The Lucyverse

THIS WEEK: Really Meaty Crunchy Wotsits, Ryvita Salt & Cider Vinegar Sticks, Spiced Pumpkin Latte candle THING: REALLY Meaty Crunchy Wotsits Can you imagine working in Wotsit product development? People wouldn’t need to ask you what you did for a living - they’d be able to tell before you even walked into the room. You would be forever changed on a molecular level.

On Temu, nobody ever does anything normal. They’re always using strange equipment to hoover their noses out, covering their faces in slug juice, wrapping their heads in baked bean balaclavas and removing their blackheads with belt sanders. Even if a pursuit is recognisable, it will soon be rendered grotesque and unsettling to the point that you’ll have to bleach your eyes to rid yourself of the horrors. (Luckily eye bleach is on sale for only £0.47!) This week, we’re at yoga.

THIS WEEK: Kallø Beetroot & Balsamic Veggie Cakes, Celebrity Traitors, Lannan Bakery THING: Kallø Beetroot & Balsamic Veggie Cakes Can you imagine the expression on your kid’s face when they get one of these in their lunchbox? Lol! They’ll be swapping this for a bag of crack and a blue raspberry Lost Mary before you can say ‘Pokémon shiny.’ Six seven INDEED. Still, we live in complex times.

It’s Friday and today I was scheduled to get a wisdom tooth removed. Apart from having my nipples twisted with a pair of rusty pliers, it’s bottom of my list of fun things to do. So imagine my delight when it turned out that it didn’t need to come out after all and I could spend the weekend eating solid food rather than being dentally ill and eating jelly. HURRAY! I’m so cock-a-hoop that a) this post is late and b) I have devoted the bargain bucket to teeth-related crap.

My son constantly plays a game on his phone called Balls, involving, as you might imagine, a lot of balls pinging around in an annoying fashion. As the lone woman in a house with two men, I’m always near balls in some capacity, and recently I’ve noticed that there are a lot of them in the supermarket, too. And I don’t mean meatballs. Or stuffing balls, or Maltesers, or all the usual round food objects we’re all used to popping into our mouths without a single moment’s thought about testicles.

Long before this abomination was invented, Boy George said he preferred a cup of tea to sex. Now, you can’t avoid having both at once - on a beach no less, and the tea isn’t even hot! And who is behind this outrageous product? Well, it’s none other than Lord Nelson - who famously celebrated victory at the Battle of Trafalgar with 2 for 1 cocktails at Terry Lineker’s Fun Pub in Cadiz. Oh no, wait a minute, he died.

Ducks are cute, aren’t they? Little waddling balls of feathers with those little funny beaks. Bless them. Unless they’re on Temu, of course. Not only does the algorithm fail to differentiate between a duck and a goose, it also misrepresents ducks by giving them negative personality traits and showing imagery that’s quite frankly harmful to the duck community. They’re either portrayed as insane, twisted motherduckers who are a menace to society, or helpless puppets we can manipulate for our amusement.

I’ve been psyching myself up to paint the hall for 13 years now and I think I might be finally ready to do it. Yay me! And because I yearn to be classier, richer and better at decorating than I actually am, I demand nothing the best: Farrow & Ball. None of your Dulux shite for me, mate. Farrow & Ball is the quintessential posh house paint with stupid names like Dead Salmon, Elephant’s Breath and er… Yes, Farrow & Ball is massively up itself, but it’s soooo good.

Can McVitie’s please patent the name Jaffa Cakes, for the love of all that is good and holy? Every time I open my eyes there’s a bunch of fake cakes jaffa-ing around out there. Everyone, from obscure online confectionary companies to Lidl, Aldi and Asda are using the name - and also, in some cases - copying the jaunty orange peel logo. Where are those hard-nosed Jellycat croissant lawyers when you need them? Honestly, they are taking the PITH.

THING: Weird Airbnbs I seem to have a knack for choosing strange Airbnbs. They seem okay in the pictures, they’re not in scary neighbourhoods, and someone from Azerbaijan has usually left a review saying great host great location!! 🇦🇿 Yet something is always a bit wrong. Like an ominous locked cupboard and a smell of drains or damp. A generic print or an ornament that takes on a strange life of its own, or, my least favourite - French windows in the bedroom that lead to a dark backyard.