how to pack

top tips from a terrible packer

Before we begin:

I went on excellent podcast Where There’s A Will There’s A Wake to discuss my own death, and laughed so much I had a mild headache for an hour afterwards.

Went on Virgin Radio to chat to Angela Scanlon about the tour and Mitchell and Webb and Taskmaster and apparently you’re not meant to say the word ‘horny’ before midday

Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping continues on Ch4 every Thursday at 10pm, and they’re uploading a few sketches from each episode on YouTube which is nice.

THANKYOU phew over.

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PRESENTER: Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of How Do You Pack???? Today we join comedienne and actorienne Stevie Martin who is about to go out on a three month tour and, until 2021, used an old suitcase with wheels on the wrong end of it and no handle. She would push it around like this:

STEVIE: Yes that looks about right. Thank you for having me.

PRESENTER: Please take a seat.

[STEVIE sits]

PRESENTER: I meant on the chair

[STEVIE gets off the presenter’s lap and sits on the chair, enjoying playing with the written/visual mediums]

PRESENTER: So tell us, are you a terrible packer?

STEVIE: I’m just very slapdash and struggle to engage with the concept of wanting/needing something in the future that I don’t immediately want now (see also: meal prep). There is often no method to my packing other than counting how many pants I’ll need then adding three extra in case I piss myself (I have never pissed myself) (amendment: I pissed myself once in 2016 while asleep on a night bus and think about it once a day, every day).

PRESENTER: What changed?

STEVIE: Interestingly it was a tiny article in the Evening Standard where they asked Emily Maitlis to describe what she packs when filming her intrepid reporting. It was so logical. Three dresses - a light colour for night (for low lighting situations), a bold red colour for if she needs to stand out among the suits at a press conference, and a dark colour for if a monarch dies/war.

Her toiletries were all miniature version of themselves and tetris-ed together like the blocks in that game where you have to fit the blocks together. Totris? I also want to say she puts a coffee press in her shoe but it’s possible I’ve made that up; I don’t know what a coffee press is or if it would fit in a shoe because I don’t drink coffee or shoes.

Either way, it opened my eyes to the world of logical packing. Pretending you are doing the thing you are packing for, and only taking what you will genuinely need.

PRESENTER: Literally everybody packs like that.

STEVIE: Everybody packs dark colours for war and puts coffee in their shoe, Totris-style?

PRESENTER: No. Everybody visualises what they will be doing and then takes only what they genuinely need.

STEVIE: Cool. I mean, I don’t know what to tell you other than ‘I don’t’.

PRESENTER: OK - what’s the first thing you packed for your tour?

STEVIE: I bought miniature toothpastes online that arrived and turned out to be big. In fact, they were jumbo tubes, so much larger than normal. Unfortunately I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’m unable to read product dimensions on websites. My eyes slide over them and then my irises fall out and bounce around the floor. Even when I’ve clicked on the ‘dimensions’ tab to specifically look at the product dimensions to ensure the product is, for example, not huge. It’s a medical condition and I’m very brave.

PRESENTER: What else have you bought/packed that is, perhaps, useful and not mad?

STEVIE: I’ve invested in miniature versions of everything that I can possibly make miniature. Deodorant, hairspray, eyeliner, perfume, SPF, I’ve even got a tiny hairbrush.

PRESENTER: What about your medically large head?*

STEVIE: I do have a medically large head! Great research from you there. When I was born the hospital were concerned until they measured my parent’s heads and were like jesus christ did you give birth en route to the Massive Head Convention or something?????*

*They actually said: ‘Ah, you both have gigantic heads so your baby is probably fine.’

PRESENTER: I suppose you’ll just have to commit to twice the amount of brushing as normal, to cover the surface area of your head and/or hair.

STEVIE: It will be good exercise for the biceps.

PRESENTER: How exciting, I’m glad I asked that question. Please continue.

STEVIE: I am also Steve Jobsing, aka only wearing black and white. This is something I’ve been practising in my personal life for some time, but it comes into its own during the tour; all my clothes now go together, so I don’t have to think for one moment about what I’m wearing. They go together colour-wise, I mean. I obviously can’t wear three pair of trousers with a skirt and some shorts. Or four hats.

PRESENTER: Will you not resemble a mime?

STEVIE: I don’t see how that’s a problem. I also bought a long cord allowing me to wear my phone around my neck so when I’m changing trains or getting stressed on buses I don’t have to add frantically-patting-every-pocket-and-looking-in-every-compartment-of-my-backpack-to-find-the-phone-that’s-in-my-hand to the chaos.

PRESENTER: This is very good actually.

STEVIE: And I bought a puzzle book.

PRESENTER: Less relevant to packing.

STEVIE: I’m very good at wordsearches and a crossword-adjacent problem solving format called Salad Days.

PRESENTER: OK.

