Trad Gone Bad: 6 Unconventional Chintz Plates

(Mum: look away now, please)

Let’s admit it: swearing’s great, isn’t it? Even better is unexpected swearing. And that’s why I love these very naughty plates by Trixie Delicious. They’re the porcelain equivalent of a lavender-scented schoolteacher stubbing her toe and letting out a spontaneous ‘Bollocks!’ in class. 

This one might be my favourite. Fuckwit is an underrated word. I like the idea of using this to serve up a beautiful slice of cake to my un(fuck)witting tea party guests. This gloriously abusive plate can be yours for about £16 ($25) - plus just over £6 postage from New Zealand - from the Trixie Delicious Etsy store. Possibly not one for when Nana comes round for tea, unless you want to spend the next few Christmases receiving nothing but disappointed sighs and oversized frilly nylon revenge knickers from Grandma Dear.

Here's one for the Domestic Sluts! It's £14-worth of sluttish smiles, guaranteed.

Trixie Delicious’s designs are the perfect mix of pretty and potty-mouthed, and I’ve long coveted them. But my search for corrupted chintz hasn’t stopped there. Oh no. 

If you’d rather not be insulted by your crockery [Oh, by the way, your cereal bowl called. He says you’re a wazzock. He's feisty, that one], how about being scared half to death by Beat Up Creations’ Lucy the Zombie Girl plate while you gobble your sarnie? I’m sure she wouldn’t be off-putting in the slightest. Just imagine that blood is relish. She’s around £25 ($39) and postage is £6. 

Milder-mannered but no less mega-fantastic is this Kitty Scout plate - combining cats, cherries, and enforced badge-collection (all things that feature in my Top Ten of Everything, incidentally) in one dishy dish. At £41 ($65), he's straying (Geddit? Like a stray cat. Oh, keep up over there) into quite-pricey-for-a-plate territory. I think he's worth every penny, though. 

At the mass-produced end of the spectrum, these Hybrid plates by Seletti take the mismatched china trend to the max. They’re schintzophrenic (I made up that word myself! Quick – someone call the Oxford English Dictionary!). I want the entire collection, but I'll settle for this Eusapia dinner plate, £29.10... 

... And maybe the Ipazia dinner plate, too...

OH, JUST GIVE ME THE WHOLE BLOODY LOT. 

While we're in the mood, let's see how many swearwords we can remember in five minutes. I scored a measly 14. In my defence, it wouldn't accept 'wanker' as a bona fide insult. It's clearly not British.