It's because of our nature - champagne tastes and shandy pockets - that we take so many amenities. I freely admit I have a problem. I stay in a lot of hotels and I always take the soaps, shampoos and anything else in a small bottle I feel I might get use out of. It's out of control. So much so that recently, I had to give away a huge plastic bag full of hygienic miniatures to a charity for homeless people in a fit of shame.

I shower a lot, so I can justify the shower gel lakes and soap mountains. But I don't have much hair, so shampoo is excessive at best and CONDITIONER??? - well, I say I'll give it away to my female friends, but it just sits there in my bathroom. Mouthwash goes unopened as I always just have a huge bottle at home and my little toothpastes are quickly multiplying.

Anyway, I was glad to discover that one of my favourite comedians, Stewart Lee, has exactly the same problem, and that he employs exactly the same tactics. And he writes about it with more wit than I could, so for your reading and relating pleasure:

HARVESTING HOTEL TOILETRIES

I've never really felt comfortable doing the poverty/disaster tourism thing. Obviously human suffering is offensive on a number of levels, but that's not why I don't want to necessarily be exposed to it - it's more the voyeuristic weirdness. Circumstances shouldn't turn people or environments into zoo exhibits. I'm sure there are some good, worthy tours, but I think it's a difficult thing to get right.

In any case, for those that want a taste of the underclass without, you know, actually having to meet any, this charming slum resort in South Africa has opened its corrugated iron makeshift gates. The perfect place for those who want to literally shack up in complete safety. Champagne tastes and shanty pockets?

THE FAKE SLUM FOR LUXURY TOURISTS.

This list, from the Huffington Post, is a pretty decent stab at some of the world's most overrated destinations. We're pretty on board with the inclusion of Dublin here at SP, but...London? 'Avin' a laaarf, etc. Anyway, here it is in its full glory:

The 25 Most Overrated Places On Earth

Sorry our blog posts are a little sporadic for a week or so - I'm in a production in the New Orleans Fringe Festival and it's taking up most of my time. We'll post a few links we think you'll like just to keep you going until next week. This one from the Onion, for instance...

Passenger Assures Flight Attendant He Has Opened Emergency Exit Dozens Of Times Before

Hey, remember that time in the early 1980s when 'Kojak' star Telly Savalas pretended to go to some crap UK cities and talk about them in hilariously bad promotional films? Yeah, us too.

ABERDEEN ("A city by the sea is a bonus for me...")

PORTSMOUTH ("I don't know of another place where so many famous people have streets named after them...")

BIRMINGHAM ("I can tell ya', this is my kinda town...")

It’s the holy grail of air travel – how to get upgraded to business class, or the “first class” that US airlines often refer to when they really mean “business class”. It’s certainly not an easy manoeuvre to pull off, surrounded as you are by rat-like passengers trying to jockey their undeserving way into those self-same seats. Most of us (you) are doomed to languish in the torments of economy for the duration of our adult flying lives, but luckily Shandy Pockets has some insider tips to maximise your chances of a brighter existence.

‘THIS CHARMING MAN'

Always be at your most charismatic and seductive at the check-in desk. The staff there are famously among the most jaded and lonely people in society, and respond to almost any show of human affection. After several instances of taking the exact same flight at the exact same time for a number of months, you should be able to strike up a rapport, and finally ask them out to dinner. Work this angle deftly and within years you could be married to them and enjoying free flight benefits including that all-elusive upgrade.

‘THE CASH MONEY'

Arrive early. Go the ticket desk and pay for an upgrade. Hand over money and hey presto – the upgrade is yours!

‘THE PROFESSIONAL COURTESY’

Abandon your career and spend a number of years retraining, applying for jobs and carving out a career in a sector of the travel industry. Professional travel journalists, for instance, enjoy complimentary upgrades on a regular basis – almost one flight in fifty sees them lording it over the hoi polloi on busy short-haul flights.

