Reasons Why I Don’t Do Jokes

I tend not to tell the jokes I make up.

Apparently Dr Brian Cox is recording a new series of his excellent "Wonders of the Universe" thing. I like his stuff. He is obviously enthusiastic about stars and planets. And the moon.

The problem for Brian is that he has to explain all this stuff to us, simple lay people. It must infuriate him with his big brain, trying to get through our thick skulls about the composition of the gas giants, the atmosphere of Titan and why we can't shoot our rubbish into the sun (still not satisfactorily answered in my opinion). Meanwhile we sit with a slightly vacant stare, giggling everytime he mentions the rings of Uranus.

What Brian really wants to do is show us the really clever stuff, like the special relativistic redshift formula or the Polyakov action of super strings. But he can't because we're too stupid, (Christ, we can't even understand simplified M-theory).

So Brian has to resort to making comparisons. "If you imagine this tennis ball was the planet Mars", he will say, "Then the furrows of Andy Murray's brow represent the Martian Canals". This helps us to visualise the complex things he knows, and the physicist will use them a lot.

Unfortunately for Brian, this way of describing phenomena has resulted in him having to delay the recording of the second series.

During a particularly complex explanation of the Horsehead nebulae, Brian is painting a picture through the medium of speech. He begins to compare the interstellar cloud to a 250g packet of pistachios.

Suddenly he starts choking, and grabs his throat. He falls to his knees and is quickly rushed off to Arizona State Hospital.

Turns out he has a particularly bad nut analogy.

Ahem.

Like I said, I don't tend to tell jokes.

The Onion

Over the past 10 years, Grand Theft Auto has been the only computer game I've had more than a passing interest in. And The Onion is just great. Hence I really enjoyed this article.

Sandford Music Festival

Saturday night I missed the European Song Contest for the first time in probably 10 years. (As an aside, if we want to win it again, why don't we let ITV do the coverage, fronted by Ant and Dec? I'm sure they could arrange the necessary phone vote result). It was time that I took a break. I've come to realise that it is not natural, and probably not good for my health.

Fortunately for me I ventured out to the Sandford music festival, which was of a really high quality. In particular was this guy Kit Hawes, who unfortunately has little decent video on youtube, but what there is conveys a little of how good he was/is. I'd advise trying these: Video 1 Video 2.

Now normally I dismiss those both younger and more talented than me surprisingly easily, but Kit was incredible - I admit I was slightly inebriated, but I swear his fingers were moving quicker than the refresh rate of my eyes. (Eeew - IT metaphor...)

A highlight had to be a rendition of Bach's cello concerto during which he detuned his E-string AS HE WAS FREAKING PLAYING. If I had been wearing a hat (and I feel that I should do more often), I would have taken it off to him.

Other fine performances were seen of a lovely Irish woman called Sarah McQuaid and a band called the Swamp Gods  or something that were like the Talking Heads mixed with the Velvets and Stooges. "Social Leper" was a particularly catchy number.

Nestle Cereal

Tonight I shall be ranting.

**Breathes In**

The absolute worst thing about the information revolution thing, what with the Internet and mobile phones and such-like, is that the Man decided our opinion mattered. Or at least, he could make us think it mattered. Hence it is now impossible to watch anything "live" without the word interactive rearing its head and spitting numbers and email addresses over the TV screen and radio airwaves. If I had managed to keep much hair into the new century I would have torn it out, burnt it and sent the ashes in to Terry Wogan's Points of View. I'm not sure what my point would have been by doing this, but I would surely have made it.

It's been going on for a few years now and is ingrained into every tract of broadcast material. Radio shows read out the most inane and tedious of anecdotes that even the sender's own family wouldn't want to hear. Five now does something called Your News. (Warning! The following sentence contains the excessive use of quote marks in a way some readers may find annoying) This involves members of the public "covering" "stories" of "interest" about their own insignificant world. About mobile phone masts and bus routes and corner shops. Well here's a headline for Natasha Ker-Ching-sky (I made that up and no-one else can use it without first acknowledging that fact): Man from Crediton Doesn't Care.

The one place where you could usually get some solace was during the adverts. Because these are over-engineered to the 19th degree, people in them aren't real. They are zero-dimensional. That's why when a stuffed monkey or small robot comes along they are considered quite deep characters.

Take the Muller lid lickers. If for one moment I thought they were real people, then from the moment the guy struggles out "Do you lick the lid of life?" with what must surely be among his final breaths, I would be found down at the Post Office trying to trace my envelope of burnt hair so I could redirect it to the French gone-off-milk factory HQ.

The Kleenex advert is another abomination that is too ridiculous to be considered true. Man with sofa makes members of the public cry. What the hell is he asking them? What kind of man would do this? What kind of company would employ a man to do this, and then advertise the fact they did it to sell their product?

The final example of stupid stupid stupid public involved advertising is in the Nestle cereal spots. This advert brings together not one, not two but three (yes, three) of the most annoying things in the world today to advertise their product. These are:

1. Using a sentence with the words "experts say" in it. Scientists are never more happy then when proving other scientists wrong. If you want to find one to support your theory, just ring a few up and say something along the lines of "Well Dr. Kronsky said wholegrain is definitely unnecessary". Next thing you know, you'll have some experts saying that it isn't pointless and is needed. You've just got yourself scientific ratification! Yipee!

