At the moment, Santander have a set of adverts ‘starring’ Jensen Button, Jessica Ennis and Rory McIlroy. Suffice it to say, they’re pretty creepy…
Seriously, what crack-headed advertising exec ever thought this would be a good idea? To have sporting ‘celebrities’ effectively invading the homes and lives of everyday people, and stalking them? I can’t even understand how it’s going to portray bankers and banking in a positive light.
Indeed for me all it does is serve to make me actively not want to use Santander for anything. Ever.
(Although, on a more cynical note, it does amuse me that Santander are also paying to have the logos for Nike and Adidas all over their ad)
So, today is Comic Relief day (AKA Red Nose Day) – one of those shit fund-raising days that encourage people to be “crazy” and “funny” by getting dressed up and acting like tossbags. “It’s all for charidee, innit?” Fuck off.
For the record, I don’t mind Comic Relief – the charity, not the activity. They do good stuff, both in the UK and everywhere else, and I think that’s good. I just can’t stand the way people go stupid about it. (Let’s be honest, I’m not a fan of people most of the time anyway) It’s always the “I’m mad, me” bell-ends that love it, along with (sometimes) some of the quieter office people who normally don’t say a word, but do something special “for charity” (or out of peer-pressure, I don’t know) At least the quiet ones are amusing to watch, because they’re so mortified and teeth-grindingly awkward about the entire thing.
My main amusement this year has come from the changes at Radio 1. (Yes, I still listen to it, despite the increasing ass-hattery of the presenters) In previous years, Chris Moyles has raised millions of pounds on his show for Comic Relief. Just in 2011, his “longest radio show” raised £2.4million on its own, and there was other stuff that year as well. When he left last year, Comic Relief came in and revealed that Moyles’ show had raised just under £11 million.
This year, the new Breakfast Show presenter did a show yesterday for Comic Relief, and raised … £250,000.
Of course that’s still a decent amount, don’t get me wrong. But he’s all impressed with himself for getting that figure, and I’m thinking “Moyles managed that in about an hour”
So, that’s been amusing.
In the meantime, though, tonight I’ll be avoiding the TV (and any thought of shopping etc. can sod right off) and doing absolutely nothing Comic Relief related. This is A Good Thing.
Last night and this morning, my drive from/to work was extremely foggy. This morning was worse, but even last night was pretty entertaining.
What always gets me though is the way people handle foggy conditions when they’re driving – particularly with regard to one of the banes of my life, foglights.
At night, it’s exceptionally rare to need foglights – they’re only for times where visibility is exceptionally low, and you’ve no chance of seeing the vehicle in front of you without the additional lights. The good old Highway Code says
Rule 236 : You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226)
Rule 226 : “You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves.”
With lights on at night, it’s exceptionally rare to not be able to see the car 100 metres ahead of you.Yet most of the fuckknuckle cunts are there, belting along with their foglights on.
And yet this morning, when it was actually really bad visibility, most people didn’t put their lights on at all, let alone the foglights.
Since moving to the new place, I do miss having dogs around. Prior to here, I’ve had dogs (even daft pain-in-the-arse bastard ones like Hound) for the last eight years, and you kind of get used to it.
So I kind of miss having them around, but at the same time there’s no way I could justify it at the moment with how life’s running.
As it is, the cats are OK if I leave them overnight. I always make sure they’ve got enough food, and all that, but really it’s pretty easy. I’ve also located a nice local person who can come in and feed them etc if I have to be away for longer, which is also a bit easier.
With a dog (or more) I’d also be far more constrained with walk times etc. which I couldn’t actually manage on a regular basis – let alone the extra joys there would be with me doing a long one-dayer or overnighter.
I get a regular reminder of this from the neighbours though – they have some little thing (I’ve never actually seen it, to be honest) and every time they go out, the poxy thing howls and yaps for a good 30-45 minutes, and sometimes longer. I’ve no idea why they never seem to take the bloody thing out with them, but there we go.
Anyway, it all just reminds me of how needy dogs can be, and how much I wouldn’t want my neighbours to be having to live next to someone whose dog(s) howl every day when I go to work, or go out anywhere.
In my office, there’s a number of people who’ve been on a bit more of a health kick so far this year – one aspect of which is that they all drink a lot more water.
Work supplies a lot of the ‘standard’ drinks for the company – primarily tea, coffee, and bottled water, as well as a bundle of other odds and sods. It’s not a bad workplace, all told, and they’re pretty reasonable.
Sadly though (in my opinion) some of the people are somewhat less reasonable. As a result, they drink the supplied water, and piss and moan when it runs out. But they only ever drink the bottle of water, then chuck the bottle away and get another one. It’s about as anti-Green as you can get.
I’ve also been drinking more water (as detailed previously) but I have one 750ml bottle that’s now lasted me three months. I just refill it each time, rather than needing (or more accurately, feeling I need) a new bottle every time.
I don’t really care, to be fair. It just annoys me on occasion when other people a) can’t be chuffed to provide their own stuff, or b) take the piss.
While out over the weekend, I went past a Wetherspoons pub, and they’ve got a stunning offer for Valentine’s Day.
2 for twenty quid – feel valued yet?
Yup – take your beloved out and show her how much you love and value them by making it a Meal for Two for £20. What could possibly be more romantic than that ?
And the sad thing is, I bet they’ll be bloody packed.
