More old food and drink I miss

As you may have seen on the World Of Crap facebook page, we have recently been enjoying a box of Kellogs Start at breakfast time.

I haven't had Start since I was about three, and even then I probably wouldn't have been able to eat it, since the best way to describe it is a very, very manly version of Cheerios. You have to leave it in the milk for roughly an hour before you start to nom.

Having said that, we're determined to finish the box for nostalgia purposes, because we're insane.

I'm not sure if they recently brought Start back, or if I just haven't noticed it around for twenty five years. Either way, it counts as blast from the past food.

And now, because that bit was so interesting to read, here are four more things I miss stuffing my face with -

Burger King BK Flamer

I was the kind of kid who hated any kind of weird food with weird stuff in, so whenever I had fast food I always had to have it specially done with no sauce or manky pickles or anything. My best ever plain burger was a BK flamer – I think it was probably meant to come with lettuce and mayo or something, but the small me was in seventh heaven eating a piece of reformed chicken breast between two slices of bread. It was called a Flamer because they cooked it by setting it on fire, or something. Nowadays you can get something very similar in the form of a Rustlers chicken burger, which is actually very nice to say you do it in the microwave.

Tab Clear

I only really remember having this once, when I went to see the poet Mike Harding doing a show at our school. I never really found out why he did this. I also don't remember how I came to have the can of Tab Clear – it wasn't the kind of drink my parents would have bought on a whim, so I must have asked for it. It was lovely – not quite a syrupy as normal Coke or Diet Coke. This year I've started drinking Tab regular, which I buy whenever I come across an American shop that sells it, and that's pretty similar. I've just realised how boring this bit is – it's essentially me droning on about not liking full fat Coke. Well done you if you're still reading this.

Gino Ginelli ice cream

This is more one for the mister, because although I remember the brilliant advert, I don't really remember what the ice cream tasted like. But he loved their toffee fudge flavour, which he is bound by law to always pronounce “toffee FAUDGE!” for reasons known only to him.

Some liquid coffee concentrate that I can't remember the name of, and that I can't find any bloody record of ever -

NOT Camp Coffee. This stuff was launched sometime in the early to mid 90s in the UK, and its main USP was that 'you find it in the chiller aisle!' Imagine! Buying coffee from next to the milk! The unusualness! Whatever next, marrying goats?

I vaguely remember the bottle; it was dark brown and shaped something like this -

And I'm sure the name ended in O, like Senseo or Tassimo, only not.

In my neverending quest to find out what this bloody coffee is called, I went to the Bramah museum of tea and coffee's website, only to find that the museum had shut down four years ago. It's got so bad that I'm seriously considering emailing Nescafe, Kenco and Douwe Egberts to ask them if they were responsible. But I'd look like a mad lady. They might ask why I want to know, and then I'd have to say something like “because it haunts my dreams at night, please help me!”

We've only got about eight bits of Start left in the box now, which is good because when it's finished I can use the box to make a pretend tank or something.

Mars, cucumbers and holidaying in Norfolk - my top 10 Rod Jane and Freddy songs

Regular readers will know that I love Rainbow. I would marry it if I could. But then, I'm a terrible one for wanting to marry things you can't actually marry – last night I bought a jar of gingerbread flavoured coffee syrup, and I just stood in the kitchen hugging it until the mister got jealous. I should explain that I've been looking for that stuff for a long time, not that I just found it attractive.

That whole thing sounded better in my head.

Anyway. I love Rainbow, but I don't write much about Rod Jane and Freddy, the show's veteran musical group, because I am usually too busy writing about Bungle's nipples or something.

Rod, Jane and Freddy were mostly famous for knowing songs about bloody everything ever, from going to India to being a milk bottle. In a moment of boredom, I started thinking about my favourite RJF songs. At first I didn't know if I'd be able to come up with ten, but then I began to realise how much their songs stuck in my mind. Sometimes I do catch myself trying to hum their tunes, which is difficult because they generally change octave about six times per song, due to all three of them having solo parts. With all the harmonies going on, you never quite know which bit you're supposed to be singing at any given moment. I suppose I could get really good at science and invent cloning so i can sing all of it, but I'm not that bothered.

