so much as bend everything I tried to use them for.
* a can opener which looked to be of a lower quality than the shit you find in christmas crackers - it didn't even dent the tins I tried to open, so I gave it to a friend who was actually cheaper than me. He threw it away for me I think.
* a paring knife so blunt it couldn't reliably cut butter. I've seen folk with sharper noses than this thing.
* a 'proper' kitchen knife with a 7 inch blade. this was sharp enough to cut through individual collagen fibres, but not much else. On its second use the blade snapped in two and the handle fell apart.
* my favourite find of all, a plastic chopping board, whihc I nearly threw out, thinking it was part of the packaging. It lasted me 2 years before my boyfriend melted it on the oven. I was just about big enough to cut a single tomato up on it. fantastic.

After this success, my next knife purchass were from IKEA - still quite shit, but with my £1 knife sharpener they lasted about 6 months. My boyfriend took pity on me last month though, and got me a Sabatier set with his christmas bonus - worth every single penny he spent.

and i will never again buy knives from a pound shop.

chopping boards, on the other hand...
( ascorbate, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:26, 2 replies)

And the best piece of cheap tat I ever bought...
was my Honda 90 step-through. I bought it for £200. It might be cheap, and tatty, but it always starts, the engine pulls like a train and I'm sure it'll pass its next MOT.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:15, 2 replies)

I wear pretty much exclusively
Claire's earrings and I've never had any problems with them, other than after about 10 wearings the posts go a bit of a weird colour.
( Maladicta, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:14, 5 replies)

this was a reply to Rachelswipe's 'Eastenders' rant
But I feel I must share it further. It's a bit off topic, but...

Bellenders is fab!* It instantly makes you feel talented. We play Bellenders bingo - every time someone says 'It's faaamily', 'Wos goin on'?, 'mind the stall', or 'I'm goin daan the pub' you take a drink.**

Pissed in half an hour - fantastic!

*I'm kidding, it is shit.

** If someone puts the kettle on for a cup of tea, you get a double. It's best not to play it during the omnibus though - you'd never get to work the next day.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:02, 7 replies)

They don't make em like they used to
A few decades ago things were built to last. My parents bought their first TV in 1974 and we were still watching it 16 years later. My Dad is still using the same digital alarm clock he used to wake himself up in the 70s. (A big white contraption with a bright red display and an alarm so shrill it would make Rip Van Winkle get his lazy arse out of bed.)

Yes, they probably cost three times his monthly salary, but that didn't matter. Back then people bought items expecting them to last for years. And if something went wrong at some point, you didn't throw it away you repaired it - lovingly and reverently, knowing that you were still going to get years of use out of the item.

Now we have the culture of disposable gadgets. The cycle seems to go: Buy cheap crap; cheap crap stops working after 18 months because it's cheap crap; buy more cheap crap. You never get it fixed because it's not economically viable - cheaper to just go out and buy another.

It's no wonder we're running out of landfill space.

Also, think of the huge waste of natural resources and the hundreds of hours of cheap labour that go into making sure that you can pop into Asda and buy a VCR for a tenner. All so that 18 months down the line when it's stopped working you can chuck it away and buy another one.

Madness, I tell you! Madness!
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 10:44, 7 replies)

Scooter Cnuts
About two months ago i treated myself to a new 125 scooter, being a cheapskate and tighter than scrooges arsehole ( i save my money for booze) i ordered one from China over teh interweb in half kitform, now the advert said no experience necessary to build just follow instructions(My motto seems to be buy first ask questions later.), in hindsight thats a fecking stupid thing to do when your trusting your life on a fast 2 wheeler. Apart from the fact half the bolts were missing and the front wheel was knackered, i just about got it built and found out that it wouldnt start. I threatened legal action and the company sent their most useless spanner monkey, who accused me of putting the wrong type of petrol in to save himself the work.

The moral being the £300 Quid i'd saved was swallowed up in legal bills and the company did a runner.

