Nieman Marcus, what have you done?

It's been an awfully long time since I blogged. I've probably lost all my loyal readers, but that's only fair as I have hardly earnt their loyalty of late.
But with couches like this one still out in the world, clearly some more blogging needs to be done!
This is supposedly from Neiman Marcus, an uber posh department store in the States. I've been there, they normally sell quite nice stuff. This definitely does not fit that category. Not cool.

Craig's List

Sometimes, I don't even have to do any work.

This came up under the headline "Fugly Couch" on Craig's List. Here's what the seller had to say:

fugly couch
You've been warned! This couch will almost make your eyes bleed. It's an orange striped couch with squishy cushions and it's in desperate need of a new living room, basement, garage or curb. It's not half bad, just unloved. The naked cushions do have covers (see second pic - they're hiding behind the futon), as they were recently laundered and nobody had the incentive to put them back on. Great for parties, especially if you're too drunk to notice how ugly it is. On the bright side, it hides stains pretty well.

At least they're not deluded, like the many sad people who've been featured here in the past.
I think my parents said the same thing about their choice of carpet for our home - "it''ll hide the stains well". With three kids, that was their priority. Needless to say, the carpet would probably end up on a Fugly Carpet blog. Thankfully most of it has gone since Dad got the carpet ripped up and the floorboards polished. Brown florals, mmm...

PB and J - the play

Ok, it's not a couch. It has nothing to do with couches. Maybe there's a couch in the play? Regardless, this is a shameless promotion for my mate Tara's play, PB and J, which begins this weekend at the New York Fringe Festival. That's Tara in the middle of the front row there.

Tara is, in a word, AMAZING. She and I met in Ireland back in 2002. We've both experienced the delights of working for the Korean Embassy in Dublin. And she is a super bloody talented playwright. This girl is still under 30 -and making me sick - with her incredible creativity, drive and integrity.

I know a few of you lovely Fugly Couch readers are in or around NYC. I hope you get the chance to see PB and J or can at least spread the word.

Break a leg, Tara!

And I thought I was high maintenance

My friend Luke sent me this couch. Does anyone have any idea of the story behind it? Luke also suggested I should have James Brown's "Get up offa that thing" as the theme for the blog. I've tried attaching it but have no idea if it is possible to put sound on here. I think that may be more of a My Space thing, and frankly I just can't be bothered.

Anyways, in doing a search to try and find out about the grass couch, I stumbled across this, and I think it is bloody genius:

How cool would this be in your backyard? Apparently you grow the couch over this frame:

Some people, well, they have truly thought of everything!

Be a bit of a bitch to mow, though.

Rugby rocks

My mates know how much I love the rugby. I looked forward to going to the Bledisloe Cup at the MCG for months. And I have a relatively extensive rugby shirt collection from when I worked at Guinness in Dublin. My leaving present was a Dublin rugby jersey and I also got a 6 Nations Guinness jersey too. It's cute - it's six pints all lined up with the symbols of all the nations in the head of the beer.
Yet, as much as I love rugby, this supposedly "rugby" fabric couch does nothing for me. A striped jersey is one thing, they're comfortable and warm, but applying this to your couch really just doesn't work for me.

Lotsa love

This couch is being marketed as a "love seat" Love seat, huh? Right, what kind of love are we talking about here? The kind of love that actually involves hate? Passive aggressive love? The love of really ugly items for your home? Whatever love it involves, it's not the sort of love I want to share, thanks. If being in love means owning this couch, I'll stick to being a Bridget Jones singleton.

Mega discomfort

Have you ever seen a less comfortable looking couch? Seriously? I thought the bus stop couch was bad. but am pretty sure that that one may have been designed with the semi-industrial market in mind.
This one, however, is meant for your home. Give me my gorgeous green velvet number any day. (Speaking of, promise to post a pic of my couch soon).

Santa Fe Gold

I get that there was a time when this kind of fabric was in. It was the late '80s and early '90s. They called it "Santa Fe style" over here in Oz, no idea what it was called outside of here.

Obviously it was a fashion best left in the past. What gets me about this couch is it's only four years old! Yep, someone thought this looked good back in 2003. Oh, the horror...