Here are my ten favourite RJF songs - my choices are based on which ones have the catchiest tunes, which ones I loved as a kid, and ones where Rod has fetching hair in the video. Look out for videos where Freddy looks particularly like Lovejoy.

1. “If you're going camping too” - from Camping preparation

This song seriously has about four notes in it the whole way through, but I challenge you to hear it and not find yourself singing it later on today. Bonus points for Freddy's shorts.

2. “On the narrow boat” - from Journey on a narrow boat

The most chilled out song you will ever hear, and matching jumpers for good measure.

3. “We're all together” - from Journey by coach

Catchy as hell, but what really makes this song special is its appearance in another episode, enabling Bungle to fanny about pretending to be Jane -

4. “Da di da di dum dum” - from The hare and the tortoise

An inspiring song about trying to do stuff, because you never know, you might not actually fail miserably. A few years ago, this song was my morning alarm call on my phone, and now I can't hear it without feeling a bit weird and sleepy, but I still love it.

5. “The bits n pieces song” - from Music

The most obviously dubbed over song in the world, but oh so jaunty. Wins a prize for the kazoo solos alone.

6. “Red Balloon” - from Daydreaming

A lovely song with a failure to grasp even the most basic principles of space travel.

7. “Sports day” - from (unsurprisingly) Sports day

Bonus points for shorts again, and also for having Geoffrey dicking about in the background. Plus, they point out that the best you'll probably ever do is to come last at everything. It's like they've met me.

8. “You're not helping” - from Helping out

Not sure of the proper title, but it's an intricate rock opera about Alice trying to get a tea party ready while the mad hatter and the hare dick about and keep getting in the way. Watch out for the part where Freddy, dressed as the hare (in an overgrown Pipkins nightmare) shouts “cucumbers!” for no apparent reason.

9. “Lions and tigers” - from Lions and tigers

Peril! The gang get their Steve Irwins on and sing about the dangers of being in the jungle. Why Rod is trying to be Vincent Price or something at the start is a mystery.

10. “Having a picnic” - from Day in the country

Another song I loved as a kid. Bonus points for having Geoffrey sing along. They point out in the song that the birds can sing along if they want to, but they fail to realise that they've probably scared all the birds away with their banjoing.

Maybe I'll do a part 2 to this, because I keep finding songs I'd forgotten about. And obviously I need to write about Rod Jane and Freddy's various Christmas offerings. I won't do it right now though, I have a Toblerone to eat first.

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My big TV occasions

I've just read a forum discussion on people's favourite TV moments, which has inspired me to write this list. I think compared to many people, I've had relatively few massive TV events in my life – programmes that you sit down to watch with other people, and hand round nibbles, and everyone is on their best behaviour. But I can think of a few, and now I'm going to bore you for ten minutes by telling you about them.

William and Kate's wedding -

I'm not entirely sure why I went so insane over K-Willz's wedding, apart from it just seemed like the thing to do - everyone was going nuts making plans for TV parties. Since I was at university and didn't have a TV, I went over to a guy friend's house and commandeered his for the day. He didn't mind because he wasn't asked.

The wedding should have made me run a mile, because I was getting over a bad break up at the time. Normally, the last thing I wanted to do was sit there watching two people squish over each other and have lots of money. But something in me thought that I shouldn't let that stop me being party to this occasion. Most generations have a royal wedding, and this was mine. I wasn't going to let some philandering git spoil it for me.

Naturally, we were all a bit pissed by lunchtime so don't ask me about the ins and outs of the coverage. But we did all agree on one thing, which I'm sure you've seen many times before -

Reality show finals -

Aw, you beat a disabled lad. Well done.

