On the subject of comedy hoovers, Legless has reminded me
The hoover in question wasn't exactly cheap (£70) but it was a bargain as it had been reduced from £140. And it was a proper Hoover being manufactured by said company. It was a bagless upright (basically a Dyson rip off), and I proceeded to spend the next 3 years of ownership using it to push fluff and cat hair around the living room, before resorting to sweeping up the accumulated detritus with a dustpan and brush.

Absolute pile of shite! I gave it away when I moved in with Tourettes. At least she had a proper Dyson, that actually bloody well worked (until it blew up last year anyway).
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:54, 4 replies)

lifetime guarantees
This is a Public Service Announcement, brought to you, in part, by Poundsaver.

A "lifetime guarantee" means exactly what it says: it is a guarantee that lasts for the life of the product in question. The instant the product breaks, its life is over, and the guarantee has just expired.

Logical.
( bnt what, me worry?, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:52, 1 reply)

Asda kitchen timer
Who would have thought that 99p gets a kitchen timer so crap that for 2 months every meal is either raw or burnt. For no good reason, it would randomly not go off at the allotted time, so you'd be sitting watching telly thinking "that timer should have gone off by now", only to discover that your baked alaska is now dribbly cream+carbon.

I half expected it to be featured in the 2008 Guinness Book of Records - along with "least inaccurate implementation of pi" (which is "3" if you didn't know*)

I smashed it last night and put it in the bin. About 2 hours later, we could hear it going off...


* Yes - in America
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:50, 7 replies)

B3TA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!eleven!!!!!
I paid B3TA some of my hard earned cash and all I got was a lousy cock next to my name!!!
( diablo290582 Professional.....something., Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:48, Reply)

cheapo spanners
You know, the ones with chrome plating... plating that cracks and comes off as the spanner flexes. (Yes, I know spanners are not supposed to flex!) The chrome is thin metal, ideally suited to slicing through the skin on the palm of your hand.

If I find the maker, I will insert a 19mm, complete with chrome shards, where the buses don't run. At the same time, I will punch the Hippocratic Oath in to his skull, or part of it: "First Do No Harm".
( bnt what, me worry?, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:44, 1 reply)

Morrisons wine
One of my proudest moments as a penniless student was finding a bottle of 'white' in the reduced to clear section at Morrisions. It was marked at the princely sum of 56p.

All I can say is that it was at least 55p overpriced. Indeed they would have made more by just repackaging it as vinegar.

It was virtually undrinkable sober and was therefore banished to the back of the fridge until one fateful night when on returning from a night out we discovered there was no more beer in the house. My housemate made the sensible to choice to stick to vodka but I, after days of pisstaking, had a point to prove. Needless to say I proceeded to polish off the whole bottle.

The next morning my throat felt like I'd been drinking razor blades, my stomach's condition could only be described as bilious, someone had been banging nails into my skull, and my wee stung worse than a plague of wasps (didn't smell too fresh either).

There's probably a lesson in that somewhere but I still get excited if I find a bottle for less than a quid so buggered if I know what it is.
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:43, 2 replies)

Teh internetz is lolz
I have, over the years, bought several extremely crap "replicas" of popular games consoles and reviewed them, never revealing my face, with a brown sofa as a backdrop. I like to think of it as a public service.

Oh wait, that's not me

medication please
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:43, Reply)

Tesco, plus cheap computer hardware
There was the metal foot pump from Tesco. Lasted about 10 pumps before bits of metal sheared off..

Also, cheap computer hardware. Particularly a cheap bluetooth USB dongle and a Prolific USB serial adapter. They work.. but do they carry on working six months later?

Six months later is when you realise that the company that produced your Bluetooth dongle is too cheap to buy a continued driver license and XP SP2 breaks it. Hacked drivers only sort of worked.

Fortunately Vista x64 made it work again. Up yours, crappy manufacturers!

