Okay, so since my last blog touched on capitalism and unjust spending, I guess these ideas have been playing on my mind. This is possibly also something to do with my recent increase in salary from "nothing" to "some," which is once again allowing me to fire off tens and twenties in the directions of cashiers left and right (yet I still refuse to pay for a decent haircut, hmm…). These themes compounded have led me to think up some blogworthy material – a list of all the stuff I buy (or find, whatever) which I really like. Then I realised that the opposite – a list of all the stuff I buy that really, really sucks, and deserves to be trashed on the internet – would be way more fun for everyone involved. Observe:

LOVE:

Tapas Al Minuto

My undoubted favourite product of the century is Tapas Al Minuto. These Spanish goods were discovered by Rab in our local Aldi, and have become a regular source of nourishment. The Spanish company make like 30 different types of tapas (Aldi only sell four types currently, but seem to be buying in more after the recent increase in tapas sales…), which of course goes hand in hand with my whole "lets pretend I'm foreign to get people's attention" kick I was on when we found them. You just take them out of their box, jam them in the microwave for one minute, watch the boiling bag expand into what appears to be a malignant tumour, then once the tumour has burst, all that's left is to eat the delicious cancer it contains. With options such as chorizo, chorcitos and lemon-flavoured-chicken-on-a-cocktail-stick, you just can't go wrong with a little Tapas Al Minuto!

Cossack hairspray

I'm pretty sure this came from Aldi too, since it looks and smells so cheap and has a really cheesy name that I laughed at for literally half an hour. However, Cossack hairspray has a dirty secret – and it's not nuclear bunkers hidden in Siberia! Cossack hairspray is in fact the most effective hairspray ever – unlike other hairsprays, it makes your hair go really, really straight. Surprisingly, the biggest of all the oxymora relating to Cossack hairspray isn't the juxtaposition of Mother Russia and a hair salon – no – it's the fact that although it smells overpoweringly feminine, the Cossack range advertises itself as "effective male toiletries." Perhaps Cossack is made so cheaply that they didn't even bother to spell-check and missed the incorrect "effeminate."

Paco Rabanne expensive deoderant and aftershave set

Okay, like, I totally didn't buy this, I kind of found it while I was moving my furniture out of my room. But someone said I smelled nice the other day, so it's totally in the "Love" section.

Dulux paint

I'm painting my room, which is why I have no furniture, not because I was paying off gambling debts or buying drugs with a pawned wardrobe, aight? Actually, I only wanted to mention Dulux paint because I was in Homebase, and I stole one of the Dulux colour charts (which are free anyway, but I like the verb "steal"). In the very back of the brochure, they included a few sample colours, which Dulux claimed to be their favourites. Keep in mind these colours are for people's walls: two really depressing, boring blue shades; two shades of dark brown; some other nondescript crap; and BLACK. Way to boost sales of your least popular shades, Dulux. The brochure, by the way, was of no use and did not help me in any way. Was it not for their callous, unobtrusive and quite possibly effective advertising, Dulux would have been in the other list.

Aldi's grape juice

It comes in white and red grape varieties, is too strong for it's own good, is possibly the most expensive item in Aldi (minus the plastic bags, weirdly), and yet, it's in the love pile. Why? Because it's fucking excellent!

HATE:

Gallo wine.

Gallo wine is stalking me. This began when Kaffy slammed her trolley into a "cheap wine" stall in ASDA recently, and walking off with a couple of the undamaged bottles after knocking several bottles off the shelf in selfish disregard for the safety of others and financial loss for the company. The wine was left in our kitchen for quite some time, since in defiance of popular belief, neither of us actually drink very often. During this time, I was out looking for more wine in Sainsbury's, and noticed that they had Gallo wine as well… Then noticed a billboard in Central Station advertising the same wine. When I did eventually drink one of the bottles, I discovered that Gallo wine is actually really, really disgusting. I drank it anyway. I was feeling quite disenchanted by the whole Gallo franchise by this point, and kept seeing billboards and adverts which made me feel frankly ill. The second and LAST EVER bottle of Gallo wine was a rosé which was supposed to be drank by Rab, Angela and myself, but since it tasted of nothing but watered down vinegar, I was once again stuck drinking the whole bottle myself (woe is me). Anyway, if you take nothing else from this blog, never trust: (a) Advertising; (b) Kaffy's choice in wines; and (c) GALLO WINE.


Disney Fairy Princess juice boxes made by Calippo

Don't even ask. Regardless, yaaaay!

Sainsbury's food

When they built the Sainsbury's in Hamilton all those years ago, I was so excited because I'm a total elitist when it comes to food. I used to demand that I got all my food bought from there, since Safeway was just too common for me, and option B, being Lidl, was completely out of the question. Now, I find most of their food to be Expensive For The Sake Of Expensive, and really not worth buying. Their goat's cheese, for example, is just crap. Almost entirely liquid. Yes, liquid. Who the hell do they think I am!? I don't want to drink my fancy cheese! And their macarel is horrific. I wouldn't eat that tasteless crap if I was drowning in it (ditto the liquid goat's cheese, which would be totally easier to drown in than a big vat of fish.).

Marks & Spencer food

This is basically the same rant as the one against Sainsbury's, except that M&S seem to have made the spectacularly bad decision to stock only steam-in-the-microwave goods. Or what were formerly goods. Now they're just bad. Very bad. I can't even imagine where this horrible trend will end, with Aldi and Asda actually stocking better food at lower prices than the higher-class supermarkets. Never did I think it would get this far when I realised that Asda's grapes are all-round better than those of Sainsbury's. Nothing is sacred anymore.


Disclaimer: This blog is totally out of date. The belated publishing of this piece is due to me actually having a job and a big design project. In other words, my blogs are suffering due to me actually having a life. Harrowing.