Mostly Britain's Got Talent, Stars In Their Eyes and The Apprentice. I'm not much of a one for reality shows, but I do watch Britain's Got Talent religiously. Which lucky act will win some money and then never get mentioned ever again? Will it be Charlie the cheese juggling monkey? The amazing three-nippled Terence? Or will it be one of the plucky young pop singers that didn't fancy their chances on The X Factor?

I love TV talent shows, but I'm indifferent about pure singing shows (Stars in their eyes doesn't count in my opinion – it's still enough of a freak show to make it interesting).

When there's a half decent reality show final scheduled, me and whoever can stand my company for the evening will stock up on crisps and nuts and beer, smugly convinced that our favourite is going to win with 200% of the phone vote. This hardly ever turns out to be the case, and our champion will usually come about seventh, even when there are only five acts on the show.

The Brookside body under the patio -

I bloody loved Brookside. When I was a kid I used to sit and watch it with my parents, and to my childish mind, drama couldn't possibly get any more dramatic. This was because Brookside was known for having forward thinking and edgy storylines that other soaps wouldn't touch.

I recently bought this DVD which brought back memories of me being glued to the screen as a child, not entirely sure what was going on, but feeling full of peril nonetheless.

By far the most terror inducing plot my young mind witnessed was the Mandy and Trevor Jordache 'Body under the patio' story. For those of who who never saw Brookside, this should explain it. See, the body under the patio story even has it's own entry on Brookside's Wikipedia page. So there.

Being about nine, I never fully understood what was going on during the domestic abuse storyline, but I knew Trevor was a bad man. So I rooted for Mandy and Beth, and rejoiced (sort of) when they finally managed to kill him. Then I witnessed them desperately shoving his body under the patio. Even though I knew it was Trevor under there, still I recoiled and yelped in horror when Eddie the neighbour came across his rotting hand -

This led to the Jordaches being arrested, and subsequently to the 'Free the Jordache two' campaign across British media. Me being nine and stupid, I thought they were really in prison, and that it was up to the British public to get them out. Although my little self ranted and raved, it didn't do any good, and ultimately I had to rely on the producers of the show to release them from prison. Well, one of them – Beth Jordache sadly died, rendering her ineligible for parole. Sob, cry. 


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Playing board games as an adult

Walking through a toy shop with my boyfriend's sister a while ago, I spotted the Pop Up Pirate game -

Essentially, it was Buckaroo for children who liked to stab things. It was a favourite game of mine as a child, and I ran to purchase it while trying not to foam at the mouth. But then my companion pointed out that “you always stab the same hole to make the pirate jump out, you know.”

Deflated, I realised she must be right, and that the reason I'd been so amazed by it as a kid was that I'd obviously been an idiot child.

But after some painstaking research (googling), I learned that my sister-in-law had actually never learned to set the game up properly, resulting in the same outcome every time. It turns out she'd been the idiot child and not me. Thus I was vindicated.

But it got me thinking – what other pieces of cheap plastic 'family fun' had I goggled over as a child? And would they live up to my memories of them? I decided to find out, promptly going out and spending money I couldn't really afford, tracking down these lost relics of my younger years. Let me tell you – evenings at my house have been a non-stop rollercoaster of fun ever since. I'm almost certain my boyfriend doesn't miss things like sex and alcohol, and is perfectly happy to shuffle plastic discs around a piece of cardboard.

Ghost Castle

 

Object of the game – to move your player round a haunted cardboard castle and open the coffin on the roof, while avoiding traps, curses and falling skulls

Extremely scary as a child. Containing up to 80% peril in any given round, you played the game in constant fear of being decapitated by ghosts, or knocked down an endless staircase, again by a ghost. Or worst of all, being knocked unconscious by a flying skull, which was not a very nice thing to happen to you. Because I was such a wuss as a kid, I was convinced the game would somehow kill me in real life, and I could never really play it without having a nightlight/hot drink/exorcism afterwards. As an adult, the game failed to terrify me the way it once had – so much so that I began making up my own rules – if I can throw the plastic skull into my boyfriend's drink, I win. If I can roll the dice one more time without dying of boredom, I win. Best rule of all – since I paid for the game, I automatically win, and anyone who disagrees will be banished for all eternity to the Ghost Castle, which I now own.