If you're hungover, look away

I truly believe vomit would be induced looking at this if feeling at all seedy. I love the colour green, it's my clear favourite, but this just is not even worthy of being called green. Yuck.

Special room

The person who's selling this is trying to pretend they've moved and this no longer fits their decor. As much as I would LOVE to believe this is the true setting for this lounge suite, I've gotta say it seems a lot more likely to be a staged room. Especially since they're offering free shipping - because normal people do that all the time.

But how fabulous would it be to visit someone's house and find this whole set-up? Especially with the lamps, they are pretty bloody amazing. Of course, they wouldn't be friends of yours, because you couldn't possibly be friends with someone who had this taste, but it would be great if they were a family friend or something. $4000 will get this "French Provincial" fugliness in your home.

Normal fugly transmission resumes

Well, after the diversion with the meme, it's back to the couches.

This one looks like it's come off the set of The Golden Girls. Apparently it's got that "Hawaii feeling that many of us aspire to". Guess I'm just not that aspirational...

The tag stops here...

My mate Chris tagged me to do a meme. Here are the rules:

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

Well, me being me, I'm not going to burden anyone else with this tagging business. But I've done my bit and written eight random facts about myself. Hope you don't get too bored reading them. Please feel free to post random facts about yourself in the comments section.

1) I’m a chocoholic – I love almost ALL forms of chocolate – dark, milk, white – I can even come at compound chocolate in a desperate situation, and kinda crave the stuff around Easter when so many cheap eggs are made of the compound stuff. Valrhona chocolate is my favourite brand, but I will stoop to the level of Lindt when necessary ;-) I also have become hooked on Koko Black, since my return to Melbourne, and am a fan of the work of the Belgians in the chocolate world. When I started working at Harvey Nichols in London I was told my duties would be these (based on some very correct assumptions made about myself by my rather hideous boss Steve, who took being compared to David Brent as a compliment and even danced a bad dance like him at the HN Christmas party):

· I was to work on the Valrhona chocolate counter, selling amazing chocolates that went for the bargain price of 40quid per kilo. I was told I could eat the chocolates, and was encouraged to do so in order to recommend flavours etc. I insisted they clarify exactly how many chocolates per day would be acceptable to eat, given they cost at least 50p each. We agreed on four a day, and four high quality chocolates sated my chocolate cravings in a way that it takes a half block of Cadbury’s to do so. FYI, the Valrhona dark chocolate with pear ganache was my definite favourite.

· I was to sell Wusthof knives. These are my favourite knives in the world. I have quite a few (less than I used to thanks to a certain Brazilian failing to send some home from Portugal, which in some ways hurt me more than his infidelity). The Germans know what they’re doing in the knife department, and I just love them in their fully-forged glory. Good cookware is to me what porn is to others – I can drool over a saucepan (like my gorgeous Le Creuset). Going into the cookware section of a high end department store gets my heart racing in a very special way.

· Based on this cookware-induced excitement, I also got to be in charge of selling Alessi gear, which I also love (and only own one piece of due to the prohibitive expense). I one day hope to own a set of the gorgeous Big Love ice-cream bowls with their matching heart-shaped spoons.

Still on the food thing (yes, I am borderline obsessive about it), I am a bloody good cook – it’s one thing I know for sure about myself – and I used to host a cooking show on Channel 31 called The Generic Gourmet. I was only 19 at the time, and we filmed it in my dodgy student kitchen in Fitzroy. At the time, TV chefs were all still filming in studio kitchens, so I was years ahead of Jamie Oliver and all the rest. I got fan mail and my minestrone episode was the most popular and frequently repeated for more than a year or so, until Channel 31 started to get some decent programming and could stop running little old me.

And I love Milo. Used to have to get friends to bring it back from Australia for me when I lived in Europe for five years.

(Gosh, I better try and make the rest of these things short or you’ll be here all day reading!)

