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Ten things people try to sell secondhand that are a f**king insult to your intelligence

SECOND-HAND platforms have the occasional gem in a mountain of crap. Which of these delights will you scroll past today?

Knackered childrens’ trainers

Kids destroy shoes. This is a given. Scrubbing off the mud can’t conceal that the Velcro is matted with bits of old thread and pet hair. Even your slovenly, oblivious child is too discerning for these.

Empty Chanel carrier bag

Not a bag carrying some perfume, but literally an empty paper bag. A glowing description extols such attributes as ‘string handles’ and ‘a rectangular cardboard insert’. The seller wants 12 quid plus £3.35 postage.

Cheap dress

Lavishly described on Vinted as ‘stunning’. If truly only worn once as claimed, then that one occasion must have been a particularly heavy night out in a cheap suburban nightclub involving free blue alcohol and a back-alley knee-trembler.

A filthy juicer

No one in their right mind buys a juicer because it will be used once and thrown out. This listing on Next Door is a case in point, but replaces ‘thrown out’ with ‘sold at full price’. £135 ‘as new’ but each of its 17 miserable components is caked in dried-on orange juice from when Theresa May was prime minister.

Open pack of Tena ladies pads

The epitome of Facebook Marketplace user realising they can list something without considering whether they should. A full cupboard clear-out: why not? Next time why don’t you chuck in a half-tube of Anusol?

Weird-looking three-piece suite

Red velvet with a fake gold trim, this suite looks like it came from a dictator’s second-best lounge. Yours for the bargain price of £1,000 ‘or near offer.’ Ponder whether a fiver is near enough before deciding it’s not worth the risk of being accepted.

Nintendo game: box only

A box only. Not the game itself. The seller wants £5.99 plus postage. Gives you the impression the seller was sat in a near-empty room casting around for anything whatsoever that might have value. Will be gone next time you look for it.

Mattress

Blithely listed on Facebook Marketplace for local pick-up, this mattress is apparently worth £15. You would literally pay that to stay away from it. Was this flytipped once already?

Harry Potter Lego character – wand only

Wand only. A Lego wand. A 1cm bit of brown plastic. £4? Plus postage? Surely at least it can apparate its way to you?

A dolls’ house bath mat

Brilliant! A bath mat on eBay for 99p! You hit Buy on this genuine, old-school auction bargain in a frenzy of excitement. It comes measuring 25mm x 50mm. You check and it did say in the advert. This is why people sell crap. Because of bargain-greedy knobheads like you.

Six Z-list celebrities you occasionally think about and wonder what they're up to

LOW-TIER celebrities do not cease to exist when they vanish from our screens. Occasionally you wonder what these ones are up to.

Handy Andy

Generously described by Wikipedia as a ‘television personality’, you dimly remember Handy Andy talking all cockney on Changing Rooms as he hurriedly f**ked up houses. But that was decades ago. What’s he been up to since? Lying low from all the people he pissed off with his slipshod carpentry? If he still had an agent you could reach out and ask.

Dappy

Dappy was the rapper in hip hop and grime trio N-Dubz, but all anyone really remembers him for is making a twat of himself on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Public humiliation can’t keep paying out all these years later though, prompting you to wonder how he’s doing these days. Remarkably he reformed N-Dubz last year. Must have been a tough lockdown.

Levi Roots

Sometimes, when you can’t sleep, you remember that Levi Roots walked into a room, sang a song about a sauce with a silly name, then strutted out with enough money to last him a lifetime. Is that how you’re supposed to play capitalism? Was all your hard work and studying a massive waste of time? Because that’s how Levi Roots made you feel.

Nasty Nick

In the summer of 2000, Big Brother contestant Nick Bateman was all anyone talked about. He was on the cover of all the papers and the public foamed at the mouth for the duplicitous prick’s downfall. Nowadays he would struggle to land a non-speaking part in a regional panto. Still, you hope he’s learnt his lesson and is doing well.

Hans Blix

Hunky Swedish UN weapons inspector Hans Blix was rocketed to fame in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The bespectacled hero nosed around the country looking for weapons of mass destruction which everyone knew weren’t there, then we invaded anyway. Weird he’s not turned up on Dancing on Ice, but then he is 94.

Nicola Roberts

You remember, the redhead from Girls Aloud? You remember Girls Aloud, they won Popstars: The Rivals? You remember Popstars: The… forget it. Nicola Roberts was in a famous band and then she made some songs as a solo artist that barely charted. She won the first series of The Masked Singer though, which is more than you’ve done.

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