Screwball Scramble

 

Object of the game – to navigate a metal ball around a series of mazes, see-saws and balance beams before the wind-up timer runs out

Only after hours and hours of practice could you master this game, and become master of your friends by association. I was never very good at this – my clumsy, chocolate smeared hands would inexpertly fumble at the various knobs, until the little metal ball flew out and ended up somewhere in France.

I should be able to conquer this game as an adult, right? After all, it's only a kids' game. Now I'm thirty I'll kick its ass, right? Wrong, but not for the reasons you might think. Upon removing Screwball Scramble from its box, my boyfriend immediately leapt on it, shrieking as if I'd just covered my boobs in chocolate spread. And he didn't go further than two inches away from it for the next six hours. By the time I was finally allowed a go, I'd become disenchanted by seeing him swearing, shouting at the ball, threatening to kill the ball, and finally crying in a heap on the floor.

Mousetrap

Object of the game – to trap your opponent's mouse under a mechanical mouse trap, and also to be able to assemble the bloody thing in the first place

Mousetrap was the game of my childhood – if you had Mousetrap, you could expect your social calendar to be full for at least the next two years. The reason it was so popular was because it was such a miraculous feat of engineering – something akin to being able to watch Willy Wonka's chocolate making machines in action – 30% physics, 70% magic.

My first mistake as an adult was to buy a second hand Mousetrap set – one that had obviously been chewed by babies/smashed with hammers by frustrated parents. As such, none of the bits really fit together correctly. Or maybe they never fit together properly in the first place, leading to said parents attacking it with a hammer. My second mistake was allowing my boyfriend to construct the mousetrap – as a science teacher, and also as a man, he soon reached a level of frustration never before seen by mankind. As a dutiful girlfriend, I went in search of a hammer, only to find that he'd tired of the whole thing, and now wished only to go drink beer. Even now he can't see a mouse without combusting with rage.

I guess nostalgia has a way of turning us into fools with rose tinted vision. People like to talk about the heady days when families would sit together on an evening and play a wholesome, non-threatening game. Those memories are about as real as the diet I'm currently claiming to be on. what families really used to do was sit round a table, snarling with rage and brandishing hammers and fists at a piece of cardboard.

Old gadgets that now make us look like dickheads

Everyone knows one person who has to have the latest electronic marvel, and once he has it, needs everyone to be aware he has it. There is a technical name for this person – a giant bastard.

But normal people continue to have the last laugh when the bastard's status symbols invariably drop out of favour with the world. The following are examples of pioneering gizmos that once upon a time made you the envy of those around you, only for you to realise that soon enough the thing you just paid hundreds of pounds for will be absolutely no use to you.

1. Personal organiser

Kind of a cheat since these are these are still available today, but come on – how many people do you know who own one? Back in the day these pocket-sized super computers were a marvel of streamlining, life changing technology, and all the really hip young go getters had one, because their lives were so busy and hectic that there was no way their own brain could process all the invites to parties they received. Instead, they let the combined address book, calendar and reminder function do the memory work for them.

With the advent of smart phones, the hip young go getter can no longer use his pocket bulge to project an image of success. This is because A) everyone has an organiser built in to their phone, B) everyone has a phone, and C) the people who bought organisers just to look popular are immediately shown up by acquiring a smart phone, as it will emerge that no one ever calls them or texts them, and that they only ever used their organiser to see what the time was in Japan.

2. Walkman (and accompanying bag of cassettes)

When I was five I threatened to run away from home, and my parents let me open one of my Christmas presents early so I wouldn't become a child of the streets. My present was a Walkman, complete with massive orange foam headphones. I didn't have any cassettes to go with it yet, but I felt like the coolest kid in the world.

Even I was a poser with a Walkman, and I was only an amateur. Professional posers with Walkmans (walkmen?) were the ones who strutted around, preferably on roller skates, wearing cycling shorts or knee socks or, for maximum points, both.