Ditto Prolific USB serial. Works fine, but has no 64 bit Vista drivers. The drivers can be found if you search, but stop working after a few hours..

edit : oh yes, Big W! I forgot the crappy 'bargain' double airbed I bought. Unfortunately it has a leak :(. The bargain replacement I bought works just fine though.
(EssY, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:41, 1 reply)

Acer
Never again. My manwife has had to send his away for repairs many times, and the fan on my laptop works backwards so it ends up getting ridiculously hot.
( its_hatorah_bitch is b3ta the devil you know on, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:37, 3 replies)

Christmas Cracker Prizes
Click 'I like this' if you have had to endure crappy prizes and jokes this Chrimbo.
( its_hatorah_bitch is b3ta the devil you know on, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:35, 2 replies)

Woolworths / Big W
Mrs Flatfrog used to work in Big W, the out-of-town Woolworths superstore thingy. And without doubt, they are the worst shop in the world: a pound shop that aspires to being John Lewis (I'm not kidding - when she was there, they stated this as their aim, to position themselves as the John Lewis for chavs. Their ideal customer is 'Debbie', a poor harrassed mum who comes in for nappies and comes out loaded down with cheap knock-off tat). Unfortunately, they pay their staff minimum wage and their product range consists of whatever managed to fall off the back of a lorry that week. Do not on any account ever buy electrical goods from Woolworths or Big W - I don't think I've ever done so without regretting it.

The most recent example was a DVD/Video combo that the wife bought against her better judgement last year. It worked for about a week before the DVD bit stopped working (no problem, we had another DVD player, we only really wanted it for the video), then another week and the video stopped working too, so we went back to our old video player with a broken eject mechanism. Eight months later, Mrs Flatfrog suddenly realises we've got a piece of technology sitting on our shelf that just doesn't work. In a fit of efficiency, she brings it back to Woolworths without a receipt and they refund her without question - they're under no illusions about the quality of their merchandise.

Length: 12 inches and it plugs into the TV
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:34, 2 replies)

Compost
During the predictable spring rush to buy / create the exterior home decoration choice of twats (the hanging flower basket), my mother and stepfather scoured the county for the best bargain resources available. Often accumulating hundreds of un-necessary miles and obscene petrol usage in the search of cheap begonias or something.

They happened upon a remarkably low-cost brand of bagged compost one year, buying sufficient amounts to fulfill all of their annual gardening requirements. Upon beginning their creations of suspended floral craftwork, my mother deftly sliced open the first plastic sack to release the pungent and entirely unpleasant aroma of pigshit. Not just a brief waft from the freshly opened bag, but a distinct andd lingering odour that clung to the very fabric of our house and intensified during any rain or upon manual watering.

Yes peeps, my mother, in her miserly pursuits, managed to locate a substandard quality of... DIRT. I hadn't before considered the industrial process for adding value to soil, but that summer I learned to appreciate the processing and quality control that is applied to garden centre's finest loam.

I'm no biologist, but generally dung is good for plant nutrition, although it must be thoroughly rotted down for a period sufficient to dispel the inherent odours and stinky nastiness before the enriched substance can be successfully bagged and sold to consumers.

Length gag? Thanks, Mum for making our house and the surrounding area smell faintly of pigshit for approximately 5 months of 1998.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:27, Reply)

Tescos (rant sorry)
Just read 'tescopoly' and realised that, if what I read is all true, Tesco are possibly the devil incarnate. Whatever, there arent really any good things to say about them. The only thing to do about it seems to be never to shop there. However, convincing the unwashed masses to stop going will be difficult.

All I can suggest is that their cheap prices come at a cost somewhere. If the snap peas you just bought (that all suspiciously appear to be 70mm long) are 99p a pack, you can pretty much assume that a lot of people are getting absolutely bum-fucked for this to be possible. This is a pattern that continues for pretty much every product in the store.

