Thursday 4 February 2010

Adventures In Drunk Internet Shopping

Hurrah! Paid again. And after doing the sensible stuff (big Ocado shop, paying bills, dreaming of an iPhone), I went slightly crazy on (shhhhhh) Amazon - well, I may work in a bookshop, but I feel no guilt in buying CDs, DVDs and books that are out of print on line, especially when they are cheaper than the postage required to get them to me. I consider myself an object lesson in How Not To Buy Stuff On The Internet, however, and here are several cautionary facts you should consider if, like many, you love and admire me so much you wish to emulate my every action (pause for snigger).

1) Internet shopping while drunk is a foolish, foolish thing.
2) If you do not know how big your oven is, how can you be sure that the nonstick roasting tin with removable rack will fit? Eh???
3) Absolutely nothing is the colour it appears on screen. Not the nail varnish, not the t-shirt. What appears a gorgeous deep fuchsia will inevitably turn out to be a deeply unflattering and nylon-y looking salmon. I speak the truth here.
4) Nobody needs more than 15 plain black long-sleeved tops.
5) If it doesn't say "brand new, unopened" it will smell. Or have a suspicious-looking stain.

The second week of every pay month is marked by lots and lots of tiny packages turning up for me at work, mostly CDs, often DVDs, with varying degrees of delight or shame. I can always tell how drunk I was when I placed the order (in my defence: at home, usually late Friday after big nice dinner and a bottle of wine, on Mr Fishwife's laptop, Me: "C'nIvergo nyour laptop?" Him: "DO NOT START SPENDING MONEY ON CRAP." Me: "Juss wanna look at amazon. Oh! Yay! I bought you a looooovely t-shirt!! What chest size are you again? Doesnmatter, I've already paid..." usw) by how embarrassing the item is when it turns up. Xanadu, anyone? The Best Of Grandmaster Flash And The Sugarhill Gang?
HOWEVER neither the Internet nor the demon drink had anything to do with my new-found love for Mad Men, although I have just received the DVD of season 1 and am feverishly planning a marathon of Old Fashioneds, waspie corsets and smoking everywhere. To which end I give you my new giant ladycrush and secret role model, the flawless, fabulous, plus-sized Joan.Earth has not anything to show more fair. Nor more curvy. Sadly her chief attractions are hidden behind the accordion, but what the hell. I promise I will never get so carried away by the combined temptations of Fabuloso Spanish Brandy and payday that I buy an accordion.
PS AND she was singing "C'est Magnifique".

27 comments:

Mademoiselle O said...

Internet et alcool ne font jamais bon menage.
J'espere que tu n'as PAS achete d'I-phone parce que c'est encore pire: meme tres tard, meme tres saoule, meme tres loin de tout ordinateur, le pire peut arriver!
;-)
Bise, Soizic
ps: I might move back to France by the end of the month, it would be great to see you before. A pub session with Ned maybe? x

Lucy Fishwife said...

Salut Soiz! Heureusement non, pas d'iPhone. Pour ca je m'enseignerai directement chez Vodaphone!!! Yes, pub would be good. I'm seeing Ned next week so will try and organise - when are you moving? And why??? Chat on Facebook xxx

Kate said...

This was hilarious! I am far too experienced in drunk internet shopping...I think my most shameful purchase to date has been the Lateral Thigh Trainer. Just don't tell anyone.

Fran Hill said...

I don't need the drink. I can buy very silly things while sober just as well.

Wisewebwoman said...

Yes, I've being drunk on acquisitiveness in AbeBooks and couldn't stop.
Yeah, Mad Men. Seriously addictive and I'm old enough to have worked in such offices so a fog of appalled nostalgia settles on me as I watch. I await Season 3 on DVD.
XO
WWW

screamish said...

what IS this Mad Men thing?

Ah yes, the old drunk internet shopping thing. Just don't even THINK of buying an accordion...I bought one off ebay a couple of years ago for a friend...these cheap Chinese ones only vaguely resembles the real thing.

The Poet Laura-eate said...

Comedienne Jenny Eclair says there should be an automatic keyboard lock on every computer and mobile after 9pm.

I think she has a point!

