Nov 20 2008
Need dental work?

Would you trust this shop to fix your teeth?!
Nov 20 2008
So to recap: We won some money on a Lottery scratchcard, and set off in search of the 10 greatest bargains to beat the Credit Crunch….and then listed the TOP TEN (from 10 -> 2)…but now it is time to reveal the biggest economic downturn busting bargain…EVER!

This needs no introduction, but since there is an introduction up there anyway I will continue. What an amazing deal. One moustache for every day of the week, PLUS a sideboards (sideburns) set…and fake eyebrows!

There are a variety of styles you can play around with, including ‘The Chaplin’…which should not be confused with ‘The Dictator’ (when I think ‘Dictator’, I think ‘Hitler’…I’m not sure what turf they were thinking NOT calling ‘The Chaplin’ ‘The Dictator’…but anyway I digress…

The Grandad! My Grandad didn’t have a moustache like this (his looked, more worryingly, like ‘The Dictator’).

‘The (fake) Dictator’! FOOL YOUR FRIENDS! You can’t fool me!

Schupp! He’s a SOUL MAN…

Well you can not deny that they are SLEEK…

I think they just ran out of names when they got to this one…
So anyway…many of the fake facial hairs I’ve tried in the past have been horrible failures…

…so I was excited to see how these ones measured up. I wasn’t disappointed!

Laura managed to go through the entire meal without getting any lasagne in her moustache.

Jon took hair from his arm and used it on his lip.

They could not take their eyes off the huge mirror on the opposite wall.
So there you have it. The greatest £1 spent during the Credit Crunch. Not only does it provide hours of fun, but if you need to escape from the taxman you can simply slip one on and disappear to Antigua.
Just try not to make yourself look even more famous in the process…

Nov 18 2008
So to recap: We won some money on a Lottery scratchcard, and set off in search of the 10 greatest bargains to beat the Credit Crunch…but each had to be under £1. Here’s the list…from Number 10 to Number 2!

I know…you can’t believe we’re starting off with such an amazing item…but the quality in this top 10 is such that it occupies this position. Wow. Just wow.

A keyring this cool should come with a frostbite warning.

15 rolls of thread stuff, ‘assorted needles’, a tape measure…all of these items could easily take a solo spot in this list, but together?! Unstoppable. You’ll see more of this lot as I use it to perform open-heart surgery on Cuggi, the black and white dog.

Yeah, you read that right. TWENTY-FIVE GLOWSTICKS. And they glow for AGES! And they’re long enough to wrap around your arm…or link them together and make them into necklaces or nunchuks. It’s up to you.

At 4p each, you don’t need to hold yourself back too much.
Since my adventures with manicures in Hangzhou, I’ve been trying to keep my finger-nails in shape. Not in a gay way (although I’ve got nothing against the gays…oh God here we go…I don’t mean ‘the gays’ I mean…oh screw it…IN A GAY WAY K?)…

All I wanted was a single nail file…turns out POUNDSHOPS don’t roll like that…welcome to the 40 piece nail behemoth!

So in keeping my reputation as Mr.VG (Valcro Guy), I need to keep my facial hair UNDER CONTROL. With thirty razors for £1, it’s easy AND good for the environment*!
*That’s not true.

Ok so I messed up, but give me a break here. After buying the 30 razors, I saw this…magnificent beast. A proper, high powered (and I mean I’m scared to put it near my face high powered) beard trimmer, brush, scissors and something else (I can’t really see what it’s for but i’m sure it’s useful too). For £1.

Don’t be confused by the title, as only the most rebellious or terribly raised children will be interested in these games!

It’s got chess, erm…some other things…and ROULETTE! ROU-TURFING-LETTE! For £1. You know what I say to that? D**L.

You can’t buy your way into heaven, but this clock surely can’t do you any harm. With special End Of Days style alarm, it’s the perfect addition to any (righteous) living room.
So you’ve never misread a DVD case?