Moral: If you buy cheap stuff from tescos, you are knowingly bumfucking poor African farmers.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:19, 14 replies)

First year at uni
I was too poor to get a bus season ticket for the ten mile trip to uni from the edge-of-the-city halls. So I went to a second-hand bike shop and asked for their cheapest bike.

£30 bought me a rusting blue ladies shopper. The brakes weren't up to much, most of the spokes were loose and after a couple of days one pedal fell off. More than once I could be seen red-faced and psychotic kicking the bike as it lay in the gutter.

I rode it with one pedal for about two months before my sister bought me a better bike. The old one, I threw in a pond.
(frankspencer, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:18, 3 replies)

Push the fisherman in the boat out.
There are some situatuions when it is completely unacceptable to cut financial corners. Installing smoke alarms, for instance. Child-proofing your house. Parents funeral arrangements. "She doesn't need to look nice where she's going, they're not paricularly judgmental".

This concept is not universal, and quite often some products with a seemingly high mark-up are of similar quality to a cheaper option. And using genetic powers of product assessment, I often manage to save a few pennies purchasing goods that are not exactly 'cutting edge', like a stereotypical thrifty Scotsman.

So allow me, if you will, to take you back to October 2006. It was late in the month when my fiancee uttered to me the four words that are guaranteed to instantly invert a mans world: "My period is late".

Trying to sound as nonchalant as possible I enquired "Oh really, how late?"

"Nearly a month"

And so within half an hour I was in Tesco pharmacy, perusing the aisles in search of a pregnancy test. These particular items have a chameleon-like ability to blend in with the proliferation of curative products available. I sheepishly asked the kind assistant, who discreetly advised me of the whereabouts of the urine activated baby indicators.

The choice was limited to an expensive digital device or a Tesco 'Own Brand' Pregnancy Indicator. Now as far as I'm concerned both items had a similar function: (soon-to-be)Mrs JasperSinister would pee on them, they would celverly sniff out which hormones were present and tell us whether or not we would soon be proud parents to a demon piglet.

And so I returned homewards, my other half disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later. The test was negative. To be extra sure she took another. Again, negative. So we decided to sit back and wait for her belated monthly visitor to arrive.

Another week passes without period. With a degree of trepidation I ventured again to Tesco, and this time purchased a pricier digital Baby Indication Device. Took it back to Mrs Sinister, the process was repeated. This time the tale took a (somewhat predictable) twist. This Rolls Royce of pregnancy tests disagreed with Tescos assessment. Mrs Sinister was actually with child. A second test was taken, to establish validity, with identical results.

So apparently when the Tesco Own Brand Baby Indication Device stated 'Not Pregnant' what it actually meant was 'Quite Pregnant'

The conclusion to this story: 9 months later Mrs JasperSinister gave birth to a healthy (and human) baby boy: wrinkly and loud, but also cute, well-behaved and happy.
(JasperSinister is offering two tickets to the gun show, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:11, 10 replies)

Dont
buy the cheapest taps for a bath or sink you can find. They will be shit. Theres a reason proper ones cost £100+.

I know this because (being the slum landlord that I am) the last set sheared off all the little prongs on the very first turn after fitting. Shiny little fuckers.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:10, 1 reply)

Cheap T Shirt
At a Faith No More gig in ooooh 1992, International 2 Club, manchester, I bought a £2 t-shirt from one of the bootleggers outside on the way out. I could rarely afford the £12 official ones.

15 years later, its still one of the best tshirt i own. It has outlived every other gig tshirt I could ever afford. All the print is mostly on there, its faded black but in a way thats now cool and makes all those 'fake' fashion rock tshirts look like the charlartan imposters they are.

I have to say, all factors taken into consideration, its the best item of clothing I have ever bought.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:09, 4 replies)

One of the great joys
of riding a motorbike, as you tour down a-roads and across country, is stopping at truck stops for a greasy bacon bap and a few cups of rancid coffee. You can sit and watch people admiring your bike and contemplate the route ahead.