I have never ordered anything when drunk (probably because I've never been drunk), but have still ended up with two left footed boots on one occasion and a pair of grey trousers which turned out to be brown! I returned the boots and ended up wearing the trousers as life is too short to keep returning things.

Nice to see you back in the blogosphere Lucy - we're even cheaper than Amazon!

Lx

Lucy Fishwife said...

Kate - My lips are sealed. I once got chatted up on a late night tube by a guy who claimed to be the UK promoter of the Suzanne Somers Thighmaster (and why would you claim to be that if you weren't??) and to this day I've regretted not taking him up on a freebie...

Fran - ditto. My last mobile phone but one, for a start. It broke twice in a month, but it was so pretty I was conned. NEVER buy a mobile phone based on its dinkiness.

WWW - I like the Cart function though, which lets you vicariously spend hundreds then decide not to.
My first office job was way before the ban (WAY WAY before), and even as a smoker I couldn't handle the brimming ashtrays on the desk. Now, obviously, I moan about it.

Screamish - My best bad buy so far: a Korean pirate DVD (from AMAZON!) of Disney's Fantasia, which has all the menu and subtitles in Korean. Which I can't read. Also dubbed into Korean, and I am unable to work out how to access the English subtitles. What a waste of £3.75!!!!

Laura - Apparently the Japanese have invented a mobile phone with built-in breathalyser, which locks if you try and use it drunk. Which would have saved me many an ill-advised student-era booty call. If only the Japanese had also invented a time machine.
Good to be back! On my way over. x

Anonymous said...

Luce, Madmen is amazing! I was worried I would ahve nothing to fill the empty hole in my life after The Wire but get ready to become obsessed-best thing on TV. Ever.

Anonymous said...

Ooh, that was from me- Abby yeah? I am an idiot.

Lucy Fishwife said...

Abby! Don't you love the internet and its multiple opportunities to meet up NOT in real life? Am into Mad Men series 1 on DVD - it's slow and careful going at the moment, as the only way to get Mr F to watch drama is to be very casual about it (this worked for the Sopranos AND the Wire) - also once I told him it was the same writer as the Sopranos he was hooked. Yay for Joan! And also Don Draper although he's TOO OBVIOUSLY HANDSOME. x

Anonymous said...

Lucy I just got so excited seeing you've started Madmen, i couldn't resist commenting. Been trying to get my friends to watch but no one will get past the first episode, moaning that 'nothing happens'. Fools! More is conveyed in the arch of Joan's perfect eyebrows than in a thousand episodes of 24 or Heroes.

And yes, Don Draper is almost too good looking to be true, but oh so troubled. My favourite combination since school, but sadly not one that has stood me in good stead. And the smoking Lucy! All that wonderful smoking, when nary a single cigarette has passed my lips since March. It's like torture. Sigh. I'm off to make myself a Martini and dream about Don.

p.s. By the way, never Google image Jon Hamm, you will be disappointed. He looks nothing like his character in real life- long, stringy hair- euch.

Absx

Steerforth said...

My drunken internet purchases include a meteorite, an Elizabethan sixpence, a DVD of the first series of Shoestring and a pair of Doc Martens with "Royal Mail" embossed on the side.

I haven't felt the urge to watch Shoestring, but the meteorite still gives me a thrill when I hold it, and the DMs are still going strong after three years.

Tessa said...

Maybe somebody will come up with something along the lines of Google's mail goggles app that won't allow you to email while drunk. You have to solve complicated maths problems before the email is sent. Wouldn't work for me, as I'm innumerate anyway. I'd never be able to use the interwebz again.

Until some genius does come up with the appropriate app, you should remind Mr Fishwife that if "friends don't let friends internet shop drunk" then the same goes in spades for spouses.

Lucy Fishwife said...

Abby - But didn't you love him in 30 Rock? Especially since he was playing the guy who was so handsome that nobody had ever told him how crap at everything he was? "Good looking but crap" sums up my personal history of bad choices rather than "Good looking but troubled". Apart from Mr F that is (he might be Alec Baldwin in 10 yrs time!!) Good effort on the smoking! Still a sad failure myself. My GP reluctantly admitted it DOES speed up your metabolism though so that's my excuse. I can't give up AND diet.

