Can I open it? No I can't

Can a consultant somewhere please explain how the Tupperware can opener works? This week I make a tit of myself at Leanne and Paul's party, when I cannot open a can of mandarin oranges for the Chocolate and Orange Cake. I give up and switch to their pound-shop plastic can opener!



Leanne has a cupboard full of old-style Space Savers (see above). Paul keeps dredging up cool vintage pieces from the bowels of their kitchen, including some very cute little Freezer Square Rounds only like something from a dolls' house. Their party goes really well, with a rowdy crowd made up mostly of their walking group. Leanne and Paul end up with rewards of about £80 worth of Tupperware for about £25.

To get to their house in Surrey, I take the train from London Bridge station, where I have to queue at ticket machine. It is 7pm on a Friday night, and all human life is there. Just before I get to the front of the queue, my phone rings. It's my friend Koh asking me to join him for a drink up West. I explain that I am on my way to a Tupperware party, and the heads of the young couple in front whip round. Ex-pat Australians, they have been looking for a source of Tupperware in London, so I hand over a catalogue and promise a free gift if they book a party.

This encounter, and the fact that this week's hostess Leanne hails originally from South Africa, reminds me about the Antipodean penchant for Tupperware, and when I get home I fire of emails to a couple of websites, magazines and radio stations aimed at the ex-pat crowd, and research some South African shops over in south west London, where I intend to drop off a few catalogues. I am also sad to hear this week that Collette, charming fellow consultant from South Africa, has decided to take a break from Tupperware for a while, and maybe forever.

At the Tupperware training day last week I was named number 6 consultant for personal sales for the year 2006. Seeing as I didn't start until May, I am pretty chuffed with that.

The last cake

I do a radio interview this week for BBC Three Counties radio about my adventures in Tupperware. A smart-aleck presenter, who thinks he is funny but isn't, pre-records the interview with me, and it is broadcast a few hours later. I listen to it online the next day, and I sound surprisingly lucid and knowledgable. It is no longer available to listen to, so you will just have to take my word for that.

The presenter, like everyone, asks what happens at a Tupperware party. is it really so complex? I sell Tupperware! Let Aunt Barbara explain it for you. S/he runs parties in Brooklyn and Queens, and you can cut that accent with a knife:



Training at Head Office this weekend. When my manager Janet invites me, I am not expecting to be actually delivering the training. But I get a call from Head Office today asking me to demonstrate the Chocolate and Almond Cake recipe to fellow consultants. I have decided I am a bit bored with that cake, so this will be its swansong. That's me above preparing it at Katherine's party a few weeks ago, looking very flushed. But then that was the party where I went to the wrong house. In the wrong street. In the wrong postcode.

On the top of the tree at Christmas

By some margin, in December I had the highest personal sales of any Tupperware consultant in the UK. So my thanks must go to my fantastic hostesses Chie, Katherine, Olga and Sara and to everyone who bought Tupperware from me last month.



In January there are some great special offers on the Space Savers kitchen storage range, and you can get this nifty little mini-FridgeSmart for only £1.50. It's great for storing chillies. And having reduced my hours at my day job from this week, I have plenty of availability for running your own Tupperware party, so let me know if you need me.

I will certainly not be doing the kind of presentation to your guests that this US consultant has filmed and put on YouTube for the benefit of her fellow consultants. Now, don't get me wrong, the Space Savers are great, I have them in my own kitchen cupboards. And in the US, the new super-sized versions go all the way to the back of your kitchen cabinets, which is a good idea. But mercy me, in her excitement for the new product, does this woman ever draw a breath? I think she was abandoned by her parents and raised by chipmunks.