One of the horrors of this is finding yourself on a packed road going through endless village after village with so much coffee in your bladder that your back teeth are floating.

Little known fact that 30 miles an hour on a Yamaha Thundercat sets up a resonant vibration with the 2 pints of piss floating not six inches above the engine.

Oh my god – I have never needed to piss so bad in my life. The pain of it. The potential embarrassment. Oh crap, oh crap, oh cr….. wait…. A car park with facilities up ahead! Joy. Drop a gear, howl past stationary queue of traffic, stoppie outside little toilet block and charge in.

Yank jacket open, gloves into sink, grab zip puller on cheap waterproof over-trousers bought off flea-bay for an incredible price. Zip puller snaps off in hand. Can’t undo zip without it. Pain growing to incredible proportions.

Fucksocks.

Must…..not…..piss…..self.

They still talk about the cursing, shouting helmet-wearing dervish that was seen crashing into sinks and hand dryers with both hands clamped to the front of its trousers in the toilets of a small village in Bedfordshire.

E-bay for motorcycle gear? Just don’t. Ever.
(Pig_of_Doom, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:04, 4 replies)

Pound Shop Batteries
I was trying to get my remote control car to work after years of neglect but needed 12 x AA batteries for the remote control and RC servo units.

Seeing that recharge-ables were far more expensive than a bunch of sets of pound shop batteries I got the twelve batteries from the local pound shop for a whole british pound!

I couldn't get the RC car to work but a couple months later I needed AA batteries for my mouse. I proceeded to open the remote control, while holding my mouse (I think I was having an important MSN conversation and was in a hurry) took a couple batteries out and in my haste decided to hold one in my mouth while I installed the other in my mouse.

I dropped everything as battery acid (or chemicals) that has leaked out of the battery began to dissolve my lip (seriously, the skin was almost bubbling off), my fingers had also started going red and sore from this and I had to drop everything and run to the sink to clean this skin dissolving fluid off.

The batteries worked in my mouse for two months though!
(moomin-papa ; folkin class., Fri 4 Jan 2008, 11:01, 2 replies)

I bought some AC/DC-branded "Intense Incense!" for £2.
Got home, put a stick in my burner and lit it. It didn't smell of anything. The next one smelled of wee. The others smelled of nothing unless rammed up a nostril. I can't believe Acca Dacca would let themselves be associated with this crap.
( Bob Todd whee, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:58, 2 replies)

Asda value food.
Asda value food.

Generally, you are better off throwing away the food and eating the packet.
(dave likes cheese, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:58, 3 replies)

Without a doubt it has to be
fake Nike Air Max trainers from Brighton Race Course Market.

The last time I went, it was a bank holiday, so there were plenty of small groups of indian chaps peddling their realistic looking wares. Now I've had a real pair of Nike Air Max and they cost me £120, they look identical to the fake ones, with one exception, their place of manufacture. They manage to make them with such cheap materials and labour that I picked up 4 pairs for £5 a pair!

Bargain!

Like fuck! They last approximately 1 month, if you are lucky, within that time you could suffer from all manor of foot discomfort as well as the trademark Nike Air Rotting Corpse System TM smell that you get in the real McCoys.

I went for a walk the day before Christmas eve, it was quite a long walk along the cliff edge toward Beachy Head and the coast guard cottages, I had my camera so I wasn't planning on doing any jumping. Anyway, by the time I got back I was exhausted and my feet were somewhat uncomfortable...

My right big toe nail had been pushed in so far it was completely bruised and bleeding, and fucking painful. Almost 2 weeks later and it still has a purple nail but the pain has gone.

Cheap Nikes anyone?
( Firkinfedup last shat on your wife's tits at, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:57, 1 reply)

Pound shop shite
Having only about a 6-foot stretch of shrubbery in the front garden, I'm too mean to buy a hedge-trimmer to tidy it up and don't know anyone with one to borrow.

