In a world of disappointments, on whims I buy things expecting them to be rubbish but ocassionally have been pleasantly surprised.

So amongst the let-downs, what have you discovered that is worth sharing with others?

I'll start the ball rolling:

a) Ben & Jerry's frozen yoghurt phish food. Okay so it is not something you should go anywhere near if you are dieting, but it does have markedly less fat than their ice-cream version and I can hardly tell the difference.

b) TM Lewin non-iron shirts. Expected this to be a waste of money, but in for a penny and all that. It works! Bloody marvellous! 3 for £90 online at the mo.

A bit broader, but I have been, and still am constantly, surprised with holidaying in the UK - there are some lovely places out there and if you don't mind a game of chance with the weather, you can have some splendid times away

poop bags from pundland. Much better than the Bob Martins ones!

The film "Dreamcatcher", purchased DVD from charity shop for £2, no critical aclaim comments on the cover (not even a "must see" quote from Nuts), poor quality photo of Morgan Freeman in the dark on rear of jacket; the only hint of quality was Stephen King story origin. Surprise - a highly enjoyable film

Also purchased The King's Speech for the outrageously inflated charity shop price of £3, thought okay it is a new blockbuster, only to find a second disc inside - Madness of King George - another qulaity film. Well chuffed

We use nappy bags from Asda for our pet waste. Although unpleasantly surprised by the number of velour-clad wobbly bodies I have to slalom through, I was pleasantly surprised by the price it's something like 300 for 35p.

Jim - agree about the UK. We are fortunate to have the freedom to travel anywhere in the world where we like, but the holiday Mrs J looks forward to the most each year is just being in the Great British countryside.

... a bottle of caustic soda from Poundland.

Cleaned up my header tank, screenwash bottle, then unblocked the drain with the leftover solution.

I recently bought a bottle of Blue Nun wine (the RIVANER Blue Riesling Bottle, not the other white wine they do) for a bit of a joke when going to a friends house party.
We opened said bottle and to everybodys suprise, it was absolutely delicious!
Who'd have thunk it?!

+1 for uk holidays. We have some of the best beaches in Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Norfolk.

Tent camping holiday in Croyde at one of the newspaper recommended campsites. Everything spotlessly clean, no fat tracksuit clad chavs, no caravans (only campers and tents). All very middle class and cheap as chips. It rained a couple of times but as we spent most of the time surfing it didn't matter.

Majorca, can picafort south of Alculdia, I was dreading it because of my idea of Majorca is beer and fat loud blokes. But after the bus had dropped off the fat loud blokes, we ended up in a really nice town, lovely beaches, great hotel and had a wonderful time. but its possibly been the best 10 days I have spent abroad.

The £1 bottles of car shampoo, wheel cleaner and polish into the co-op.

95% of stuff at Aldi. The quality of the food usually far exceeds what you'd expect from the usual supermarkets at half the price. Snackrite are particularly excellent.


Total Aldi fanboi!

Save with Dave

Oh, my car passed its MOT today - pleasantly surprised!

What a store! My old man bought some biscuits from there a while back. When we tried them, they were absolutely rank. Soft instead of crunchy, and tasted like an old attic. So he takes them back expecting a refund...

Dad: 'Ere, Dave, these biscuits you sold me are older than I am! as stale as a fart in a jar
SWD: Yes, they aren't very nice, are they? Well, take a look at these (points to more rank looking biscuits) only £1 a packet!!

Poundlands Girl Power Screen cleaner .........Really!

Magic balls.....

No instructions other then shake vigoursly, I mean!

...Enterprise Car Hire.

Booked a "Golf" for a weekend for the very reasonable sum of £40 after the Mégane inconveniently failed its MOT on the Friday. Expected a Kia Ceed or Daewoo Chevrolet Shitbox.
Enterprise picked us up and took us to their place, where 2 people had not returned the cars on time, so we got upgraded free to a brand new fully-loaded Freelander. Will certainly use Enterprise again.

It seems to me that your dad needs to maintain a more business-like footing with Dave. There are no friends in business.

So when is the court case coming up?

Bet like me you've bought lots of Power Tools/Tools you dont need or use

Yes I always thought Aldi was an el cheepo low quality but was presently suprised by how good a lot of the stuff is.

3 year Warranty on stuff too.

+1 too Aldi, the selection is pretty poor in my local and on most occasions there is only 1 bloke there replenishing and doing the checkout but the quality of the meat & veg is top notch

AVOID the taurus cider, it leaves you with a horrible headache the next day.

Lidl binoculars!

Teeny tiny lidl binoculars, for reading teeny lidl licence plates for bees?

bbc one's the voice..

Diggerland, the one near Rochester. Was not looking forward to it as we thought it would be tame and boring.

However it was a cracking day, and i have two daughters, we did think we would only saty an hour and be home for lunch. As it turned out we stayed until it closed. We loved it so much we went back a second time and took others with us.