Consultant to the stars

It occurs to me that I am the Tupperware Man for anyone who lives in Central London, so sometimes when I hear or read that a well-known Londoner has praised Tupperware, directly or indirectly, I send them a catalogue and introduce myself.

They usually don't reply, but recently an embossed heavy cream correspondence card from Mayfair resident Nigella Lawson drops into my post box. Her assistant Zoe thanks me for the catalogue and says they will let me know if Nigella needs anything.

She is classy.

The Comeback Kid

Hello and Happy New Year. I have been lying low for a couple of months. Rumours of my Tupper-demise are unfounded. And despite threatening here a few times to kick over the tower of Mini-Maxes and sweep off, apron a-swish behind me, I am still pushing the plastic. I have often been frustrated because I can only sell Tupperware through parties, and can only date parties through word of mouth. This just wasn't working in the context of my home city of London. People do want Tupperware, but sadly they don't really want to host a party for it. I have had some free and frank exchanges of views with the Tupperware top brass about this and some other matters which I won't trouble you with, gentle reader.

But two strange thingss have happened since last we spoke. Firstly, and despite my sluggish autumn, I have just heard today from the UK distributor some interesting news.

I was the top-selling consultant in the whole country for 2007!

What's more, say it loud, say it proud:

You can now buy Tupperware without going to a Tupperware party!

Yes, Tupperware UK now allows sales through "virtual parties". These are not the online parties that consultants run in the US, sadly. It simply means that you can order direct from a consultant, from the catalogue. You don't need to hoover, clean, cater, invite your friends over, or indeed have any friends to invite over. And of course, this new development also means you can now become a Tupperware consultant without having to shlep a kit-bag across your city. You can just distribute catalogues around your friends and neighbours and wait for the orders to flood in. OK, maybe "flood" is pushing it a bit, but if you want to know about being a Virtual Consultant, do let me know.

Oh, and to update my last post, I have now lost a stone through Slimming World.

Having said that I have virtually retreated, I do still run parties and other in-person events and fundraisers when I am asked. I am just not often asked. But I never say never, and when Maria, a friend of my friend Laura who was my first ever hostess way way back in May 2006, asks me to run her baby shower back in October, I am delighted to oblige.

Here's a round-up of my other Tupper news from the last couple of months:


There was another Church Fayre organised by the House of Homosexual Culture at St John's Waterloo. Last year's event was an Autumn Fayre, this time it is a Christmas Fayre. I am given the spot right next to the pulpit. There are hundreds of visitors, and I sell plenty. I also manage to press catalogues on author Sarah Waters and lead singer of the Feeling slash M&S model Dan Gillespie-Sells, but no parties have come out of it yet. We'll see.

A second Christmas Fayre, this one a weekday evening event organised by the KPMG company as a Christmas shopping evening for their staff. It's a bit of a disaster. I am experiencing terrible (although expected and normal) flu-like symptoms from recent diptheria and yellow-fever vaccinations (I am going to Uganda over Christmas). I can barely stand up, let alone smile and sell Tupperware. I don't sell so much as a Universal Peeler or Silicone Spatula. My neighbouring stall Kazu the Japanese Florist also sells nothing, and we both rather feel we have been sold a pup. Far from racking up sales to the cash-rich, time-poor city types we had been expecting, all the customers are PAs and secretaries looking for token secret Santa gifts. My state-of-the-art kitchenware and Kazu's exquisite wreaths are ignored in favour of pound-shop pashminas. The champagne is nice, but the event is a right dud for me.

My most intriguing delivery is to an actress currently appearing in the West End show Avenue Q. I drop off her order at the Stage Door between rehearsal and the evening performance.

I troop over to London's Science Museum to see their Plasticity exhibition. I faux-casually insert some catalogues into their leaflet rack. They have on display one of the original Tupperware injection moulding machines for making a Mix-N-Stor (right).

I bid on and win a very cool snow globe on Ebay (see main photo) which appears to be a consultant reward or gift from Tupperware in the US. It features some key Tupperware pieces caught in a snow storm.

Margaret "Benny" Hone, my grandmother, customer, and source of all gossip and mischief, dies peacefully at home, aged 92, in the early hours of 3rd January. She fell ill just a few days before, fairly sound of body and very sound of mind until the last. Here she is talking Tupperware with my cousin Emma at my sister Lois's Tupperware party in August 2006.