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Balconies are where we keep all the shit, explain apartment owners

THE balconies of an upscale apartment complex are the ideal location for all the owners’ assorted crap, they have confirmed. 

Residents have admitted that for each apartment to remain a flawless, carefully curated space with low-slung coffee tables, fluffy rugs and sofas on little legs, the balcony is required to become the equivalent of a garden shed full of shit.

Architect Carolyn Ryan said: “In my sketches for the complex, each balcony held a single exquisite plant. Perhaps the occasional couple elegantly sipping champage.

“Instead, the balconies on these £320,000 apartments hold bikes, pairs of wellies, drying racks, children’s toys, children’s bikes, broken air fryers, a highly misguided basketball hoop, and the only residents I see are smoking spliffs. It’s not what I had in mind.”

Emma Bradford said: “Yeah, I bought the plant. It’s still out there, dead, with the empty fish tank, the multipack of Coke Zero, the parcel shelf of my Yaris and the sun-bleached yoga ball all providing visual interest for commuters on passing trains.

“Maybe the architect should have included some f**king storage space in this f**king tiny shithole.”

A thicket of chest hair, and other things considered sexy on 1970s men

THE 1970s were, it was believed at the time, a sexy decade. This is what got you laid when T. Rex roamed the charts: 

Big, thick moustaches

A bloke was nowhere back then without a big, bushy moustache that made him look like like Burt Reynolds or a Spanish waiter. Spain was exotic back then, and a week-long romance with a man named Carlos would be the envy of your typing pool.

Thick chest hair

But Reynolds would never have made Playgirl without the essential feature of 1970s manhood – a thicket of dark and impassable chest hair, sprouting lasciviously from beneath a half-buttoned nylon mustard-yellow shirt. Hello, ladies.

Long, unkempt hair

Men had never been allowed long hair before. It was new, groovy and free, so the zenith of sex appeal became long, frizzy locks tossing in the wind. They also had no idea how to care for long hair and washed it once a week with a bar of Imperial Leather.

Massive lapels

Five decades ago, it was believed that the wider your lapel, the better-endowed you were. Eight-inch lapels and a kipper tie meant you were packing a monster down below. Necessary because car ownership wasn’t yet widespread and a Morris Traveller makes no kind of penis extension.

Skinny hips

Skinny hips were considered not weedy, but lithe and sexy – and perfect for balancing out massive bell-bottoms. It was easier to have skinny hips back then, because of childhood malnutrition.

Platform soles

A modern man would be laughed out of ‘Spoons for giving himself an unnatural height boost, but back then you were nobody if you weren’t balancing on five inches of block heels. Perhaps the clomping sound was a kind of mating call?

Constant innuendo

The dream man of the 1970s thought of little but sex as he worked his menial job, so a phrase as innocent as ‘I’ll get it’ was a launchpad for 40 minutes of leering, arm-pumping and suggestive remarks to melt the heart of any girl in a mini-skirt.

Drinking ten pints of bitter

Women were impressed with a man who could take his drink, downing ten pints of beer at 28p each. Even if he did subsequently urinate in his cords, he was a keeper.

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