2) I love my friends. I treat many of them like family. I love helping them wherever and whenever I can. I especially love expressing my love for them through cooking. (See above for food/cooking obsessions). I put a lot of time and effort into my friendships and can sometimes end up disappointed when that effort isn’t reciprocated. But that’s the risk you take when you emotionally invest in other people and there’s no way I can change that aspect of my personality – it’s a key to who I am, ie a generous and loving person. I do, however, need to get better at both adjusting my expectations and learning to stop being too bloody nice to some people who don’t really deserve my friendship. I also need to learn to stop expecting so much from myself.

3) I am the classic eldest child. I’m the one who worries about meeting my parents’ expectations and making them happy, even through periods of my life when they weren’t making me very happy. I can’t help but feel I let them down by almost getting married last year and almost giving them the grandchildren they so desperately desire, but then breaking up with my fiancé and taking that away from them. But then again, I think it is unfair to expect your children to marry and provide you with grandchildren – as a parent, it’s you choice to procreate, you should not expect your children to do the same – hope maybe, but not expect that of them.

4) I’m a serial long-term relationship girl. I don’t do casual things well – I can do the dating thing for only a few dates, then I know whether I have feelings for the bloke or if I have to ditch them. It’s just who I am – a boots and all kind of gal. I need a strong man who is not intimidated by me being strong too, who can let me have my way when it’s important to me but pull me up when I need to be. When I was with my ex-fiancé, we really struggled because he was Brazilian and used to being a macho man and I’m a strong, ballsy Aussie chick. He was used to getting to be the man and having his way, I want nothing short of 50/50 equality (I’ve been the dominant person in a previous relationship and I didn’t like that either and ended it. I don’t want to be the boss, I want to be someone’s partner).

5) I love shoes. I have a real problem with them, or a problem with buying lots of them, to be more specific. I have at least 60 pairs, probably more, I don't count them often. I just can’t help myself with shoes. But I am disciplined and only very rarely let myself spend more than $50 on a pair, as I can invariably get cute shoes on sale for much less than that, often around the $20 mark. Exceptions being boots and very comfortable leather walking shoes.
I’m a brilliant shopper, if I do say so myself. I have NEVER met anyone who can hunt down a bargain better than me. It’s a gift, I’ve tried to teach it, but have only been moderately successful on that front.

6) I miss my grandparents so much. I totally adored my grandmother and grandfather on my Mum’s side. I spent a few periods of my life living with them when my sister had operations when I was young. I’m very like my Nana – multi-talented, good with money, smart, opinionated (I’m not full of myself, but am aware of my gifts – I don’t believe in false modesty. Don’t fret about my ego – my friends will tell you I’m very hard on myself too). My Nana died when I was 18 – she had a massive heart attack. Pa called to say she had collapsed. I jumped in the car and drove over there while my sister called an ambulance. I beat the ambulance, and gave Nana CPR for about five minutes until the ambos got there. She was still so warm, I thought I could bring her back. But the damage to her heart was too severe. She almost died as she’d wished. She always said she wanted to go in her sleep – a massive heart attack where she barely knew what hit her was the next best thing, really. Pa was lost without her – Nana was his whole world. I hope there’s a heaven and they’re reunited up there, with Pa still bringing Nana breakfast in bed. I’d love to climb into bed with Nana again and have Pa bring me breakfast – a hot Milo and quincey jam on toast (my standard order – I was about 10 before I found out that Nana’s quince jam was not really named quincey. I guess they thought it was cute and never corrected me).

7) I’m legally blind in my right eye. I can detect movement, and can see blurred blocks of colour, but that’s about it. Meant my Top Gun fantasies were shot down just like Maverick and Goose were in the firefight with the Migs.

8) I’m good with languages. My parents always tried to push me on them when I was younger, recognising my gift, but I wouldn’t give in. Have never been one for sitting down and studying vocabulary, prefer to learn in a more hands-on way. Took me about six months of living in Portugal to reach a decent conversation level, and was relatively fluent by the time I left after a year in Lagos. I make the effort to meet up with Portuguese speakers here in Melbourne, which is not always easy. My Portuguese has pretty much overwritten my once relatively fluent Italian. I can still understand Italian without any problems, but when I go to speak it, it comes out in Portuguese. Didn’t affect my French, though. Weird.