The worst thing was three weeks after getting it on the road i skidded on ice and crashed it, arse.
( Trollman, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 10:42, 3 replies)

Chickenlady's cheap holiday story reminded me
In the mid 90's me and the ex went on a last minute cheapo holiday to the Costa del Sol. £120 quid all in for the two of us if I remember, in February. A week in the sun as a pick me up to get us through the end of winter. We'd never been to Spain before, so figured it would be a good way to test the water.

I got the shits big time. For a whole week. The plane journey back was a nightmare (by this point she had got them too) and we were sat next to an elderly woman who was clearly nervous and wouldn't shut up. For 3 hours... God, the agony of it.

So a cheap holiday in the sun ended up costing me about half my body weight in excreted liquid shit.

Fast forward a few years, similar scenario and time of year, only this time Gran Canaria. Similar price for a week in the sun. Fine and dandy. Had a reasonable week, but felt no real desire to go back there. Didn't really connect with the place (the fact that it was full of pissed up Brits and knobends constantly hassling you to go and look at their luxury holiday accommodation, i.e. timeshares, was a tad offputting as well), and we were glad to get home.

Where I dicovered that our bank account had been fleeced to the tune of some £2,500. My cash card had been 'swallowed' by an ATM, and despite my reporting it to my bank within 10 minutes, they had failed to put a stop on my card.

So two 'cheap' holidays, both of which were shit (one literally), and one of which ended up costing me considerably more than I had bargained for (at least for 10 days until Barclays admitted that they had made an error and accepted that I hadn't been spending vast amounts of pesetas on telephone porn).
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 8 Jan 2008, 10:35, Reply)

Another cheap drill and the Rainbow Superstore
Read lots of "cheap drill" stories on here so thought I'd add mine.

I'm in the dubious position that I work for a large tool retailer so am well aware of the availability of DeWalt and Bosch kit etc although they cost big money.

Anyway, 2 1/2 years ago I moved to Devon and the process went that we bought the house down here but were still living 200 miles away while looking for work in the South West before moving. As such we travelled to the new house for job interviews and to do DIY jobs as well as move another boot load of stuff down here for a period of 2 months to ease the eventual proper move.

Anyway, on one trip I arrived in Devon and realised I'd left my power drill back home and really needed it. In the interests of getting some wardrobe rails up I decided to investigate the shopping delights of my new small town home in Devon and discovered a Mecca to cheap tat in the form of the "The Rainbow Superstore"!

Imagine a giant B&Q sized version of a pound shop where they dare to sell the more lavish investments like the £8 "Blackspur" power drill I ended up buying.

It was genuinely an act of desperation and I fully intended to use the drill that weekend only then accept it would break and I would bin it.... 2.5 years later I've used it again and again to create a fitted study, garden decking, kitchen units, numerous shelves etc etc.

In short it's been one of the most reliable power tools I've owned.

Last week I was walking through our warehouse at work and spied a pile of about 200 returned faulty DeWalt drills. Given these cost over £200 each I couldn't help but think to myself... you could have 25 Blackspur drills for the price of one of those....


Just goes to show cheap tat isn't always bad ;)

ps: At 8 cans for £1, don't drink the "Cola".
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 10:30, 3 replies)

Cheap PSU
I needed one in a hurry and picked up a 650w one for about £25.

It came in a very fetching shade of blue and it matched my matt black case nicely.

I also bought a nice expensive Nvidia 6800 GT.

Power supply lasted about 3 weeks before detonating with a satisfying bang and taking out pretty much every peripheral on my PC apart from the never used floppy drive.

Saved about £30 quid from not buying a decent PSU and ended up destroying £400 worth of bits.

I think I cried.
(bluetuba has a special friend in Blue Label Smirnoff, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 10:26, 2 replies)

Jewellery
As a teenager, I would buy myself cheap jewellery. I plan to wear it once or twice at the most, and then chuck it away, thus continuously updating and altering my "look" (yes, I was a bit of a consumerist fool).

Jewellery would turn my skin green, give me a rash, or simply fall apart, within 30 mins of putting it on. Every single time. Sometimes I'd also getting the added bonus of looking like hooch-addicted jailbait.
Meh.

