Catalogues

I popped round to my brothers on Tuesday night for dinner. Once the kids were in bed, Justin, Emily (my sister in law) and I sat around eating dinner and amusing ourselves by going through the betterware catalogue. For those not lucky enough to get this pushed through their doors it is the catalogue equivalent of QVC- things you never want nor need in one handy package.

Inevitably as you flip through the pages you occasionally go “now that is a good idea. A Tupperware drawer to keep cream crackers in. Now I haven’t eaten a cream cracker since 1993 but perhaps if I had a non air-tight drawer to keep them in rather than, ooh I don’t know, a packet then my diet could revolve around some strange bread/biscuit hybrid”. Emily became particularly impressed with a telescopic duster but then realised she could reach the top of every piece of furniture in their house.

The items on offer ranged from the things you hope you never need: a long piece of sandpaper with handles on each end to rub the dry skin off your feet when you are no longer able to bend down; the things you never knew you wanted but can see the use: egg poachers, vegetable steamers etc; things nobody could possibly want: a special stick to put wet welly boots on so they are stored nicely; and things you wouldn’t want but make you laugh so much you are tempted to buy them. And in to this category I think we can add “faces that you stick on to trees to liven them up”.

Yep, you read that right. Apparently if you want to make your garden a little bit more interesting you can actually pay money and buy faces to stick on the bark. You can also by a cat with glowing eyes to scare off other cats and half a dog if you want to replicate the look of a dog mid-burial in your garden.

I used to amuse myself when I was younger by flipping through the Argos catalogue and telling myself that I had to choose something from every page. Some were easy, simply choose the nicest sofa. But when you hit the jewellery pages things got tough. What’s worse? A clown with fake diamonds for eyes or a forever friends locket that you can break in half and share with your loved one? This used to occupy me for hours until something better came my way… my dad accidently got on the mailing list for a catalogue called “Chums”.

“Chums” made me very, very happy indeed. It featured stuff like special wellies you could put on your chair legs to raise the chair, walk in baths (which remain a dream, although I imagine you have to sit in them till all the water is gone or recreate the Posidean adventure every night) and special grabbers for reaching things off high shelves. My Grandad had one of these (at his peak he was 5 foot 3) and I loved it, I used it for everyday tasks such as making tea and I still would quite like one. Sadly my dad eventually got his name off the mailing list and I was denied the joy of chums.

Thankfully I share an office with Ayesha who is occasionally lured by the joys of Lakeland and JML. The ultimate purchase being a pair of “shredding scissors” which are meant to be a green version of a shredder. What they actually are, are 5 pairs of scissors glued together which hacks one sheet of paper at a time in to 3 inch wide strips. You’d do a better job with your teeth. She would like to say she’s never used them.

Emily and I are also fascinated by Tchibo. If you haven’t encountered a Tchibo it is basically the shop equivalent of the top of the Magic Faraway Tree. There is always a coffee shop but the rest of the stock changes weekly. One week it sells ski wear, the next baby gros, another week coffee pots. I’d imagine you get good bargains but it does rely very heavily on impulse buying. And no one can pronounce the shop name.