But what really marked these trend setters out as being truly cool dudes was the bewildering array of cassettes they were forced to carry round with them at all times; you were no one unless you had the entire back catalogue of Five Star and Bros on your person at all times.

In the future I'm sure people will have music injected directly into their heads, or perhaps take it in pill form. Those people will laugh at us with our MP3s and earphones, just as we reserve the right to laugh at the weirdos on roller skates, carrying round the contents of HMV in a rucksack.

3. Word processor

 

In the days before laptops were issued at birth, people had word processors for one of four reasons. Either they were a novelist, or they were a journalist, or they were a secretary, or they just wanted to look important. Everyone knows that a good way to look important is to have lots of stuff to write, but this only really works if A) you do all your writing on a clipboard while tutting, or B) you sit in a coffee shop somewhere, scribbling into your horrible little notebook while sighing and looking all tortured. Neither of these things could be achieved with a word processor, and anyway you might have spilled your coffee on it.

4. Ghetto blaster

You know those teenagers that sit on the bus on a Saturday afternoon, blaring out tinny dance music from their mobile phones, and nobody wants to cause a scene so everyone just tuts a bit? Those kids used to have to carry round great hulking metal boxes on their shoulders in order to achieve this effect. However, at least that showed dedication to your cause – teenagers now only have to carry something that weighs the same as a feather.

Also, why do they never play classical music on those things? It's always crappy dance music, as if the constant thumping rhythm can somehow hypnotise them into forgetting the fact that they're going to fail all their exams and end up working in Burger King. Well let me tell you, that does not work.

I take it back – ghetto blasters were cooler than today's urban general public botherers. At least back then there was a chance that all the kids would break into an impromptu breakdance battle on the street, while wearing neon jackets.

Red cars and Derek Acorah - 6 old Sky TV channels

I am a bit obsessed with what satellite TV used to be like. It only used to be the Sky analogue days that really got my imagination; my brain would occasionally leak half formed memories of super secret encrypted, fuzzed out channels and being able to view rude German shows if you squinted a bit. However, I'm also beginning to remember cool things about the Sky Digital of yesteryear. As I get older, the good ole days seem to get later and later, sigh.

Here are six channels that I didn't really watch very much at the time, but for some reason are sadly missed now.

Trouble 

A tweens/teens/young adults' channel - I'm not sure if it ever had it's very own channel, but it did used to share the day's schedule with Bravo, which I'll get to in a bit.

The main reason I wish Trouble was still airing now is that it showed the cream of TV at the time - namely Saved By The Bell, Heartbreak High and Sweet Valley High. It probably had that crappy sitcom California Dreams as well, but I can't be arsed to do that much research. The flaw in my reasoning is that if Trouble did come back, it probably wouldn't feature such awesome vintage shows any more, since at the time they were the hip and happening output for da yoof. Nowadays it would probably have shows like Victorious and Fred, like Nickelodeon does now. Probably fifteen years from now, someone else will write a blog post all about how they miss Nickelodeon, but that now it would probably show Mars Colony High and Jet Pack Jessica. I hope that whole thing just made sense, because it made my head hurt a little bit to write it.

Bravo

I think there's still a channel in America called Bravo, but I don't think it is related in any way to the now defunct Bravo, which curled up and died on new years day 2011, boo hoo. 

I never fully appreciated Bravo while it was on, but it was always there in the background, a comforting presence where you more or less always knew what was going to be on. Cult programming, ostensibly for men, for the most part. Stuff like MacGyver, Knight Rider, Dog The Bounty Hunter, and all kinds of wrestling. I remember them showing Twin Peaks too. Hang on a minute, I'm distracted. I have a lot of tabs open and one of them is a discussion about Sky Analogue. Unfortunately, it now rather looks like a discussion about a very specialist Sky channel -

Anyway.