So there you go, eight random facts about me. Fair play to anyone who's made it down here - true dedication, I like it!

The circle of fug

What have we got here?
Baroque? Check.
Contrasting fabrics? Check.
Gilding? Check.
Wonky feet that don't look like they'd support anything above the weight of a pre-(still-to-be-confirmed-at-press-time)-pregnancy Nicole Ritchie? Check.

But look closer... Do you get the sense there's something else going on here? There is.

Check it out:

Yep, it's round! Can you imagine the neck cricks you'd get trying to hold a conversation on this couch?

I know, it's meant for a hotel lobby, but it's not there now. Instead, you can plonk this in the middle of your lounge room for something in the order of $3000.

The worst house on the best street?

Have I got one for you today, kids. Check this out. I can't just fug the couch, it's going to have to be the whole house...



And the dining room:

Kinda makes the bedroom look understated and modern, in comparison...

I have got to make time to check out this place when it is open for inspection. It's wogtastic fugly gold!

Lovely lady lumps

This couch is brand new, yet it already looks lumpy. Can you imagine what it's going to look like once you've had a few all-night DVD sessions on it? Got your mates around for a few bevvies and had them end up crashing over (which seems to be happening a lot in my life at the moment)? It ain't gonna be pretty.
Wrong, wrong, wrong...

Hypnotic couches

Don't know what it is about this couch, but I'm suddenly feeling sleepy........ very sleeeeeeepy.....

A hunk a hunk of fugly chair

Oh dear. Dear, dear...

I guess diehard Elvis fans will think it's sacreligious of me to fug this chair (it's not strictly a couch, is it?) Could do the obligatory joke about sitting on Elvis's face, but that would be in poor taste, even for me.

$1500 to love this couch tenderly. Me and this chair can't go on together, with suspicious minds. A little less conversation, a little more action is needed. Viva, Las Vegas.

That's a whole lotta fugly

It's fugly, it's got no idea what it's trying to be, it's just wrong.

But what really makes this one stand out is the price. $14,000. If this couch is stuffed with $100 bills, I get it. If not: WHAT THE FUG?

Another reason not to like Canberra

I love it when readers send me a couch - it's fab to think you're out there helping in my quest.

Melina spotted this when she was in Canberra last weekend. As far as I'm concerned, it's just one more reason to dislike the place (even though my mate Jules lives there and I miss her heaps).

Melina had this to say:

Not sure if this has been received before but I saw it in Canberra over the Queen's birthday weekend. It was part of a collection that was on display behind a black velvet rope- as if it was waiting in line to get into a nightclub. Anyhoot, thought you might be interested in seeing this- keep up the great work!

Thanks for the compliment, a girl can always do with an ego boost!

Gotta say, I'm kinda concerned about the couch behind this one too. Fugly in its own right, me thinks. Glad they've got the fugly couches all penned in there, lest they escape to fug up your lounge room.

Kidney pain

I've blogged before about the delightful descriptions you sometimes get on eBay, complete with a multitude of spelling errors.

Check this description out:

The Funky Couch
This was a piece that i was commitioned to produce for a client.
Due to the clients personal problems that sale never finalised.
SO NOW
I'm offering it to the world.
This was designed for story reading with the kids ( 1 adult 2 kids )
or relaxing with the partner.
Made from the 1100mm wide shell of a burnt out River Redgum stump from North Western Australia
Stripped back on the inside and finely sanded so the natural timber was bought to life and the coated in Acylic Lacquer.
The back is the natural exterior showing all the tree's features and texture again coated in Acrylic Lacquer
Comments recieved to me from friends suggest the inside of it looks like a pollished turtle shell.
The Upholstery is Professionally covered in Warrick Macro-suede velvet
The dimensions are overall Length 1150mm Width 800mm Hieght 870mm
Cushion Depth Middle 600mm Ends 450mm (Kidney Shaped)
This magnificant piece would suit any enviroment it was placed into.
I will make a custom made packing box as part of the sale price and am prepared to send oversea's.
Delivery and Frieght costs depends on were you are located
THIS IS FUNCTIONAL ART

You heard 'em - Functional Art! You know the old saying "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like"? Well, I don't like.

