Because The Sun would

via

Wiggle room needed

Watch out for the following item appearing on eBay via Phil Spector's management.

It's not his wig that'll need purifying if he drops the soap.

In a pickle

Is this the real Barry Norman?

via Ben Goldacre

RIP Clement

As a child, I first saw Clement Freud on the telly selling dog food. That’s what I always identified him with until I heard him on Radio 4’s Just A Minute. RIP #1 Grumpy Old Man and owner of the most morose voice in Britain. He was also incredibly funny.

A Clement Freud joke:
A woman told her husband that if he ever came home drunk again then she would leave him. That night he went out to a pub, drank a lot and threw up all over himself.
“What am I going to do?” he asked his friend “If I turn up like this my wife’s going to leave me.”
“This is what you do”, said his friend, “Put a £20 note in your pocket and tell your wife that someone else threw up on you and gave you the money to dry clean your jacket.”
That night, as he came through the door he stopped his wife in mid-exclamation and said “No, no, somebody threw up over me and gave me £20 for the cleaning bill.”
She said “But why have you got two £20 notes in your hand?”
“Oh,” said the man, “The other one is from the man who shat in my pants.”

One of the most wicked marketing campaigns ever

Ignorance, being poorly informed and an argument from emotion are no excuse. Children are dying because of people like Jenny McCarthy.
Thankfully we in the UK have woken up to the evidence-free scaremongering of the MMR vaccine, despite the occasional air-brained hiccup from mouthy celebs playing the Mummy Card. Our media now realises that the vaccine is safe. We see the inevitable rise in the illnesses that MMR was meant to prevent as herd immunity is lost.
In the USA, Jenny McCarthy plays the Mummy, sorry, Mommy Card to the hilt. As she does so, children go unvaccinated and whatever emotive language she uses, nature resolutely ignores her and people die.
Life’s a bummer like that.
In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the baddies wear black hats and are always vanquished, fluffy bunnies frolic on green fields and children are never sick. This is where McCarthy spends her spare time.
Unfortunately Cloud Cuckoo Land rules do not apply to Planet Earth.
McCarthy is now peddling a new book and because she is An Angry Mom, she is soft-soaped by the media.
Here’s Time giving her the kid glove treatment.
Here’s a scientist’s view of the McCarthy campaign of destruction.
Here are the results of her handiwork.

Two stories. One caption.

It's a big knob on a roof.

She's not dead yet

But this is published by the same high-quality stable that vomits out the Daily Star, Daily Express and various porno mags.

To those of you fortunate enough to avoid British tabloids, Jade Goody is a "reality TV star" dying from cancer.

**Edit: notice the issue number...**

That sound you hear is the dropping of a very loud clanger

Sometimes it seems that advertising is an idea that escaped from Narnia. Agency says this. Advertiser does that.
Knowing how many failed or wannabe rockers live in agencies, I'll bet Swiftcover's idea to include Iggy Pop in its ads came from their agency MWO. In my limited experience of these things, the insistence upon a particular celeb appearing in an ad usually comes from the client if that celeb happens to be a hot(ish) babe.

The daft idea must have been passed by Swiftcover with half of their collective brain switched off. Hence the rather strained concept of Iggy Pop being chosen "as the face of its advertising because he loves life, not because he is a musician". This was the sorry excuse emerging from that insurance company as it gets hammered for not offering cover to musicians. When I see Iggy I do not think "here's a man who loves life". No, my first thought is "fucked up and possibly deranged rocker who seems reasonably happy".

A rock star in an ad for a service that excludes musicians?

Deliciously stupid.

Bothered? Not a lot

A tip of the hat to magician Paul Daniels and his missus Debbie McGee for spoofing themselves and the Beckhams seemingly just for the hell of it. Are they promoting a TV show? Who cares?
Here they are again in one of a series of four Heineken ads that ran in 2001.

Poor Wozza

It's sad to see TV chefs like Antony Worrall Thompson going to the wall, as reported in today's Telegraph. No, I am genuinely mildly tearful over these little lambs (especially Gordon Ramsay) because I did think that they'd have the chutzpah to ride out the recession. The lifestyle trend of the moment is "staying in is the new going out", or so we're told, which is why Sky subscriptions, dinner parties and DVD rentals are on the up. Cinema takings are up too as visiting the flicks is a relatively cheap night out (as long as you don't buy any junk food, sweets or drink in cinema). I'd have thought that downsizing menus to reduce the number of options (meaning greater economies of scale) would have kept diners coming through the doors. Oh well, you can't be right all the time.
(Note to regular readers: This semi-serious article was written as an excuse to post the following short video of Antony Worrall Thompson making a tit of himself)

See also: Gordon, get out of my f-ing face

Bart fires one off for Scientology

Spam phone calls are still a problem on landlines, which is a pity cos I hate using my mobile. Several years down the line I still haven't mastered the bloody thing. I'm getting some alarming cold calls from someone on my mobile, without fail, same time every bloody day, and then every ten minutes till I turn the damn thing off. Who is this bastard called Snooze who keeps pestering me, and who does he work for?
Another bunch of annoying fuckers are outed in this post. It reveals how the person behind the voice of Bart Simpson is using the cartoon to plug Scientology over the phone. Link inludes audio evidence. As my German friend would say: "Ein bunch of arse!"