Imagine my delight upon finding in the local singular sterling emporium a quality (looking) set of manual trimmers. Now imagine my disappointment when during the test run, the blades bend under the strain of cutting a twig approximately half the girth of a pencil.

Those shiny new blades were keen as any produce of Gilette or Wilkinson Sword, unfortunately they also proved to have the rigidity of play-dough.

I still love cheap shit, I just need to lower my expectations of its performance.

Length? Those fucking bushes look like Ozzy Osborne after a bad perm.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:56, 2 replies)

i was once
fooled into eating the fois gras of a substandard goose,

it took a few glasses of don perignon to get rid of the taste i'll have you know
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:56, 1 reply)

cheap razors
Have you seen the episode of The Simpsons where Homer is shaving in his bathroom, and by the time he turns away from the mirror his 5 o`clock shadow has grown back?
Well, Im like that, I need to shave at least once a day to avoid looking like chewbacca.
Unsurprisingly, I get through a lot of razor blades. All the fancy ones are pretty dear and dont last long, so I thought I would try the French supermarkets own Eco brand to see if buying cheap and changing them more often would work. Think Tesco Value but cheaper.
10 disposable double bladed razors for 1.20 Euro? bargain. Thats only about 9p each.

Would have got better results hacking at my face with an axe. Probably would have been less blood too.
(dave likes cheese, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:54, 4 replies)

Bike Geekery
Not cheap but definitely tat. As most mountain bikers will know, the combination of oil and dirt will grind away your gears to nothing within a very short space of time if you don't keep on top of bike maintenence.

Being very lazy post ride, I tend to remove the bike's chain and chuck it into a jar of white spirit, which is then shaken up a bit before leaving it to soak for a couple of days. Once removed the chain is sparkly clean and free of oil and dirt. I've managed to eke out a whopping 18 months from my chains, chainrings and cassette from this method despite grinding my gears through the thickest and grittiest of mud.

Being born a one minute past sucker o'clock means that I'm generally seduced by any bike bling which is either shiny or professes to reduce my maintenence bills.

A brief search online of the "special offers" section of my favorite bike bits website unearths a Teflon coated chain, made by Wippermann no less, for a £10 premium over their normal chain. If the advertising blurb is to be believed, this chain is lovingly assembled in a workshop in Germany by a detail fetishist called Klaus using the highest quality steel before the miracle, life changing non-stick coating is applied. Ker-ching!

£30 poorer, my chain turns up the next day. I'm chuffed to note that the teflon coating is a natty blue colour. Hopefully mud inspired mis-shifts which launch me over the handlebars are a thing of the past. Yay!

Nope.

Three rides later and the Teflon appears to be so efficient it won't even stay on the chain. I have paid a ten quid premium for a non-stick coating that disappears after forty miles.

I also discover, much to my dismay that it has managed to rust, despite being nickel coated and soaking in white spirit for two days with a complete absence of either water, air or salt which is a considerable achievement.

Nickel coated steel? My arse...
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:52, 4 replies)

I believe that personal organisers are our future…

Approximately 1825 moons (or 5 years) ago, I went to a ‘Computer Fair’ (you know the type: ‘Tomorrow’s technology at yesterday’s trade prices blah blah’).

Despite the fact that these fairs are notoriously shoddy, invariably leave me nostril-deep in useless crap, clutter and claptrap and are swamped by infamous twats, charlatans and tat-mongers…these places are like catnip to me.

Gadgets, you see…really pump my nads.

So it will not come to anybody’s surprise to hear that when I saw a crudely written sign on one of the stalls saying ‘Latest Personal Organiser’, I shot over there like a fat-arsed rubber bullet fired out of some sort of twunt-gun.

The grubby looking Fagan lookalike behind the stall, no doubt sensing that he was going to soon be on the decent end of the quickest, easiest and stupidest sale of his life, leaned towards me and grinned a wry smile, looking for all intent and purposes like an old wise gypsy who was about to reveal to me the secret of eternal life.