Damn you, Claire's Accessories.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 10:20, 2 replies)

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Making up some flatpack wardrobe with sore wrists, I said we could do with an electric screwdriver, so next day, my girlfriend comes home proudly waving one she bought for £4 in my face. £4! Brilliant.

I put the batteries in, fitted the correct bit, lined up with the screw. Pressed the button. And WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRR. It span round about as fast as Nana reversing her Zimmer.
(evilpenguin Ur polar bears r wel gay, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 9:49, Reply)

Hurrah for Aldi!
Now, before I start - I'd like to say that I think Aldi is many types of ace. The food is (mostly) great, it's as cheap as you like, and best of all you get through the checkouts about twenty times faster than in Sainsbury's.

However, the assorted electrical goods they sell aren't anywhere near as ace.

I bought a sandwich toaster from there, for about £7. It even had removable toasting plates, so you could clean them properly!

Got it home, opened it, looking forward to the toasty goodness I'd be enjoying shortly, only to find that the plates in the top half didn't stay fixed in.

Took it back and got another one... this time, they stayed in fine, until my toasty was ready, whereupon they fell off again and stuck to it. Trying to remove a hot metal plate from a toasty without a) burning yourself and b) destroying your toasty isn't easy, people.

So I got a refund, and next time I won't be so silly.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 9:43, 4 replies)

Free Camcorder Upgrade Via Argos due to Poundshops
Bought a Samsung MiniDVD camcorder from Argos at the beginning of last year...was for the newborn baby's arrival. Hurrah! At the time it set us back £250 but it was worth it.

So...I'm in the city centre one afternoon and remember to buy some blank disks for it. Do I get the best quality ones I can find though? Feck that, spindle of 4 for £1 from 'tup Poundland. We use the disks and when we run out of space on a disk we are meant to finalise the film. This is done through the camera which then makes the disk work on any dvd player. Every cheap disk failed.

I took the camera back to Argos showing them the fault and they sent the camera away to Samsung. It came back a good month later with the stamp "repaired" on the side of it. I thought "I'll have a laff with Argos here" and used the same disks a following week later. The same thing happened again and Argos sent it away again. It turned back up 2 months later and they gave us the camera back with another "repaired" stamp on it and smiles all around.

I gave the camera back to the missus and the power button snapped when she turned it on. It now worked, but it wouldn't turn off again, not without pulling the battery out. I took it back again, and Samsung refused to take it off Argos's hands. So I had a full refund, which was used on a much much better Sony DVD Handycam, 10 Sony Re-writable MiniDVDs and £40 towards some Xmas shopping.

I dunno which was tattier, the £1 disks or that shitty Samsung.

On retrospect, this probably wasn't worth the read. Sorry about that. Um....hey, they've started repeating Shooting Stars on ChallengeTV, awesome :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 9:29, 4 replies)

Words of wisdom
I was once told, "Never be afraid to spend money on a pair of shoes and a bed, because if you're not in one, you're in the other".

Wise words indeed. (Although I do spend a fair amount of time wearing slippers, or in bare feet, so it's not quite true.)
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 9:08, 2 replies)

Jesus shit
Seen at a Las Vegas airport bookshop:
Display stand with shitty little plastic fuck-knows-whats covered in inspirational religious drivel. I mean, I don't know if there's even a name for these things.
But what takes the biscuit is that this display is being marvelled over by a 400lb polyester-clad land whale, who strokes these foul objects while cooing "oh my, oh myyy, who'da thought you'd find such beautiful things in an airport?"
(mudskipper, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 9:01, Reply)

Tyre's
Word of advice, dont go cheap on Tyre's.

I bought 4 of these "new" bastards 2 days before xmas for $100 from some cowboy garage. Driving to a mates on boxing day doing about 100k 2 decided to fall off. Then when parked on the side of the road another decided to somehow implode.

Not really tat but i kept some of the rubber as a souvenir.

