Sheeba

"The trouble with women", stated BBC Breakfast host Bill Turnbull on Friday, "Is that they don't like the bish - bash - bosh, and nor do they appreciate the touchy feely."

I literally choked on my Cornflakes. In the history of morning television, has an interview ever been started with a greater sentence? I very much doubt it. And he got away without getting smacked around the head by the stern one with short-spiky hair. Superb.

Anyway, after I had recovered, the weather came on with the annoying Scottish woman who I am sure spends an inordinate amount of time on Northern Scotland. "Heavy and prolonged showers in the Hebrides, Aberdeen and as far south as the Grampians." What, really? Rain? In Scotland? Better hold that story on the alleged bear faeces found in an area with a load of trees, cos Carol is gonna rock your world apart.

(To be fair if you have ever watched a weather forecast with someone from the South West, they usually think that every weather report purposely avoids their area. I have honestly thought that the East Devon weather report that is sometimes featured on Westcountry Live spends too long on Honiton.)

To save myself talking at the screen (which I think Mrs P finds equally humourous and worrying), I flipped over to GMTV, which happened to have gone to advert break. The advert showing was for the cat food Sheeba and this reminded me of a blog I was to do a while back.

The tagline is as old as advertising itself. Since it's first usage by Vikings to sell their package tours of the UK, memorable slogans have stuck in the brain and have become synonymous with its product. Who can forget such classics as "BUPA's Gonna Kick Your !£$%!@# Head In", "I Bet He Drinks Diamond White", and Emigrate Australia's "Because Sometimes 'Sorry' is the Hardest Word".

Sadly, the great art of the adline has become tarnished by the rent-a-quote line. Little beknown to the majority of the buying public, there is a small office just outside of Shrewsbury that takes old lines, recycles them and resells them at a cut-price to companies too crap to come up with their own ideas. These lines often have little, if anything, to do with the product. Equally, these lines are absolutely forgettable, thus making highlighting the worst offenders very difficult.

However, Friday morn I did catch one and through an abstract form of mind-mapping have managed to commit it to memory. The product, Sheeba cat food. The line, "Share the Experience".

What does that mean? In what way can you share the experience of a cat digesting jellied chunks of miscellaneous animal parts without giving yourself serious bad breath? If the resulting six hours of gut-rot is what your cat experiences, then chances are that you ain't going to be buying it again. And if anyone tries to suggest it is meant on an "emotional" level, I will personally see to it that they are subjected to watching my new DVD out for Christmas "Love Actually - A Rant in Twelve Parts", including the bonus three hours of cider-induced freestyling tour-de-force "Live at the General Redvers".

So here's an alternative for you Sheeba. "Sheeba - Putting the Cat into Cat Food." Now that would be memorable.

Veinte Anos

With Mrs P getting her way with the T.V. I've decided to do a long overdue posting (I wanted to watch old people sing Radiohead songs, she's watching fat people walk - I think we know who wears the cultural trousers in this house). If truth be told inspiration has been low - the E&E has become obsessed with the sale of the airport and hunting and although I've got a couple of things on adverts, I've decided to start this week with a summing up of the last two months in all things Gary.

(Update on the fat people walking 500 miles television programme: some of them are "having trouble pitching tents". Yep - I've heard obesity'll do that.)

Well this blog has got a lot sharper. For me anyway, cos I got me some new spectacles. My old ones, after significant general abuse, finally exploded when I got punched in the face at work by an unprovoked, disgruntled employee. Well, when I say "disgruntled employee", I mean "spring loaded monitor stand". And when I say unprovoked, I might have pressed the release mechanism when it was less than 30cm (that's quarter of a large pace to our imperial measuring American friends) away from the old visage.

Don't worry, I wasn't hurt, just stunned and damn glad I was alone. The result was a new pair of glasses that, while letting me see things properly, do give me a 2-lunchtime-pint feeling all through the day. I'm sure I'll get used to them.

(Update on fat walking: Helen has already turned over and is now watching a dog programme. Well it's either that, or one of the fat people has been forced to wear a muzzle.)

Other than that I've been mostly drawing naked people, visiting friends with babies and doing DIY. I visited my parents where I came up with what I thought a reasonably amusing joke on a topical, er, topic (it involved an acrimonious marriage split, submitted complaints and my comment that "she won't have a leg to stand on"), which actually got booed by Mrs P and Mrs P the Elder. Now I know how Chris Morris felt after Brasseye. Maybe one day my comedy will be seen not just for its controversy but also for its insight, cutting wit and subtleness.

Not a lot else has happened. I have done a lot of shopping, buying contenders for my album of the year (I think I might have got enough eligible CDs for a top 10 now), plus loads of CDs that aren't (Fleetwood Mac are this year's ELO). Sadly the most interesting thing that happened I don't feel would be appropriate to write about on here, but if you want to know, when you see me ask me about God, Bono and Crediton Wetherspoons.