And how much for this crap? $7500 - I wish I was joking.

Smoking Skeletons

Ok, it's not an actual couch. But it came up in my couch quest on eBay and I couldn't resist.


Yep, that's a skeleton down there, smoking away...

See, this is what happens when you can't quit!

Three people have bid on this. No accounting for taste, especially in a country full of bogans.

Bad Eames

Apologies, fugly couchers - I went away for a week, to get some R&R on a vineyard near Daylesford. But I forgot to let you know. How remiss of me!

The quest shall resume...

On eBay at the moment, it's all about the Eames era. Not a problem by me, quite like it myself. Got a few pieces including my gorgeous dining table and chairs, which I'm just a bit in love with.

This is an example of Eames gone wrong. The lovely teak structure is still there, granted, but the leather... I know it's old and weather-beaten, but I don't think I would have loved this couch when it was in peak condition. It kind of looks like a huge leather cushion just got dumped on it. Not good.

Deco decadance

I generally love, love, love me some Art Deco furniture. Have got some in my home and consider myself a Deco fan.

Now, while this couch is not horribly fugly, I do think it's pretty bloody fugly on what is the normally gorgeous Deco scale. It doesn't look comfortable and I really don't understand the arm going around the back there - is that so you can stash your unmentionables from your Mum when she walks in the room? It's not exactly easy access and could lead to a crook neck.

Fugly, or not fugly? That is the question.

You're about to get a little more insight into my taste in couches here. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I kinda love this couch. It's the right kind of fugly, if there's such a thing. It looks like something that would have been in the Brady Bunch's house, and Lord knows that's my kinda style. Love me some classic mid-Century design.

Displaying this set out on the lawn is really doing it a disservice. As the Black Eyed Peas once asked, with a little help from JT, Where is the love?

Roll out the barrel

Your eyes don't deceive you - those skinny toothpick legs don't belong to Nicole Ritchie - they're tacked on to the bottom of some barrels.

Check it out from behind:

That's pretty bloody special. Forget about barrels for your potplants, bring 'em right into your home! Delightful.

Love couch, baby love couch

Hmmm... Should I let the eBay seller describe this one for you?

An amazing accessory that will totally transform your life!
Cupids' Couch is an inflatable couch manufactured from top quality cross woven PVC, and is ergonomically designed to hugely enhance your experiences.
The flowing lines of the couch combined with its soft feel and strategically located ankle/wrist handles make all manner of relaxing positions possible.
The couch consists of FOUR air chambers for maximum support and durability The upper chamber can be quickly deflated allowing the partially deflated couch to be easily stored under a double bed.
The couch is supplied complete with a high capacity ELECTRIC pump, a repair kit should you ever need it and a well-illustrated users guide. Holds up to 500 lbs and is easy to clean.

I don't want to think about 500lbs bouncing up and down on this, nor the need to clean it!

These here are crazy stripes

Gross, yuck, blah. Nothing is good about this fabric. It's so 80's in such a bad way that I think I'm gonna spew. Ergh.

Bloody Brazilians

I've hinted before about the Brazilian love-gone-wrong saga. Let's pretend you bought me those Bulmers and now I'm all chatty...

In a nutshell met a Brazilian bloke in Portugal when I was there in Feb 2005. We chatted all night, made out, exhanged phone numbers, I thought that was it. No - he txtd me and kept going on about how he'd never met a girl like me before and hoped I would come back to Lagos soon. Given he looked like this:

And Lagos looks like this:

and RyanAir would fly me there for 20 quid, well, I went back for another week.