Granada Breeze

Main output - menopause and Derek Acorah. Granada Breeze claimed to air shows that women like. Its main target audience appeared to be women who were a bit thick, and who would describe themselves as 'feisty' or 'bubbly' on a dating site. Let me put it this way - if Granada Breeze was still a channel, it would probably air Loose Women for 18 hours a day. And Derek fucking Acorah for the other 6. Maybe I can live without this one after all.

Blighty

Now then, I bet you've heard of this channel in the UK, but I bet you never watched it; I know I didn't. And I bet you didn't even know it had closed down. Because I didn't know, and I'm not going to allow people to know something I don't.

Blighty aimed to showcase the best of good old British life. Unfortunately, whoever was in charge decided that the best we had to offer was shows about cleaners, people getting arrested, and people nearly dying. As Blighty, and also as former incarnation UKTV People, this channel showed the following - A Life Of Grime, Air Medics, Blackpool Medics, Dog Borstal, Seaside Rescue, Sky Cops and Traffic Cops, among others. The rest of the world, if they had ever bothered to look at this channel, which I doubt, would have thought we were the filthiest, most accident prone criminals in the world. And I'm talking about all of Britain, not just Grimsby.

Lifestyle

American fluff channel for housewives. I remember watching it a lot as a child, because my grandma had Sky in the early 90s and I used to watch it with her. Pretty much the only show I ever remember seeing on there was daytime discussion show Sally Jessy Raphael, which I used to love, because the episodes would be called things like Lose weight or I'm leaving you! or Hostage, anorexia and lottery. Very much a programme that paved the way for The Jerry Springer Show, and for that we should all be thankful.

Granada Men and Motors

Looking at it now, it looks like the channel is called 'nnnn', which is just wrong. Men and Motors had only two things on its channel - cars and fanny. Very much a channel aimed, not surprisingly, at men. During the day there would be endless shows about cars - big cars, small cars, red cars etc. Then, at 11pm, it became a haven for sad lonely single men and 12 year old boys everywhere. Beautiful women would gather round a table and discuss their differing viewpoints on the EEC and the Northern Ireland peace process. Not really - they'd get their tits out and talk about how much they 'definitely loved getting their tits out on TV for money'.

Inevitably it went the way of most other obsolete channels, being booted out in favour of something shiny and new -

Not to worry. There is now a new version of Men and Motors where you can catch glimpses of naked girlies without shame. It is called 'everywhere on the internet', and you don't even have to squint to see it.

9 fashions from the 90s that are due a major comeback

I am not the most fashionable person in the world. Unlike women on TV, I have four pairs of shoes. Yesterday I went out wearing my boyfreind’s tracksuit (although I was only going to Games Workshop, so…)

The point is that I am perhaps not suitably qualified to judge fashion. However, I am qualified to petition for the return of a time where everyone looked shit, so it didn’t matter.

I understand that 90s fashion is making a modest comeback. This is news to me, because the things that are apparently just back in fashion I never stopped wearing. Apparently, things like scrunchies and dungarees were out of fashion for a long time, and are only recently allowed again. I wish someone had told me.

Anyway, here are nine fashion and beauty items from my younger years that we could maybe work with these days. We might have to make some of them work by only wearing them to a room full of blind people, but that’s a minor detail.

1. Bermuda shorts

To be proper and authentic, the Bermuda shorts have to be A) neon/floral neon/polka dot neon, B) worn with a T-shirt featuring a dopey looking dog and the slogan ‘don’t worry, be happy’, and C) worn on holiday to Butlins in 1990.

2. Curtains

Worn by a very specific type of ladies’ man in the 90s, particularly those ladies’ men who were teenage boys without girlfriends. Inspired by greasefest-cum-testosterone-factory 90s boy bands such as Backstreet Boys, the centre parted hairstyle was every guy’s ticket to lady bits heaven. The only flaw in this theory was that the hairstyle was crap.