2. Another thing about scientists, especially ones involved with nutrition, is that they like games. They like Simon Says. "Simon Says... eat 5 fruit a day". "Simon Says... drink a pint of beer". "Eat five different coloured fruit". "Haha - got you". They're always trying to catch us out - they're just so damn pesky.And the 5-a-day thing worked so well, everyone wants to turn it onto their product: "Crisps - a great source of your 6 a day" "Tiser - one of your four-a-day" "Cheesestrings - your complete one a day". Do we need 3 wholegrain portions a day? Is that how we put men on the moon, traversed the Antarctic and made it through the Credi-Ten? I guess so.

3. Using members of the public. For some reason, and I can only think this is because of the need to allow the people to have their say, Nestle ask members of the public what they think about... I don't know ... their aim to give people a source of wholegrain (???). The advert is unclear. A bald man, with a gut, says in a strong accent "Oh, I think it is great, I really do". He is not an advert for healthy eating. He is dressed badly. He probably smells slightly. Most of all I have no doubt he knows nothing about what is right for me to be eating. But here he is, given a sentence during prime-time TV shows, as if his opinion matters. It Doesn't. It DOESN'T. IT DOESN'T.

**At this point, Gary was dragged off and shown 3mins 15 seconds from Love Actually. His head exploded**

Free Newspapers

This blog has become a bit like Quentin Tarantino films. Less and less frequent, with each one appearing to be more obviously a rehash of someone else's work, and more often than not itself. Sure there's always been violence, but now it appears to be a substitute for the intelligent writing that created all the fuss in the first place. Exactly like this blog.

But now I have a new laptop. In my lounge. This turn of events has already shown itself to be a dangerous situation.

Ebay is no longer a trip up the stairs. You no longer are accused of being anti-social by shopping for three hours in a distant room on Amazon. And those moments when you think "I'll look that up on the Internet" no longer drift harmlessly off into the ether, but can materialise into real purchases from the comfort of your Ikea sofa. Hence my current obsession with watches that you can't really tell the time on: TokyoFlash.

To aid in the fight against possible financial ruin, I've returned to my old blogging ground, with the hope of keeping my busy hands, er, busy.

In the time between my last post in August and now, much has happened. Much has been baby related. Alas, I don't care for baby blogs, so there isn't much there in the way of material for SYi2. Out of the past 20 weeks, the least baby of them was my 5-day course in London. There were highlights (meeting uni friends I hadn't seen in 6 years; catching up with San Fran ex-pats; learning about the joys of VBScript, ADSI and WMI), but undoubtedly the best bit was rediscovering that the Spanish for "Do Not Disturb" is "No Moleste". Ho Ho Ho.

The thing that stood out most about this trip to London though was the number of free newspapers. They carpet the streets. At the end of the day they sit bundled in corners and doorways like hunched homeless. Distributors stand outside tube stations, thrusting them into your midriff like quarterbacks off-loading to a backfield rusher (NFL references anyone?).

But you know all this. That was 3-months ago and for all I know they've been replaced with free podcasts downloaded straight into your brain. I just wanted to get in the "No Moleste" door sign and link it to the thing I was actually going to blog about.

For we get a free newspaper in Crediton, the Mid Devon Star. To call it a newspaper is maybe pushing the definition slightly. It is more of a wrapper for a big wad of advertising pamphlets. The paper itself is more advertising. It's a bit like if QVC started putting out 5min news bulletins every 20mins or so. However, it is a newspaper, so it does contain articles that at least attempt to contain some element of news.

As it is published weekly, you might think that it would be able to find something of interest to write about in the 40mile area from Crediton to Tiverton to Honiton. However they fail. Rather than having a number of stories from which they choose the most pertinent and interesting, the MDS appears to only ever have stories relating to minor crime or planning.

Take today's edition. The front-page consists of four stories: CCTV being installed at a primary school, police in Tiverton getting a new speed-gun and the Mid Devon Council's new website publishing planning details on play areas and road works. Another page to add to my daily checked favourites.

The final frontpage story related to Crediton. But not any old part of Crediton, but my part. The toilets by the War Memorial opposite:

Public Loos Fire

Two fire crews were called out to extinguish a fire in the public toilets in union Road, Crediton, on Monday night. The crews arrived just before 8pm and extinguished a small fire involving a toilet roll.

It's not a big write-up, and I think that the MDS might have missed the bigger picture. How much does it cost to callout two fire-engines? I'm thinking the fire could have been quenched with a small extinguisher or maybe a damp tea-towel. Perhaps an interesting discussion could be drawn, what with the threats of cuts to fire services.

In fact there are four more fire related stories including blazes in a Clothes Bank (the big page 3 story) and a fire in a microwave. And that's kind of weird because until tonight I hadn't ever read a single page of the paper, but had used it regularly as a fire-lighter. And there's a kind of warming irony in that.