‘THE WORKING STIFF’

It’s a little known fact that if cabin crew experience an on-flight passenger death, they will often move the still-warm corpse up to a less-crowded cabin so as to traumatise as few flyers as possible. Wait until the most inconvenient moment before faking a fatal cardiac arrest, then simply hang tight as your body is hastily removed from that claustrophobic middle seat in the back to an isolated window seat up front. Don’t expect meal service or on-demand movies but you can still surreptitiously luxuriate in that extra leg room (stretch out slowly, now!). Granted, it’s going to be an awkward exit once you land, but just brazen it out.

‘THE GORGEOUS GEORGE’

Legally change your name to George Clooney. Dependant on your physical appearance, demeanour, accent and height, a number of expensive prosthetic procedures and vocal coaching classes are probably also necessary. When you’re confident you could pass for the international film star in the biggest of pinches, check in at a busy time, when staff are stretched to the limit. This way, you only have to be convincing for a couple of minutes as the star-struck but harassed airline employees process your ticket and obviously hike you up to a cabin more appropriate to your Hollywood good looks and A-list status.

 ‘THE MARLON BRANDO’

Economy seats are only so wide. Gorging yourself for years on end with neither shame nor reluctance will eventually render your girth simply too much for economy to handle. Buy your cheap ticket and watch the airline be literally forced to plonk you up front (aviation ballast pending). We alternatively refer to this one as the “Too Big to Fail”.

Loathe them or hate them, RyanAir - the Frankie Boyle of low-cost air travel in Europe - keep on flying people in their millions to some of the most vaguely inconvenient airports on the continent.

Lead by their fearless, and mannerless Chief Executive Michael O'Leary, hardly a month goes by when some provocative statement issues forth from behind their lines. This collection by The Guardian is a good primer, and it prompted us at Shandy Pockets to open our hearts as well:

Dear Michael O’Leary,

Whilst we at SP very much admire RyanAir, we don’t feel that your pricing policies are aggressive enough. There are myriad revenue streams that you are ignoring, and it is our unswerving pleasure to suggest some ideas, which you can have in exchange for a free sandwich next time we are on one of your excellent flights.

1. Have the pilots push back from the gate, only to stop on the verge of the runway. Send the flight attendants back with a hat and the announcement that no-one’s going anywhere until everyone chips in a quid.

2. Leg Tax. Why waste money on leg room? If you can whittle down your customer base to just amputees via an extortionate tax on legs, then you can insert many extra rows of seats into your planes with no loss of comfort to your passengers.

3. Charge for the life forms that live parasitic lives on the human body, such as those sub-microbial creatures that live in people’s eyebrows and such. Here are living things getting a free ride, making you look like, might I add, a total chump.

4. People should really pay royalties whenever they recommend RyanAir to a friend, which I imagine happens all the time. It’s blatant appropriation of your brand name to advance their own popularity.

5. Attendants could operate like those mesmerising ‘living statues’ in Covent Garden, and only move for a few seconds at a time when people throw money at them – especially lucrative during an emergency.

6. I imagine pressurised cabins don’t come cheap. Reap savings by keeping the pressure just above the level where people would lose consciousness.

7. Halve your shift bill by paying pilots to take off and then dismissing them once in the air…the airport you’re heading too is virtually obliged to talk the plane down as a passenger takes the controls.

8. Charge the passenger in (7) for the experience of landing a real plane.

9. Just start keeping all checked-in luggage, blame it on foreign baggage handlers and clean up at car boot sales.

10. Pickpocketing monkeys? Sell mid-flight “protection” (“You don’t want anything bad to happen when we land, DO YOU?”)? Oh, just have all your staff jab people in the back until they lose the will to live and sign over their life savings, it’s got to be easier than all the rest of it, hasn’t it?

Much love,

Shandy Pockets

Hundreds of top travel tips in one ten minute video. "High factor sun cream? I'm not MADE of money!"

A short but sweet romantic exchange comes to us via hotel worker Jared:

Me: Guest Services.
Guest: Do you have any condoms?
Me: (holding back disgusted sigh) there is an intimacy kit in your mini bar, sir.
Guest: (checks drawer and sees price) That's too much, man!
Me: Well, sir there are two places nearby where you can pick up some.
Guest: I don't feel like going out to get some. Do you have any on you?
Me: ...No.
Guest: Ugh, you guys are no help. (slams phone)

Stay classy, guests.