3. Hair mascara

Not allowed/too chicken to dye your hair? The crap-in-a-packet ‘Shaders’ and ‘Toners’ from Wella not working, on account of how they’re just food colouring in a bag? Never fear, the answer is here! Or so we thought, before we actually tried hair mascara. According to the blurb, hair mascara was supposed to give you this look –

In reality, you got this look –

Yes, it changed the colour of your hair slightly, but the trade off was that you ended up with three big greasy strands of hair, and nothing else. We should have known – after all, cheap eyelash mascara leaves women with about three massive eyelashes, so we really shouldn’t have been surprised to find this stuff was just coloured glue.

4. Global Hypercolour

You know what I miss? Having clothes that let everyone around me know when I’m sweating. Or having clothes that let everyone know some guy’s just been feeling me up. Or worse, that I’ve been feeling myself up.

5. Velvet Paddington hats

I did genuinely love these when I was younger. Inspired by Michael Bond’s famous marmalade eating bear, Paddington hats were the perfect mix of glamour and understated tatty cool. It was a 90s girl’s way of saying “yeah I know this hat looks good, but I don’t really care that much, I’m too busy thinking about poetry and stuff”.

These days I probably couldn’t get away with one of these hats; they’d probably just make me look like an exceedingly camp pig farmer.

6. Sweater Shop

The Sweater Shop is still going, which is news to me. Back in the day, they were inexplicably the height of fashion. Teenagers everywhere would flock to buy their overpriced jumpers that looked like they’d been knitted by some old woman who could only knit while listening to Val Doonican. These jumpers were the calling card of every child bully and ‘popular’ girl in my school. I guess the equivalent now would be wearing a beige car coat and a blue rinse, but apparently that never caught on.

7. Mood rings

In the 90s we used to rely on these cheap novelties to tell us what our mood was, because we were too stupid to figure that out for ourselves. As far as we were concerned, these rings were some kind of magic, and would give us insights into our personalities and our secret wants and needs that we never could have gained otherwise.

Do you have trouble recognising when you’re feeling “calm” or “average”? If so, give me your money, because you obviously can’t be trusted not to spend it on tat like this.

8. Shell suits

A classic for a reason, although I’m not entirely sure what that reason is. Shell suits were the ultra stylish, ultra neon, ultra flammable staple of my formative years. They were practical too – they kept you warm in summer and cool in winter. Also, they were useful for keeping those pesky relationships away – partly because no one would be able to stop laughing long enough to go out with you, and partly because rubbing up against a shell-suited love interest would cause a static inferno of apocalyptic proportions.

9. Sun Moon Stars stuff

This was the 90s version of the free love movement – except that instead of sex and drugs, 90s pioneers chose to drape their settees with a load of cloth featuring creepy, anthropomorphic gas balls. The people who loved Sun Moon Stars stuff were the same people who bought mood rings, I’m sure of it. Relaxing, mind-altering, hippyish décor that left the owner with a sense of cosmic wellbeing, at least according to their mood rings.

4 bizarre Jeremy Kyle guests

Like most people, I enjoy making fun of people I consider beneath me. And here in the UK, smug, overly confident people like me get most of our kicks by observing those specimens found on The Jeremy Kyle Show.  Just lost your job? Renew your confidence by watching Jeremy Kyle shout at someone who has failed to ever keep a job for longer than a week, despite having six kids. Feeling guilty because you started drinking a bit too early in the day? Never fear - Jez is on hand to provide people who drink and shoot up before BBC Breakfast starts. Worried about that harmless crush you have on a work colleague? Simply watch Jez’s couples-at-war arguing over just how many dozens of girls the boyfriend slept with while the girlfriend was nine months pregnant/working a 12 hour shift down the coal mine.

Do you feel better about your life yet? No? Well you soon will, after you accompany me on a sightseeing tour of the very best Britain has to offer. This post may be unsuitable for work/life, defending on your stomach acid levels.

1. The 62 year old stripper

I am not here to make fun of the elderly. God knows I feel like they do most of the time – aching limbs and loss of looks. For this reason it annoys me that Jeremy Kyle should be so personally affronted when an older woman comes on his show and talks about how she’s now having the time of her life. Admittedly, she doesn’t have the best haircut in the world. No matter, because she’s out there living the dream – having it off with ten guys a week and partying it up ‘til the cows come home. That daughter is just jealous because she has a face like a stapler.