STEVIE: Ooh I got a toiletry bag called Flat Lay that my TikTok obsessed friend told me about. You put all the stuff in the middle and a drawstring gathers it up, Dick Whittington style. As in, it becomes a bundle that I’d imagine Dick Whittington would then attach to a stick.

PRESENTER: How is this better than a normal toiletry bag?

STEVIE: Because you don’t need to rummage through it! You just loosen the drawstring, the bag starts to flatten, allowing you to see everything inside it, before you bunch it together again. I am demonstrably unable to describe this with words so I’ll draw it:

PRESENTER: Right.

STEVIE: It really is a gamechanger. And finally I’m going to put all my electrical items, chargers, adapters, plugs, whatever in one place. All in one part of the bag, so I can minimise faff and observe my official, newly imposed, Two Minute Rummage cap. No rummaging for longer than two minutes.

PRESENTER: Yes the title was self explanatory.

STEVIE: It’s similar to my Five Minute Standing On The Street After A Meal Deciding Where To Go Next cap. You’ve got to have caps these days, it’s very important for mental wellbeing.

PRESENTER: Any final pieces of advice?

STEVIE: I will be employing the rolling method with all clothing. That way I don’t need to iron or steam. And my sister bought me a suitcase with a built-in phone charger.

PRESENTER: Is it charged?

STEVIE: I don’t know how to charge it because I lost the pamphlet that came in the suitcase box.

PRESENTER: Well apart from that last bit, it sounds like you’ve become much more practical in your packing and -

STEVIE: I’m also bringing a scrapbook, pritt stick and a variety of gel pens so I can document the tour and Live In The Present Moment

PRESENTER: I suppose creativity is important

STEVIE: And an array of scented candles.

PRESENTER: You can’t light candles in Travelodges.

STEVIE: And a resistance band because I might start getting into Pilates. I do the odd bit, but wish to approach it in a more focused manner.

PRESENTER: Is travelling across the UK the best time to start a new fitness regime or-

STEVIE: I’m also going to read Wolf Hall

PRESENTER: That’s a very big book. Space-wise in the suitcase it might -

STEVIE: In hardback. And talking of hard, I’m considering hard boiling eggs from the farm around the corner to wrap in foil in case I can’t find any good snacks in the train stations.

PRESENTER: The first leg is eleven days. You can’t bring eleven eggs on tour with you.

STEVIE: I have bought three crystals and a travel version of Monopoly that I’m only just realising I can’t play because you can’t play Monopoly on your own. I wish I was joking about that, because it would be a vaguely amusing joke, but I’m not joking so it’s actually just quite concerning and -

PRESENTER: Maybe -

STEVIE: I THINK I’VE BECOME OVERLY CONCERNED WITH PACKING AND LOGISTICS AND BRINGING THINGS AND STUFF BECAUSE I AM DEEPLY SCARED ABOUT GOING ON TOUR

[pause]

PRESENTER: Would you like to unpack this - pun intended - or was verbalising it at the top of your lungs enough?

STEVIE: I think… okay. I’m really looking forward to the shows, but I’m worried I’m going to leave my makeup bag in Sheffield or my phone charger in Durham and miss all my trains. And the fun experience of doing shows all over the UK will be vastly overshadowed by constant damage control (e.g. ringing hotels I have just vacated to try and get them to send my reading glasses onwards to other hotels).

PRESENTER: What is your usual hotel unpacking system?

STEVIE: I throw everything on the floor and under the bed and in the bed and around the bed.

PRESENTER: So for you this isn’t going to be about the packing. It’s about the unpacking.

STEVIE: That’s so profound.

PRESENTER: Rather than a Dick Whittington bundle on a stick, buy a toilet bag that opens out and hangs on a door hook, and make that the only thing you fully unpack. Keep everything else touching either your suitcase or your bag so you can’t possibly forget anything.

STEVIE: But what about when I need to charge my phone next to my bed? I’ll leave the charger in the wall!

PRESENTER: Put your bag next to your bed and rest your charging phone on your bag rather than the bedside table.

STEVIE: This is next level.

PRESENTER: Also ffs look behind you every time you leave a train or a hotel room.

STEVIE: Ffs. I’ll have to create some kind of chant or slogan to help me turn my head 180 degrees every time I leave somewhere. Like ‘don’t leave until you’ve turned your head 180 degrees’

PRESENTER: That’s not hugely catchy or good.

STEVIE: ‘Don’t be a trowel, turn your head like an owl’

PRESENTER: That’s excellent.

STEVIE: Thank you so much this has been incredibly helpful

PRESENTER: Thank you so much.

[they passionately make out]

PRESENTER: Well that’s it from us - tune in again soon for another episode of How Do You Pack. Not sure when, because it’s not really a series.

[credits roll, four boiled eggs fall out of Stevie’s pocket]

Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave your top unpacking tips in the comments. I can’t promise I’ll follow them but I will 100% give them a go.

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