Seventy-five things · keep near the kettle
The grown-up things they
never sat you down and explained.
The Stuff Nobody Tells You is 75 short, dry, genuinely useful entries on the everyday adult things nobody ever sat you down and explained. Which drawer the softener goes in. How to bleed a radiator. What your tax code actually means. Useful enough to keep by the kettle. Funny enough that you'll actually read it.
Paperback £9.99 · Kindle £0.99
A taste of what's inside
Four of the seventy-five. The other seventy-one are equally overdue.
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01
Which drawer does the fabric softener go in?
Not the one you've been using. There's a little flower symbol. We'll explain the flower.
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02
What can I actually recycle?
Less than you hopefully throw in, more than you fear. Pizza box: it depends, and we'll tell you on what.
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03
How do I bleed a radiator?
It hisses, then it drips, then the room is warm. There is a small key. You probably own three.
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04
What does my tax code mean?
The letters aren't random and the number isn't your salary. Both are quietly deciding how much you keep.
The author
Jakob de Villiers III
Jakob de Villiers III is the third generation of a family that has never quite known how to do anything practical. His grandfather could not change a fuse. His father could not change his grandfather's mind about this. Jakob, breaking with tradition, learned how to do roughly forty household things, then characteristically wrote them all down rather than help anyone in person.
He writes useful but funny reference books, the kind people keep by the kettle and quote at dinner parties without crediting him. He believes most of adult life is just a list of things everyone else seems to have been told in a room he wasn't invited to. The Stuff Nobody Tells You is his attempt to forward you the memo.
He prefers not to be photographed. The cover, which is just his book shouting its own title, is as close as you'll get, and that's rather the point.
More books
There will be more. There always is more. This is the part of the website that grows.
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Book Two
Currently a list of things Jakob has just found out. Title pending.