See also:
More woo infiltrates UK advertising
Kudos to the little guy

2009 - the year of the cheap celeb

Of all the weird ads currently on British telly, this is the most confusingest. I'm trying to figure out what legendary hellraiser and unlikely brand ambassador Iggy Pop is doing in this ad for Swiftcover.

The great Nigella advertising excuse

This video has a desperately tenuous connection to the purpose of this blog, but I could stretch it by roping in the marketing machine behind Nigella and the fact that she's married to one of the giants of the British advertising industry.
That's the boring stuff out of the way - now enjoy England's poshest rose talking filthy like a fallen fishwife.

See also:
Sweet and creamy;
500th post: agency anecdote

Brand appeal

There’s a vicious, petty streak that runs through the DNA of a certain type of Brit, and never was this more apparent than over the last week. Considering the state of the world, the media became strangely obsessed over an obscene phone call. Stupid? Kind of.
What I saw was a superb example of a brand completely understanding its consumers and manipulating them with masterful dexterity. I speak, of course, about the Daily Mail (and its Sunday sister). The Mail is at its best when fostering outrage, in this example seizing the moment a week after the actual event.
The Mail knows its readers aren’t interested in the strife that afflicts the world. Instead it bypassed the immediate financial worries that dog its readership and went straight for the heaviest hit: scapegoats.
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand aren’t murderers, terrorists, US Republicans, paedophiles, or even worse, bankers. And yet over 10,000 complainants, none of whom listened to the show (which earned two complaints for swearing, not for the prank), stood up from their comfy sofas and, still in their glass houses, elected to throw stones.

It's a Rotten Life

So I have a bit of a downer on Johnny Lydon. I don't know whether his difficult personality is an act or genuine borderline loony, but the Sex Pistols front man's appearance in Grey London's new Country Life ad kind of works. It's quite brave too, because there must be many people who haven't been won over by Lydon (not that he'll give a shit), who just might fall into Country Life's target market.
You can never be too sure whether he's taking the piss out of the Britishness that the brand is supposedly distancing itself from (it's the taste!), but hell, if a safe fmcg brand wants to take the risk, then I'm all for it.

GB's Olympic haul

This is the final ranking of the top 10-performing countries in the Beijing Olympics (from the BBC):

Firstly, Australia. Yes, we know Brits are sedentary, crippled by competition-averse political correctness, and very fat. And you expected to thrash our pants in Beijing.

Fail.

And The Sun responded in its usual xenophobic manner.

Secondly, George Galloway. Early in August, his radio show on Talksport was the epitomy of gloating cynicism.
In response to a caller optimistic about Team GB's chances:

"I’m sure they’ll do better than St Kitts & Nevis and one or two other smaller countries but as a country of 60 million people with the fourth or fifth biggest economy in the world and with a history of having not only participated well but invented many of the sports being competed for in the Olympics, do you think we’ll be getting a return on the investment we’ve made on the sport?
"I think in fact for the money we’ve invested in sport we’re going to get a miserable haul in medals."

Fail.

See also:
Aussie foreplay: "Brace yourself, Sheila"
We rock too;
Digging Australia;
Missing canoeists

Time to feel really, really ill....

Why?

Yes, I'm short on writing time. Another one from Flickr.

The soggy price of fame

I had a most unusual brand experience on Sunday when I had to drag my 14 year-old out of bed at 5 a.m. so that he could audition for the X-Factor. It was his idea, and I'd have much rather stayed in bed, but Simon Cowell's letter warned us to be at the O2 long before the cut off time of 8 a.m., and you don't argue with the man in the high-waisted trousers, do you?
We arrived at 6:30 and there were already thousands of soggy hopefuls there. It must have been the wettest bank holiday Sunday ever. How stupid are the great unwashed? So many of the hopefuls hadn't bothered bringing umbrellas or coats and, by 9 o'clock, were shivering.

"The ugly ones - you know who you are"

A producer made a noble attempt at jollying the crowd up by explaining the process "and if you're lucky and get picked for the second round - then congratulations! But if you're unlucky, then we're sor-- actually, no, we're not sorry 'cos it's not our fault you can't sing, is it?" and, to a cheer when he announced that Dermot O'Leary was going to climb that crane over there, "I'm glad to see that there are so many gorgeous young women in the queue. And there are quite a few ugly ones too - you know who you are."

