Viva! Lost Vagrants!

Has anyone heard of FreeCycle? Well for those not in the know it’s a “charity” organisation that aims to reduce the amount of landfill waste that we’re currently burying all over the countryside. It’s doing this by trying to match people up with those that are trying to get rid of stuff to those who want the stuff. Now before you decry this innovative scheme as being complete poppycock, it actually does work. Take this for an example; I place an advert saying how I want a portable TV for my daughter. Some fellow answers and the next day I turn up at his house.   

“Hello, I’ve come for the tele.”

“Oh yes, here you go.”

“Thanks, bye”

“Bye” 

And that was it. So for the price of a couple of emails, a short car journey, my daughter has a nearly new tele and Simone and me can now watch DIY SOS in peace and quiet. I’ve then expanded my network by getting a video recorder, a set of bunk beds, a ladies bike (ok, it was a shed with rusty wheels, no brakes and needs two new tyres, but hey it was free) and managed to secure two of the ungrateful ones a whole stack of TY Beanies for their rapidly expanding collection. Top Banana!  

I do have to talk about the publication that has caused much amusement, shock and disbelieve in the pod at work. Pip brought in the magazine, which is called “Viva! New Ideas for Health and Wellbeing”, as it had been delivered with her post that morning. It’s a bit like the cross between the Betterware book and the adverts you get on the back of the Sunday papers and is jam packed full of marvellous gizmos and gadgets to help us all lead a more comfortable life. For example, how have we all struggled through our daily grind with the relief and ease that only the Migraine-Cap can provide?

Hey if it’s good enough for Mark Butcher of Surrey and England fame, (not to mention the even more famous and well known Nancy Hall?) then I’m sure my boss won’t mind me wearing one whilst at work.  

For the female readers of Viva! there are even more products than you can shake a bar of Galaxy or a pack of Liletts at! For instance if you have trouble “hovering” (that’s hovering not pushing the vac around girls) then why not take advantage of “The Whiz®” and banish those problematic public toilet moments for ever!

And best of all, according to the advert anyway, you can use it without having to remove outer or underclothing! Brilliant a device that not only addresses the last bastion of male/female equality but also magically makes your pants impervious to the smell and wetness of wee! 

And whilst we’re talking about gifts for the ladies how about a pair of Pelvic Floor Exercise Balls? Now I don’t know about you but these things have been advertised in catalogues of a much more dubious nature than the seemingly very innocent Viva! for a long long time. And also imagine wee old Granny (that’s wee as in “little” not wee as in…………well see above) thumbing through the long awaited new edition of Viva! and then she comes across these things. Not only are we running the risk of creating a sub-culture of octogenarian sex fiends who’ll be looking to host the next round of Anne Summers parties but can you imagine the racket they will cause when the whole of the pension queue in the Post Office suddenly shuffles one pace forward to the tone of several dozen of these things bouncing on the floor.

But the final mention has to go to this brilliant innovation that is not only going to revolutionise the way we sit down of an evening to watch the TV but is going to transform us into slim and svelte lean mean fighting machines! Instead of lounging down on the sofa come Corry Norry time, why not zip yourself up in the Foldable Sauna! That’s right for just a couple of hours every night you can render yourself as helpless as a fly on its back whilst the phone rings endlessly and a multitude of visitors bray on your door knocker demanding entrance. Interestingly they offer this Foldable Sauna with it’s own chair but I want to know if it has a “floor” or is your dripping sweat just supposed to soak into you tufted Wilton rug?

And finally, as little Ronnie might say, I was walking down the canal the other Saturday when I was stopped by 4 young boys fishing. 

“Hey, have you got a fag?” asked one of the urchins.

“For you? I don’t think so” I reply

“No, it’s not for me, it’s for……..”
“Yeah, right” says the incredulous me.

Then the chief urchin pipes up with,
“Why, he’s 16 you know!”
“Of course he is” guffaws an even more incredulous me as I study this skinny stunted youth.

“Don’t laugh,” says the Artful Dodger, “He’s got a growth disorder” 

The deliver was so dead pan I am now wondering if I denied a cigarette to a poor unfortunate fishing midget. Ahhhh, if the boys had been wearing flat caps and I’d been dressed in a top hat the scene would have been almost Christmassy! I thank you!