Steerforth - And the sixpence? I'm intrigued by the Royal Mail DMs - were they standard issue or a fan-item like an FDNY tshirt?

Tessa - Believe me, he tries. It's more a rebellious streak that keeps me sneaking off to the airing cupboard and feverishly ordering random tat.

Steerforth said...

I bought the DMs on eBay because they were half price and only discovered that they were special Royal Mail editions later. But thank God I didn't send them back - they are amazing! I've worn them every day for three years and they are probably still good for another two.

It's made me realise that in the shoe world, the technology is there to make shoes that will last for years, but nobody wants to do it.

Where's Roger Cook when you need him?

Anonymous said...

Ooh haven't seen that episode yet. Will do it.

Cassandra said...

SHE'S BACK!!!!!! Lulu is back and she's on CRACKING form. (Does big flabby dance of joy all over the freezing castle).

Agree with everything you and Abby say about Mad Men - also had that post-Wire void of Doooooooooooooom. Mr T and I have very similar conversations about online shopping and I don't even have to be DRUNK. Stupidly, I told him that someone had outbid me on ebay yesterday, like he was a sympathetic shopaholic girl rather than a tight-wad MAN. Ha ha ha! So pleased that you properly online again xxxx

Sgt Pepper said...

Excellent. A slight variation on this is to order a CD from teenage years (one that you once owned as an LP and, obviously, deceive yourself into thinking will be somehow 'better' for having been digitally remastered, whatever that means).

Then you go to bed, forget all about it and, the next night, do exactly the same thing. Brilliant.

My weary brother is constantly delighted by my generous, spontaneous and special-day-unrelated presents to him of childhood favourites. It has to be my brother because who else would attach any value to what was drawing a cool-as-cucumber cult following in 1971? No one, that's who.

Pudfish said...

Hi there, I have just discovered your blog thanks to a tip off by a friend of yours, and it's fab, so funny and full of things I like - books, perfumes, worries that Johnny Boden may in fact be a psychopath...always knew there was something troubling about his chatty comments..and the way copies of the catalogue arrive again and again, the same catalogue, wearing you down until you have to buy jolly mumsy skirt in purple cord with pink flowers..

Pudfish said...

Oh, and i wanted to recommend an American blog you might like, also v funny - called Godammit I'm mad - a good post today about literary feuds you might enjoy

Lucy Fishwife said...

Sergeant Pepper - When I said "Xanadu", obviously I meant "Blake's 7", "The Aphrodite Inheritance", and "The Time Tunnel". And I own three copies of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours".

Pudfish - Johnny Boden is making himself a girlsuit just like in "Silence of the Lambs". this is why you should never return a garment on the grounds of it not fitting correctly, as he will then add you to a database of potential skin-donors. This is true. Plus there's something creepy about the way he sends you emails saying "what's the matter? have we offended you? Why haven't you ordered anything for ages?" Needy AND a psychopath.

fifi said...

Hey Luce, finally someone to talk to about Madmen....nobody I know in Italy watches it!!!! Least of all my husband. Yes Don is too gorgeous and it took a while for his charm to work on me but I'm hooked, and isn't Joan brilliant, but surely they have padded her out, no one really has a figure like that?

Lucy Fishwife said...

Fifi - Oh it's all real, I've seen her in other things. HOW jealous am I? I would have thought Mad Men was IDEAL for Italy - the style, the cool, the clothes, the Martinis - has it just been really crappily dubbed?

fifi said...

I'm not sure about the dubbing, I watch the original version on Sky but it's been on national telly too. I can only think it's too subtle for the masses here whose minds have unfortunately been stultified by more than 20 years of the total crap that Berlusconi's channels put out. Also most of the attraction for me is being transported to the 60s and I don't think they have the same kind of nostalgia for the past over here.

Anonymous said...

P.S. I found the accordeon scene charming but slightly weird until I realised that maybe they got the idea from Marilyn Monroe playing the ukulele in Some Like it Hot. What do you think?

Lucy Fishwife said...

Anon - Yes, I think they're doing a very big Joan = Marilyn thing throughout. Although the ukelele was a handy prop to draw the eyes to Marilyn's extraordinary boobage, while the accordion just camouflages Joan's.