Recently I have suffered NO END of abuse about my favourite comedy film, Dude, Where’s My Car?. I mean, what’s not to like about:
Jesse and Chester, two bumbling stoners, wake up one morning from a night of partying and cannot remember where they parked their car which prompts them on a journey to find it.
Unfortunately, in some respects, Dude, that’s my mom! is not the followup to this comedy classic. After looking a bit deeper however:

Sexy Moms are wet and waiting! Are you a Mother F*****? It’s the ultimate MILF s** romp with the hottest cougars in the business. Phyllisha Anne and Sandra Romain homeschool two young frat men in the art of a***. Lauren Kain makes Chris Evans and Mikey Butders c** to momma!
(I added the *’s to make it look more e*citing than it is).
Well! That’s it! £9 down…£1 to go…
Nov 17 2008
It was a grey, cold, autumn day in North-West London. A cold wind blew tirelessly down the gloomy, empty streets of Kilburn. Evidence of the global recession was etched into the faces of the downtrodden inhabitants of this depressed and depraved area…but as soon as we saw the words:

…we knew it was destined to be one of the best days ever.


£20! £20! £20!

Falco did his best ‘Happy Cat’ face
We had turned £1 into £20, in less than 5 seconds. We felt like Enron in ‘92.
Now we were faced with a dilemma - how to go about beating the credit crunch once and for all…to prove to normal people that there is hope at the end of the crooked fiscal rainbow.
The answer…

Our plan was to visit every £1 store in Kilburn High Road, to find the most amazing bargains possible and to make the happiness that we were feeling stretch to as many people as possible. Within reason.
“10 Products, £10″ rules:
Before we began buying, we reminded ourselves of some ghetto economics:

We went in to our first shop, and things were already looking up.

An oversized phone-clock combo. Perfect! But things then took a turn for the worse…

I could hardly contain my excitement at the prospect of getting hammered while playing roulette…but what turf?! I checked the price tag (expecting a 99p or £1 label) and to my horror was confronted with…£4.99!
We’d been scammed.
Frantically we scanned other prices…

Although this waist support (tagline: VICTORY BELONGS TO YOU FOREVER) looked like a perfect addition to any professional sportsman’s kitbag, the price tag read £3.99!

These knee supports, which looked like they had been used by someone who had extremely weak legs, were £1.99!
We checked the name over the door of the shop - 99 PLUS DISCOUNT STORE. 99 PLUS WHAT THE F***??!?! PLUS??? We’d been tricked into this shop and now they were laughing at us. We were humiliated.
We ran from the pain, into the arms of: POUND SUPERSTORE

These people wouldn’t try to scam us, would they? It started well, with these fantastic sculptures catching my eye…
…but then the familiar sinking feeling caught my gut.

What could be cooler than an exquisite, sound_controlled toy cage?! I’LL TELL YOU WHAT! AN EXQUISITE SOUND_CONTROLLED TOY CAGE THAT COST £1 OR LESS! It’s a frigging £1 shop!

I couldn’t even make myself feel better by playing with the oversized calculator. What turf.
We had to leave…to find a better place. We decided it was time to go to the market leader in £1 goods.

There was never any doubt that all of the goods in Poundland would fit the criteria of the contest. We let the quality and variety wash over us…

A ‘glam’ red cowboy hat, also available with Santa-esque white trim! Festive!
I wanted to get a picture wearing this marvel, but while trying it on we were told to stop ‘recording’ as it was absolutely against company policy. This sadly means that the only other photo we could get is a covert one:

And you thought underwear was cheap in China! Mmmmm Chinese underwear….

Now look - just because you’re a 99p store, doesn’t mean that you should ignore grammar. That’s point #1. Point #2 is…WHEN THE HELL DID IT BECOME ILLEGAL TO BUY PARTY POPPERS FOR UNDER-18s?!?!
Moving on…


We were coming to the end of our quest…and we’d made our choices. It wasn’t easy. We weren’t allowed to buy this…

…even though they looked like they would provide hours of fun.
When the final £1 had been spent, we were content…until we saw what we had ignored:

OMG! A Niu Nai statue!
Our reckless spending had left us with £0.00p, and although it could clearly have taken pride of place in ANYONE’S living room…we had to, regrettably, leave it in the shop. Come back soon for Part 2, where the list of items will be revealed!