Souvenirs

[Arch]

Last night, a couple of mates and I were in the pizza/kebab shop in Wooler, waiting for our pizzas. This emporium also has, slightly bizarrely, some party ware (balloons, hen party badges etc) and a shelf of second hand bric-a-brac, the sort of thing you get in charity shops. We so nearly spent a pound on one item because of its sheer oddity, but didn't, and the shop was closed today, so any hope of a second chance to buy was lost.

Now, can anyone suggest why, in 1972, someone in a glass factory in Munich, decided to commemorate the Olympics with a souvenir glass boot?

I daren't Google, in case it turns out to be worth £500 to a collector....

What's the best worst souvenir you've ever seen?

 

[longers]

Now, can anyone suggest why, in 1972, someone in a glass factory in Munich, decided to commemorate the Olympics with a souvenir glass boot?

I think the boot - and I doubt it was alone - may have been in existence before the Olympics and they hoped engraving it or decorating it would enable them to shift their unwanted stock under the pretence of it being a souvenir. Maybe. But that doesn't answer why someone made glass boots thinking they were a good idea.

I do look at an awful lot of things especially in gift shops and the like and think not "who buys this stuff?" but "who designs this stuff thinking people will want to part with their hard earned for it?".

There's no accounting for taste but some of the stuff is barmy.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

you should see the tat available for sale opposite the campo miracale (with it's famous leaning tower) in pisa…

 

[Campfire]

Hope you had a good time in Wooler Arch. Was thinking of going but had to take Mum to hospital last minute. I did wonder from time to time what the weather was like & where you went to on the Sunday.

 

[rich p]

The tat stalls outside the Colosseum in Rome were flogging off those snowstorm things with a bad representation of Pope John Paul II inside. I was going to buy one for a joke but not for £5!

 

[HelenD123]

you should see the tat available for sale opposite the campo miracale (with it's famous leaning tower) in pisa…

That definitely comes top in my tat league table. Stall after stall of it. Glow in the dark leaning tower of Pisa anyone?

 

[gavintc]

From my days in Germany in the late 70's it was common to drink a 'boot of beer' . It had similar achievement standards to the 'yard of ale' in UK. I suspect the boot comes from that era.

 

[snakehips]

It had similar achievement standards to the 'yard of ale' in UK.

One of the highlights of the weekend just gone by (!) was the discovery that you can now buy a Yard of Shortbread. Guaranteed to delight the shortbread lover in your life , and I'm sure we all have such a person.

Snake

Siamo tutti farabutti

 

[Kirstie]

I have seen some terrible 'art' for sale in various places in the scottish highlands and islands. Yes I really do want to pay £250 for a ropey watercolour...

 

[threebikesmcginty]

One of the highlights of the weekend just gone by was the discovery that you can now buy a Yard of Shortbread.

 

[XmisterIS]

One of the highlights of the weekend just gone by (!) was the discovery that you can now buy a Yard of Shortbread. Guaranteed to delight the shortbread lover in your life , and I'm sure we all have such a person.

That'll be me then ... the though of a whole yard of shortbread makes me drool ...

 

[XmisterIS]

In the big bookshop in Leipzig in its DDR days, you could get 1/2 life-sized busts of people like Erich Honecker and Rosa Luxemburg. For some reason, they were rendered in light blue plastic. I wish I'd got loads!

Do they do 'em in shortbread too?!!

 

[Globalti]

Do you know that those African souvenir sellers that you see at popular tourist spots are Senegalese, members of the Mourid sect, which opeartes entirely on a system of verbal accounts and total honesty?

 

[Fnaar]

My mum once went to Knock(Ireland) where she bought a statue of "Our Lady of Knock" with arms you moved by twiddling a small button on the back. Wish I still had it!

Dara O'Briain's new book "Tickling the English" asks "what's with all the fudge?"... and he has a point... now Devon and Cornwall, where the delicious local cream is added into the mix.... fine... but surely not every county has a long artisanal tradition of finest fudge going back aeons?? Kent Fudge? Essex fudge?

 

[snakehips]

For some reason, they were rendered in light blue plastic.

They were probably made from the offcuts of the panels used to make Trabant cars. They were famously made of plastic and almost always light blue , if I recall correctly.