In all seriousness, I do believe this woman isn’t really doing anything wrong. If she was having sex with guys purely for her rent money I’d feel differently. But she just wants what any of us want – attention and affection. If she’s happy, let her carry on; all the daughter appears to be worried about it how this will look to the neighbours. Let me tell you – if my 64 year old Dad suddenly became the village slag, casting women aside willy-nilly, I’d be delighted and happy for him. It would certainly be better than him fawning over the Sky News weathergirl.

2. The strangest man in Britain

This is unusual because poshos don’t normally grace the screens of Jeremy Kyle. But this guy is hilarious. You’d think that with all his public school and correct knife and fork breeding that he’d be able to form a cohesive argument with which to slay the Kyle. Not so. All he can do is call him “Mr smart alex”, which is wrong even by Jeremy Kyle standards*.

Lord Dickwad continues to befoul himself by stating that he’d never reasonably have sex with the woman in question (who is relatively decent looking and nice, even though she harassed him for the “last past year”), and by smiling at wholly inappropriate times, and by just generally being an arse.

He also indirectly threatens the bouncers with a lawsuit if they attack him. This would never happen on Jerry Springer – they’d just get off with the security. Our country is so bad.

“Oh, oh yeah I do care about them exactly I do”

I’m starting to think he’s not posh, he just has a cold.

I will stick up for Jez this one time – he takes any insults thrown at him with admirable nonchalance, not bending once to this weird, semi-toff boy’s demands for attention. In this episode, he almost, almost comes out looking as good as Jerry Springer.

3. The petrol station? (starring Albert Steptoe and some guy who looks like some guy I used to know from Worksop)

This might just be me, but I’m disturbed by Albert Steptoe sat there arguing with my ex-boyfriend’s unwelcome houseguest lookalike from five years ago. Also, there is the matter of the teeth in the later parts of the video. I swear, I am one of the least vain women in the world, but even I draw the line at having a coal hole for a mouth.

Albert Steptoe also has the power to entice two men into her bed. This means she is a more alluring woman than me, who has never been able to lure two men into her bed at once. She does lose points though, on account of at least one of the men looking like a tramp's arse.

Albert Steptoe apparently had sex with two guys at once behind a petrol station. I’ll just let that image sink in for a minute. I don’t know, you might want to go to bed with a box of tissues and think about that image in more detail.

We eventually come to learn that Albert Steptoe and her shovel-faced boyfriend hate each other, and are probably only together because their names were picked in some kind of weird breeding lottery. But surprise surprise – they stay together, because the thought of having to buy new pants and make an effort to impress a potential new partner is evidently too much hassle.

4. Skeletor

Some people have to take things too far. This guy could have just dyed his hair green or something, if he wanted to make a statement. Instead he decides to get Skeletor’s face tattooed onto his face. This, unsurprisingly, pisses off his girlfriend and upsets Jeremy Kyle, who decides that this is a personal insult to him, for some reason.

‘Mad Dog Dion’ can’t see what all the fuss is about. As far as he’s concerned, it’s a rocking look that only looks a bit shit because it “isn’t finished yet”. As far as his girlfriend and kids are concerned, he is Satan in the body of a chav.  His kids are frightened of him, and his girlfriend suddenly prefers to not do sexing while she’s facing him.

I’m not sure what the girlfriend is hoping to achieve by bringing ‘Mad Dog Dion’ on the show. Is she hoping to make him go back in time and not get a permanent tattoo on his face? I think she’s secretly hoping to trade her drawn-on boyfriend for Jeremy Kyle. Kyle, however, is only interested in looking at himself in a mirror, and occasionally shouting at people for “smoking cannabis” (probably), even though the story is about tattoos.

*The correct term is "Smart Alec" and is thought to originally refer to a gangster/pimp in the 1800s. Maybe the guy was just trying to use the plural, I don’t know. Probably not.