A little wet Dermot on a crane

So, Dermot appears on the crane, talks to camera, waves and gurns to the crowd, and finally we're allowed into the O2.
Cue a further two hours of waiting as everyone took to their appointed seats, then another hour as the producer and Dermot got the crowd to wave and cheer for the camera.

While the rest of us were cheering, some pikey fuckers decided to tuck in. And eat. And eat. And eat.

It was explained that Simon, Sharon and co wouldn't be involved with the auditions until the third round. Today, the auditionees would be seen by one of around a dozen Sony BMG execs and assorted Cowell acolytes. They are sitting behind the black or white cubicles on the stage. You get three minutes to sing. If you're given a "Yes", then you get a golden ticket and go through Exit A, the Happy Exit. If you're told "No", then you leave through Exit B, the Sad Exit. Oh yes, and give it your best shot cos this is your big chance.
And then wait wait wait, the smell of damp clothes and desperation punctuated by thousands of mostly teenage girls practising their songs. Occasionally, someone would emerge from a cubicle with the golden ticket that ensured their progress to the second round. Much applause. It looked like about 1 in 20 were successful; about half of that 5% looked the part (young, extrovert, attractive) and the other half were (and there's no way to sound charitable about this) freakish. So when you watch the real judges, you now know that the weird ones that make Louis and Simon open their jaws in appalled dismay have already jumped through hoops to get there.
Chimplet was relaxed and didn't look nervous. A few weeks earlier, when I asked him why he'd applied, he had shrugged and said that everyone of his classmates had talked about doing it but never bothered applying so... why not? It seems he had one of those "101 things to do before you die" lists in his head.
"God! Just look at them - they take it so seriously!" This was about a line of crying teenage girls sloping towards the Sad Exit.

Hell must be something like this

3 p.m. and at last our line was ushered to the stage. The first sign of nerves. We could hear some of the other singers. Finally it was Chimplet's turn and the judge, a friendly 30-something glamourpuss perched on a stool asked him a few questions and invited him to sing. He didn't want me to watch him so I turned away and heard his almost-breaking voice falter through I Believe I Can Fly. A year younger and he'd have belted it out but adolescence was playing its cruel tricks. "I'm sorry but it's a No."
At times like this you have a large choice from the Dad's book of comfort words. "Well done - you gave it your best shot. At least you had the balls to try." He was quiet in the car, but revealed a small smile when he checked his mobile. A crowded inbox of texts from his friends asking how he had got on.

Gwyneth: mwi-mwi-mwi

Of the dozen or so podcasts I listen to each week, my firm favourite is BBC Radio 5 Live's film reviews by Mark Kermode (grumpy rockabilly weirdo with a doctorate in filmology and a wife who's a published authority on trash porn). The show can also be watched live, which is how a YouTuber has helpfully intercut last week's review of Iron Man, complete with Kermode's mocking impressions of the three main stars, with footage of the film. It's short and stupid but tickles my funny bone. I'll never be able to watch Gwyneth Paltrow with a straight face ever again.

See also: The BBC's resident grumpmeister

Sacla bleu

It’s best to ignore TV cookery shows, mainly because the chefs are evil. Estate agents are going out of business because of the housing slump, and its about time the gastronautical parasites suffer a penthouse defenestration. I have two beefs with these bastards. One is the fly-on-the-wall restaurant kitchen footage of them flinging good grub into the bin because it’s too runny/grey/cold etc. This is where the Victorian in me shouts "there are people starving in Africa!". Lo! The quest for artistic perfection!
The second is less profound, but more annoying. It’s when Gordon/Gary/Marco etc. chop a fucking onion at lightspeed. What the fuck’s that about? Haven’t they heard of food mixers? The trouble with that is that it forms a challenge in the mind of the viewer. Wouldn’t it be just so cooool to be able to chop an onion like that. With real force. While talking. Nurse!
There was an eSure survey getting the PR treatment last week which claimed that more than "one in 10 people in the UK have had a cooking accident or caused damage to their kitchen as a result of copying professional cooking techniques of top TV chefs". And that’s despite three quarters of them describing themselves as "amateur", "novice" or even "useless"! (The best bit of the survey said that a third would use a DIY blow torch instead of a special culinary one, the fucking idiot numpties).
Which brings me to this, the current TV ad that I hate most. Each time this tosser appears, I pray that there’s an accidental dismemberment, so much do I loathe his effort at cooking green worms. It does achieve its aim of hammering the brand name into your skull, so job done, I suppose.
The idea behind it isn’t original. Here are two arty experiments that played with it, and I’m sure there are more.

See also: Gordon, get out of my F-ing face