International Advertising

I meant to write a little bit about this story before Christmas, then completely forgot about it. As such, thanks Meg for reminding me about it. AdAge produced a list of ten adverts that the US will never see – it makes for quite interesting reading. Several of them have been seen in the UK already, including the #1 “Mr Kipling’s Nativity Play“, which had me laughing out loud, but received 570 complaints, primarily for the closing punchline of “it’s a girl!“.

Lardy

Did anyone else watch the documentary on Channel 4 on Sunday, about “America’s Fattest City” ? (Sorry, I can’t find a link to it at the moment) It was pretty horrendous – although apparently Detroit has now deposed Houston as America’s Fattest City – and included people who apparently drive their children the 50 feet to the stop for the bus-stop. The old rumour that Americans are going to evolve into limbless creatures still appears to (pardon the pun) have legs.

And was it just me, or were a good 75% of the adverts in the programme for diet programs like Weightwatchers? Never let it be said that advertisers don’t have a sense of irony.

NYE and the texts

Over at The Register, there’s a piece about the number of text messages sent in the UK on New Years Eve. The figure is reckoned to be 100 million text messages. That’s mind-boggling. Of course, as per every other New Year, the mobile phone networks couldn’t cope with the demand, and locked up for up to four hours. Aren’t modern communications great?

The end of days

Call me a putrid old Scrooge, but I must admit to feeling a lot lighter in mood since the poxy Christmas decorations and lights are starting to come down. The infamous World’s Shonkiest Shopping Centre™ (also known, for some godforsaken reason, as The Spindles) has lost all things festering, so now we’re back to marimba and panpipe versions of Boney M’s “It’s a Holi-Holi-Day”, as opposed to the delicate joys of glockenspiel and tuba versions of Christmas Carols. Trust me, you’ve never heard Slade ’til you’ve listened to it in a version designed for triangle and bagpipe. (Well, that’s what it sounded like).

So, Twelfth Night is almost upon us, and thank fuck for that. Only 300ish shopping days to Christmas.

Moooooooose!

Well, as promised, proof that the collection has grown. As well as Rutt and Tuke (I’m sticking with their Disney names, due to a combination of simplicity and current lack of imagination) there’s finally a (very bad) picture of Scaramoose, Scaramoose, and Fandango, as well as another gift addition, Infa.

And yes, I realise it means I have two called Scaramoose, but to be honest I just don’t care. They’re identified as a set, so it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway.

New-ish Year

Amazing as it may seem for a Sunday, I’ve been doing some thinking. One thing in particular has been bouncing round my head a bit, which relates to the entire New Year thing.

Now, while I’m the last one to agree that greetings should be reciprocated without thought – I’ve never been into the “sending someone a card because they’ve sent me one” school of thought – I do feel that things change slightly between people who are supposedly friends. Feel free to add in the comments if you think I’m being unreasonable on this one – I actually want to know if I’m seeing this one entirely wrong.

When you’ve sent a quick “Happy New year and all the best” message to a friend, is it unreasonable to think it’d be decent to send a reply? You know, sometime in the four days since sending it. Is that unreasonable? Or is it – as I’m beginning to think – a decent way of saying “Oh fuck off, I really can’t be bothered even to do friendly greetings” ?

Bad Domestic Joke

Yes, today’s been domestic again. As well as domestic shopping for the week, I’ve also been planting bulbs with a compost of rodent and sugar.

Yes, I’m going to be growing Tulips from ‘Amster Jam.

Kaboom and indeed tish.