“These things are smart, mate”, he gushes, pointing to the plastic-sealed item in front of him. “Pocket PCs, they do your accounts, sort out your appointments, you can write memos…everything! Dead handy…You’ll never be without it”

Looking down, his story seems to check out. I see an item that is about 7 inches by 3. There is a big red button on the top and on what looks like a massive screen there are sort of touchpad keys with an odd, not quite QWERTY keyboard and a few extra buttons.

I realised there and then that this was the one item I needed to make my life complete.

With my eyes wide and gleaming, imagining the jealous looks on my friends and relatives’ faces and using my sleeve to wipe the drool from my mouth I tentatively plead: “H-h-h-how much?”

“25 quid” the scruffy cunt exclaims, “And I’ve only got this one left”

To be honest, he hadn’t even got to the ‘Q’ of ‘Quid’ before my left hand launched at the item (before anybody else could snatch this uber-bargain away), and my right hand was thrust into my pocket, desperately grubbing for cash like a starving raccoon looking for scraps of food in a dustbin.

My luck was in! 20 pounds! I hand it over to him and continue to rummage through my change. As I struggle to gather about another 3 pounds or so in loose change and place it in his increasingly weighed down hands the man sighs:

“That’ll do mate, call it 23 quid”

I thought to myself ‘Surely this is the single greatest act of kindness I have ever witnessed’ as I make my way to the exit of the fair.

I can hardly contain my excitement as I burst through the door of my house and tear at the plastic packaging, hopping from foot to foot.

The organiser came with one of those pointy prodder stick jobs and I used it the press the big red button. It jumped into life with a satisfying ‘beep’.

It was here that I noticed the first problem. The screen which appeared to be about 5 inches across was actually about 1 inch at the top.

Undeterred, I continued. ‘I wonder how I set an appointment on it?’ I thought as I pressed the key saying ‘Memo’. It didn’t work. Neither did any of the QWERTY keys.

In fact, only the number keys worked. I had bought a trumped up gargantuan calculator badly made to look like a PDA.

Truly, I was a twat.

I’m still waiting for the donkey ears to sprout from my head.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:45, 6 replies)

Argos cutlery
I bought a cheapo 'stainless steel' cutlery set from Argos many years ago. When I got home I washed it and left it on the drainer to dry. I came back a few hours later to put it in the cutlery draw it was rusty!
(The Mysterious Not Logged In, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:24, 3 replies)

Ooh
Comedy Hoover!

Last flat I had back in England had a comedy hoover. Honestly, it belonged in a fucking circus.

It was an old upright and any attempt to use it would result in the front flying off at random intervals and the bag inside bursting out perpendicular to the Hoover.

There was many a time when I'd con some unsuspecting mate to run round and do a quick vacuum - usually in return for me fixing their computer. ( Or wee Ben. I just used to bully him into it. We had a deal. He could hide from his dad, one of the local publicans, in my flat in return for light slave duties.)

It was hilarious to watch their faces when the comedy Hoover did it usual thing.....

Good times.

Cheers

We had a proper vacuum cleaner hidden away for real cleaning
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:21, 2 replies)

Christmas tat
It cannot be Christmas without the annual "What have Sandra and Mike given us this year?" competition.

I thought I had won this year's top prize with a second-hand book called "A Teenager's Guide to Surviving the Millenium Bug". It still had the charity shop price tag on the back.

I am 41-years-old, the Millenium Bug didn't happen eight years ago and I am eternally thankful that they spent a whole 15 pence on me.

However: The boy Scaryduck Jr got a pink bracelet, clearly out of last year's Christmas cracker at a total outlay of £0.00.

The clear winner, we made sure he sent them a thank you letter, which will, as eggs are eggs, have the stamp steamed off and re-used.

----------

On the "Cheap tat I've bought" front, I'd like the jury to take a Renault 4, an Austin Allegro and a Fiat Strada into consideration.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 10:20, 6 replies)