That week turned into a month. I left to do some more travelling with my old flatmate from Dublin, Swedish Rebecca, and meet up with my beautiful friend Gosia in Prague, but he wanted me to come back again and so proposed over the phone. After a week or so I said yes, moved back to Lagos that May and we lived together for a year. My folks came to visit, loved Marcio, and we applied for his visa for Australia and planned our wedding for August 2006. He went home to Brazil at Christmas, I went to visit friends in the UK as we couldn't afford for us both to fly to Brazil. Anyways, after a year of essentially being a housewife I was officially going doolally, and said I wanted to head home to Oz, get a job and set up house and plan our wedding. He agreed, and I left Portugal in April 2006. Found a wedding dress in London on the way home to Melbourne, bought it. THREE HOURS after I bought the dress and was feeling all happy and in love, I got a call from Marcio to say I probably shouldn't have just bought that wedding dress as he was no longer coming to Australia - he'd had a one night stand when he was home in Brazil and the girl had just shown up at his Mum's place claiming to be pregnant with his baby. Can you imagine how delighted I was? Went through a few months of hell going back and forth about reconciling but in the end he chickened out and went home to Brazil, where he's now living with the 19-year-old slapper he'd got off with and the baby that was born waaaay to early to be his! Fun tale, donchya think? One for the grandkids, for sure.

I'm now as over it as you can be with these things, permanent scars to the heart and all that. I am, however, grateful I found out about his inability to keep his dick in his pants before we got married and had the babies he was forever nagging me to make with him. I've picked up the pieces and am happily getting on with my life: great job, new place, amazing friends and life here in Oz. However, there is still residual resenment towards Brazil and one Brazilian in particular, hence me fugging this couch:

It's of Brazilian design and leather. And it's fugly.

And you didn't even have to cough up for those Bulmers!

Golden velvet

This poor couch just never had a chance, did it? The frame, the excessive padding, the colour. It's just all too much. Franco Cozzo, you've done it again!

Again with the rainbows

There's nothing much I love in this world as much as I love gelati. You have not lived until you have experienced the gelato artiginale created by the master Sergio Dondoli. Honestly, this man may possibly be God's representative on this earth. His gelato is that good. If ever I hear of you dear readers heading to San Gimignano in Tuscany and not eating his gelati, well, let's just say it will not be pretty. I will cry, most certainly, and there could be even worse consequences. As all the gelati Signor Dondoli has on offer is seasonal, you may not be able to get these exact combinations, but I highly recommend trying Peach with Vernaccia and the classics of Chocolate with Mint. His Pistachio is also superb.


Ok, sorry, for those of you who know me, you know I take my food very seriously, and the instant thoughts of gelato that this couch inspires in me made me go back to 2001 and a glorious few days spent in gorgeous San Gimignano. Check out this pic, don't you wanna go there?





I guess, in some respects, I should let this couch off on the basis it has inspired the recollection of some wonderful memories.

However, it's just too fugly to do that. But now I know I better pay Gelobar a visit soon.

Daybed delusions

First off, apologies. I know, long time, no couch. Real life getting in the way and all that. How people have the time to lead these "Second Lives" I don't know.

Anyways, as discussed before, not a fan of this crazy, excessive day bed business currently going on in Couchland. It's all going a bit crazy on that front, as evidenced by this couch.

What the fug? It's like an actual double bed being whacked out in your living room. I thought the whole point of a sofa bed was that the bed was hidden - saving you space. I don't know, maybe people now need giant, bed-sized couches to fill their hideous McMansions in the suburbs. It's either that or this is for a studio apartment and doubles as your actual bed. Have we got to the point where people either live in tiny shoeboxes or they live in a McMansion? Where has the happy medium gone in life? Can you tell I may or may not work for a government department that may or may not be involved in environment and/or planning issues? Sorry, heart on sleeve and all that... (grumpy today, bad news from a friend, promise to try and be nicer tomorrow).

Chinese Cozzo

It's not just the wogs who go mad for a bit of over-the-top furniture (and before you go thinking I am being racist, I'm not - check out the Aussie section of this Wikipedia entry for the meaning I am going for). Having quite a few friends from Chinese backgrounds I know a couple of them - mainly in Melbourne's eastern suburbs - whose parents would think this was the height of good taste.

It appears Franco Cozzo has some rivals over in "the Far East", as some crazy people in England still refer to China.

Only in America (or possibly South Africa)

I suddenly find myself with the desire to go and shoot something. I've no idea why...



Perhaps a bear, or a deer. No fair - I loved both Grizzly Adams and Bambi as a child and these people are just making a mockery of such venerable institutions!


And the gorgeous upside down bear coffee table just completes the room, don't you think?