It's Been A While - Collected Lists

Well, it's been a long while, but I still pick up the occasional list and stuff it in one of the pockets of my backpack that lives with me while I'm out. Once in a blue moon I realise there's a lot of random shit sitting at the bottom of each and every pocket in that backpack - and that's 7 pockets, including the pockets-inside-pockets. So I'll clean it out, and among the discarded wrappers that I refuse to leave for others to clean up, bus tickets, face masks and odd tissues and assorted detritus, there'll be a few shopping list that I cannot help but collect.

So let's go through a few of these and see what gems we can discover, shall we? For no other reason than - it might be fun.

Someone's making some healthy food here. Lots of veggies, including LETTUE, AVOS, and CALETTTES x 1PK, but I'm personally interested in the crossed-out CRISES, the two packs of BACON and the £80 CASHBACK/VOUCHERS - is it cashback or is it vouchers?

More healthy stuff here, including those Benecol drinks that are supposed to lower your cholesterol, chia seed, spinach (check it's not mushed!) and Kefir, but I'm curious about CLIVE MUSHROOM PIE X2, CHARLIE PAD THAI, and most of all BBI (or is it BB comma? Who knows? )

Pretty standard stuff here, but what is BOOTS-A? Also, what are Fulfil Bars?

Aha, we're having a slap-up Indian feast here. Chicken Reshmi Makhani is exquisite. Interesting spelling of poppdums, though. I think we're missing a syllable. And who knows what the numbers are about.

Prawns, squid, green veg, even Brazils are straightforward. I have no idea what twist rolls are, though I'd love to find out, but the intriguing entry here is at the top - I think they might be referring to Hot Cross Buns, but if you didn't know that they were using a plus sign to indicate the word Cross, you'd be forgiven for looking at this and thinking Hot + Bans was what they are after.

 Again, another fairly straightforward one, save for the puzzling 'Weegy Chews'.

Deodonont, Lightbulbs and All The Fruit

Hey folks - yes, it's been a while. Over two years, in fact. This morning I found this curious pair in Waitrose, sitting all lonesome-like in a shopping trolley. I had a few questions about them....

First: Fruit - ALL. Like ALL the fruit. All of it. Give me everything you've got. I'm panic buying. Blame it on Covid though, nothing to do with Brexit.

Then there's Reduced Fat... something. Mummy? Might be hummus but who knows?

Then there's that perennial requisite, Deodonont.

After shower gel and soap comes a magazine... Hit Magazine, perhaps?

Chicken Beasts and Beef (Stelling) rounds off page one.

Then after the first two entries on page 2, the handwriting changes and starts out boldly with something called Granda? I guess that might be granola.

Then there's the curiously named Oi Fage. Fage is a yogurt brand, so I guess it's 0% Fage. These are clearly posh folks, because most people would say 'yogurt' rather than one specific brand. 

We have local jellies. Make sure that whatever jellies you have, they're local. No point having jellies ten miles away, you couldn't eat them.

There's some kind of bag... salad bag?

But the two authors were definitely looking for lightbulbs, as both of them managed to write it, one of them getting mighty specific with the word (DIMMER), although the penmanship is poor so it looks like BIMMY.

 

Glorious A's and H's

I love the massive A's and H's here, but there are several confusing things happening. Straightaway I was perplexed by the odd spelling of McCain's,  a brand that's been around for decades, and then by the reference to their "glorious chips" which isn't a brand, but a reference to a 2016 tv ad for them.




Clearly whoever wrote this list is having a little in-joke with whoever's doing the shopping. What I can't fathom is the existence of people who so adore this short-lived 2016 advert that it's still a family catchphrase three years later, so much so that they feel the need to write it in their shopping list.

The next thing is the WROSE SWEET POTS, fairly straightforward I guess - Waitrose Sweet Potatoes - but what follows is very strange. OVEN  PAPRIKA.  Are we shopping for an oven and some paprika, or is oven paprika a specific type of paprika? If it is, I think we should be told.

Then, as if to highlight the posh cred of this list (it's from Waitrose, after all), we refer to rocket, which is what posh folk chuck on everything from salads to pizza to burgers (it's known as arugula in the USA, by the way).

Good Gravey! Beep!

Not only are we dealing with another bad speller, but I'm struggling with two things. (a) Blue green is what, exactly?, and (b) the random exclamation in the middle of good gravey - beep -  is most perplexing.

Tin Cats and Tea Ants

Where to start, where to start? Clearly this person has pen and pencil issues, as well as spelling problems (why do so many people believe that the word carrots has two 'T's?) and chronic indecision, it would seem.

I'm also curious as to the dinner menu in this house. What can one make with carrots, soup, veg soup,  gravy granules, low fat soft cheese and apricots? I'm also struggling to make out the scratched-out entry below soft cheese. Tin cat? Tea ant? Who knows?

Bad spellers of the world untie!

Here's what it looks like it says:

Cif
demostis
£10
Rise nits
Chef coffee

Here's what I think it's supposed to say:

Cif (cleaning product that used to be called Vim and then Jif until a few years back when Unilever, the makers of Jif,  changed it because there was a brand of lemon juice called Jif - like anyone would get the two mixed up. Ammonia on your pancakes, anyone? However the reason for the name change was "product streamlining" apparently, even though it's also known in some countries as Viss, Handy Andy and Jif.)
Domestos ( a brand of bleach that's been around for eons, with the same tagline "Kills 99% of all known germs - dead." Kind of redundant.)
£10
Biscuits - a bit non-specific for my liking. Surely these people have favourites?
Cheap coffee - Ah, I see. Now we get to the crux of the matter. They want cheap coffee and non-specific biscuits because they are clearly buying them for someone else.



But still - demostis? Really? That's not even close. True, the consonants are where they are supposed to be, but the vowels are way off.

£10?

Naked Bisquets

My, there's a lot going on in this one.

It's all fine until we get to the fourth line, and then it gets a bit snarky. We have milk, yogurts and then MY MILK-YOGURT . Possessive much?

Then on the next line, some weird words start creeping in, as if the effort of shouting MY MILK YOGURT has reduced the writer's ability to spell. First we have the strangely quizzical Cerals?, then two lines further on the peculiar whitness, and on the next line Naked Bisquets.

A little further on and we have pro-biolic grinks and Bio yoghurst.

Calm down, people. Never get so angry you forget how to spell.