Fantasy Sixties

After running a Sky+ series link on Mad Men, I finally started catching up on it last week, with about another 4 episodes to go before I'm up to date with the UK schedules. I thought it was going to be crap, but it's really rather good, and is right out of the Dick Van Dyke Scriptwriters School.
If you're watching series 2 of Heroes, you'll know what I mean: we see the US idea of Telly Ireland Gangsters. Begorrah ohr shet ets fecken rainen t'besure. The same school is responsible for Telly London, where St. Paul's is a stroll away from Greenwich Park, which nestles beneath the Tower of London, and has pubs under fog-shrouded bridges where the locals wear flat caps and red neck scarves and raise a pint to the portrait of the Queen behind the bar. Have I mentioned that I live in a castle?
These phenomena exist because of a simple unifying fact: the writers have never bloody well been there. Thus with Mad Men, the central character is a well groomed cold-hearted shit, cast from a JR Ewing template. The storylines are compelling because they are set in a Telly Sixties world combined with a Reading Level Z version of what the ad world was like back then. Still, it's oddly compelling. I hope that at some point someone, anyone, twats that Donnie Darko or whatever his name is, firmly on the nose, for the sake of his poor missus.

I have seen Hell and it is the colour blue

I mean... blue? For fuck's sake, that's a soap colour.

Citroen, shut it

My initial pleasure at the beginning of Citroen’s current campaign is changing into bafflement. It was good to see the usual numpties complaining about national stereotyping, hilariously nailing the Germans into the No Sense of Humour pigeonhole.
A problem arises with the continuation of the campaign, where the supporting press and poster ads employ some painful puns.
Modern cars are uniformly dull, especially the German ones. Mechanically superb, the driver is almost an afterthought. A baby Audi looks like a small grown up Audi. French cars, on the other hand, retain a unique character throughout their range. The particular Citroen model advertised here is top of the range, where you’d need to spend some serious money to acquire one. I can’t see how turning the car into a joke improves the brand.

Today's new word: clunge

I'm mortified that I had to look this one up, but "clunge" is one of the myriad of slang words referring to a woman's toilet bits. I hope the IT monkeys don't spot that search in their url log.
This emerged from another Private Eye article ripping into Sky News' lazy use of viewers' photos to enhance its website (ref: the glorious e-vandalism surrounding the Spring storms coverage).
So... here we go again. Here's another gallery of rogue images that Sky posted on its website, unaware of the photoshopped mischief. The theme this time: The London Marathon.

Beyond the minge

Fergal probably has a beard too

Tron

One foot in the grave

Some images pinched from a rather good journalism blog; others ripped from bulletin board cache files.

Arses twinned with elbows

Chimplet #3 is seven years old; she still loves fluffy toys, anything in pink, and her favourite form of locomotion is skipping. So far there has been no request to buy GTA4 or imbibe alcohol; nor is there an inclination to swear at her teachers. This must mean that's she's at odds with the majority of Britain's children who, if you believe the Daily Mail, are turning our landscape into something resembling the set of Full Metal Jacket.
She has noticed and shrugged off the fuss over her idol Miley Cyrus' apparently obscene photoshoot in Vanity Fair, something which is causing me to scratch my head.
The interesting thing about the story is the implied disapproval from Disney, Cyrus' ultimate boss, who I can't really believe care about underage girls posing provocatively in photos. After all, it's OK for Disney to plaster pics of an even younger female model in her underwear over the billboards of Beijing.
On an entirely unrelated note, you can buy Disney products at Tesco, who have an equally erratic moral compass.

The evil clown man will mince you and dance, crab-like, over your dismembered body

Designed to be outstandingly dull and, by relentless repetition, to hammer the Calgon brand into your subsconscious, this ad has been well and truly noticed within the Chimp household. It has taken on the persona of a brain-sucking horror filmlet, something akin to the Ring stories.
Beware of Calgon Man, half way through applying his evil clown make-up, as he rebuilds his giant mincer. You never see the bottom part of Calgon Man’s body. Calgon Man stands on mutated crab legs. Calgon Man can see you through the telly. He will eat your kidneys.

Monkey Invasion sub-plan #1093

...Memo to troops: show no mercy to the cats...

You doth protest too much

I am unconvinced of the existence of omnipotent desert-born sky ghosts, but if people want to believe in them and wear the badges, then let them be, I say.
Religion is responsible for some of the most resilient brands in history, plus some awesome patent protection. Their brand directors tend to stay in their jobs for life and follow strict dress codes. Being a brand loyalist is usually pretty harmless, although switching brands occasionally raises eyebrows.
It was therefore a shame to see a touch of religious nuttership in my sleepy village. Every piece of street furniture has one of these stickers. The odd thing is that the target of this spite attack doesn’t actually exist. A nearby neighbour occasionally travels about 30 miles to the nearest mosque. He told me this in the pub. Over a pint.
And there’s the Turkish family who run the kebab shop on the high street (opposite the quaint Norman church), but bearing in mind the contents of their shopping trolley, spotted in Asda one parched summer’s day a year or so ago, I’d hardly label them as committed members of that faraway mosque.
This campaign, should it occur in Wembley or Bradford, would be inflammatory and whip up some nasty feeling. The reaction at Sleepyville? Any angry marches by outraged Christians worried about a Saracen invasion? No, just a letter in the local paper complaining about the eyesores spoiling our lamp posts.

Cut the Zeds

I don't usually Big Up individual blog posts but The Kaiser has the snot-blowingly funniest screen capture I've seen in a long, long time.

The circus comes to town

It was off to the WWE wrestling again last week as I indulged Chimplet #1 in his favourite craze, this time at the O2. The events are perfectly pitched for the adolescent mentality with its mix of heroes and villains, long-running storylines, acrobatics and women with massive tits. That last bit always gets my attention as the wrestling divas get it on. Gorgeous women fighting… it was even better than the midget beating the shit out of someone in the ring. Christ, that last sentence sounds like a bad night at Gary Glitter’s Cambodian hideaway.
Here’s the thing that I just don’t get: grown-up chavs getting high on WWE. I swear they think the whole thing’s a real sport. I think the British demographic is the equivalent of US rednecks. There was evidence of some serious inbreeding in the audience. The security guards were confiscating banjoes at the front doors.
Take a look at the picture. Note the glimmer of digital- and phone-cameras as The Undertaker approaches the ring. These people spent the entire night taking pictures and (illegally) filming it. That’s nearly four hours of standing in a spot that cost £45 looking at a tiny digital screen instead of watching what they bloody well paid for! Someone please explain!
Here's a just-retired wrestler selling you financial products. Turn up the volume to enjoy. Would you borrow money from this man?

See also:
Be a real man
Woo! We went to the WWE

Teenie drinking - a solution

Boozed up teenagers hanging around street corners? In Japan, they tackle the kiddie drinking problem head on.

FACT! Throat!

"The throat is a passageway connecting the back of the mouth and nose to the esophagus and to the trachea. After chewing delicious food given by the grace of our Heavenly Father, we swallow and the partially digested nutrients go down the throat."

More wisdom in Fuckwitapedia.

See also:
FACT! Hedgehog!
FACT! Femininity!
FACT! Toronto!
FACT! Religious War!
FACT! Rocks!
FACT! Chuck Norris!
FACT! Fornication!
FACT! Pens!
FACT! Kangaroos!
FACT! The 19th Century!
FACT! Dinosaurs!