The last one is now my spare tyre in the boot
(Lanceuppercut, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 5:49, 5 replies)

I -had-
pierced nipples, bought some 14 gauge captive bead rings with ornate scalloped edges for a decent amount. Gorgeous. Slide them in my recently healed tits.... so far so good. Couple days later I learn I'm allergic to whatever the hell potmetal/nickel bullshit they were made with. Ended up making both the holes regect and become infected: more painful than the initial excruciating piercing.
(MaryMolotov Spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy&Bruised, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 4:08, 3 replies)

Bought a car for $365
Here in Hawaii car dealerships don't have the money to ship away trade-ins, so they sell them for dirt cheap.
My husband gets a flyer in the mail to stop by one of these sales and they will give him $5. I, being 24 and unable to drive (I know I KNOW! I'm afraid and refuse to learn on my husband's stick shift.) sit on my ass in the car. My husband leaves and comes back with a smirk on his face. "They have a minivan (a tank) for $88." A Plymouth Grand Voyager in eggplant purple paint.
We buy the van for me to learn to drive on.
Before I am even willing to drive it I have to clean it. It apparently had a unwashed family of twelve and a dog living in it. My first step was cleaing the interior vinyl. I went thru five sponges that had to have water splashed into them from the bucket and be rung out into the street because rinsing them in the bucket rendered the whole two gallons of water unusable after the first time. Then I removed the seats and scrubbed the upholstery (twice!), diassembled the seat wells and scraped out the inch deep of compacted cockroach shit (Oh yes, the car was INFESTED with cockroaches), reassembled the whole thing. Then (shudder) vaccumed the cockroach carapace and shit out all the pockets, glove compartment and drawers, finding in the process unpaid bills, a hypodermic needle, a ten inch machete and a carton of milk. Then the car battery died and I payed $60 to have it towed two blocks to get the battery replaced. We used the car to move to our new place and parked it. Due to the insect problem it would sprout cobwebs after about a week of being parked int the same spot. Our landlord considered it "abandoned" and had it towed, where it was stolen off the lot, full of my worhtless but meaninful personal crap.
Apologies for length.
We got $5800 from the towing lot though. Bonus!
Still didn't learn to drive though.
(Windy Shrimp "wuz heah", Tue 8 Jan 2008, 1:10, 3 replies)

Poundland
often draws me into it's world of cheap wonder and I once bought a Playstation pad that had adjustable handle bits attached to a circular center pad bit with buttons on. None of the buttons worked and the handles (which could be moved so they sat parallel to each other. Useful.) cut into your hands. And it was bright red and yellow.

So me and my friend ripped it apart, the cheap plastic made our hands bleed, and then the bits that were left behind on my carpet cut my feet up as I was getting into bed. I'll never forget that pad for fighting back.

A friend of mine also bought a pair of electric scissors in there that wouldn't even cut through a piece of paper.
(Moglet, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 0:42, Reply)

One wonderful vacuum.
Fucking thing spewed out more dirt than was in my house to begin with.

Threw it out, bought a cat. Now I get the odd hairball instead. Magic.
( MrMidnight is spewing carrot chunks, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 0:26, Reply)

Cheap Poetry
Created with my wizzy website.

www.daftdoggy.com/recorder/playmp3.php?id=217

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 0:21, Reply)

Went paintballing with work...
And went to the local "WYNSORS WORLD OF SHOES" for a sturdy pair of cheap boots.

You'd think that being a whole WORLD of shoes they'd be specialists in that subject... Just like surgeons are specialists at cutting GIGANTIC CYSTS OUT OF PEOPLE... The woman looked at me blankly when I asked her if they stocked boots...

Ended up finding them myself, it wasn't difficult, I just looked at all the products until one that looked vaguely the shape of a boot appeared... Bought... £15, nice.

Got up at the crack of dawn in the morning, got dressed, put boots on, did laces up... *Ping!* one of the damn eyelets comes straight off.

Didn't have the heart to take it back, that would just be giving them one more notch on the bedpost of innocent shoe purchaser bummery.
(WittyUsernameHere, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 23:58, Reply)

On The Piss
I sent my mate to the bar to get a round of single malts and he came back with Bells.


What? Oh - question is about cheap TAT..... Sorry....

On another note, I'm being lectured on my irresponsible behaviour at:

www.b3ta.com/questions/cheaptat/post111565

Why not drop by and tell me what a twat I am....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 23:55, 6 replies)