Neighbours

Every marriage has it's bombshells. Some are nuclear ("It appears I'm your sister", "Ah... I've got one of those too", "Murder is such a strong word"); others are mere air pellets. Without becoming to0 personal, Mrs P and myself haven't had too many.

Or at least we hadn't.

The other evening I returned from my work day, everything looking tickety. My tea sitting on the table. Pipe and slippers poised next to my favourite chair. Oh yes, I could get used to having a housewife. The sun was making a rare appearence, so Mrs P had set up for al fresco dining on the balcony (or the roof of the old outdoor toilets as it is otherwise known).

Dabbing my top lip with my freshly starched napkin, I said, as I do every evening at 5:35pm "Let's adjourn to the television room and watch Neighbours".

"But it's nice out here." Came Mrs P's reply.

"But.." I stuttered, "..Neighbours."

"Let's eat our dessert out here."

"But..."

And then it came, the first major bombshell of our 4 and a bit years of marriage:

"I don't even like Neighbours."

Gobsmacked, I reeled. Fortunately my stunned stagger brought me to the sofa where I fell and lay for 25 mins. I never knew. I really never knew. Sure, I didn't expect Mrs P's appreciation of the highest level of Antipodian culture since... ever... to rank with mine, but still... I thought she liked it.

*Sigh*

As the days have past, I have stopped hurting - almost - and have begun a journey of self-reflection. Why do I like Neighbours? What is about a 25 min soap featuring numerous attractive young women that I find so appealing? I just don't know.

Maybe it's Karl Kennedy - my favorite male soap character ever (with Toady second). Who can forget him singing River of Dreams in slo-mo. How can one not admire his mastery of every aspect of medicine, from General Practitioner, to head surgeon, gynacologist and psychotherapist? And how much poorer would the world of comedy be without his farcical storylines worthy of Coward, Ayckbourn or Cleese? Much poorer is the answer.

Or maybe it is the Episode titles. How can someone not love a program that takes Bob Dylan tracks and puns 'em up good? You want examples of great episode names? How about "Tangled Up in Roo"? "Eye of the Steiger"? "For Whom Janelle Tolls"?

Perhaps it's because the show doesn't take itself too seriously. I mean, surely it can't what with some of its recent storylines. Take this little beauty.

Stingray (a young fun-lovin' chap) dies. Sky, his on/off parnter, really misses him. Up turns a charlatan Terrence who says he can channel Stingray. Sky believes him and Terrence begins to push his luck by saying he can allow Stingray control of his body. He starts saying things like "Stingray thinks you should kiss" and then puckering up. (Richard Dawkins should watch this to show how deconstruction of unfounded beleifs is really done). Sky finally cottons on and smacks him around the head with a sugar shaker.

Terrence's partner in crime Charlotte (pretending - really badly - to be a doctor) finds him k.o.'d and finishes him off. She's worried Erinsborough is getting too hot, so announces to a fellow character (dumbass Boyd) she is leaving town. Boyd goes next door to the lawyer's office where Toady says the police are watching the town to see if anyone tries to leave, because that's what they expect. Boyd returns to Charlotte (who overheard). She says "Hmm, actually I don't think I will leave.". "Ok" says Boyd, not suspecting a damn thing.

Genius.

Thus endeth the lesson on why I am right and Neighbours is not that bad. Storylines, Episode Titles and Karl. And girls in bikinis. But mainly the storylines.

Felix

I've been holding back for a week to post this blog because I was waiting. Waiting and watching. (Talking of which, I just realised I've missed the 3rd episode of Heroes. Oh well, there goes another slightly over hyped US show that I won't get into). Watchin'. Waitin'. Like the man who sits staring at the sky waiting for a shooting star or the paparazzi photographer who hangs around *INSERT GUN-TOTING/HEROIN-USING CELEBRITY HERE* waiting for a shooting star.

(I couldn't decide where to go with this joke - whether to use the obvious Doherty, the topical Phil Spector, or maybe the classic OJ Simpson - so I leave it up to you, the reader).

Just watchin' and waitin' and watchin'. Looking out for that glimpse of something special.

Alas, my wait has been in vain. At least I have the memory from last Tuesday night when I saw something just super.

I don't want to over egg my pudding here because maybe you saw this advert (for that is what we are going to be discussing) and you didn't think much of it. Maybe you saw it and thought "Hmm, another plain old cat food advert". Maybe you've seen it loads and it passes over you like a the gentle breeze through a slightly ajar window. (It's a bit chilly in here, but the paint is stinking). Maybe you saw it and was tickled by it. "That's a bit humerous" said your inner monologue, "But I have better things to do with my memory than storing it to a later date when I'll spend an hour or so writing about it". Probably you didn't see the advert and are going to read this with a slight but nagging worry for my unborn child.

For at this time last week, Mrs P came down stairs to find me literally in stitches. Yes I said literally. I was LOL, LMAO, RFOL, LSMTIACB, TRDMF and the rest. My sides were literally splitting. (I said literally again. And there is nothing that you can do about it).

I can't actually remember much of the Felix advert, but by the time of the tag line, the piece de resistence if you will, I was already chuckling uncontrollably. Then it was there, the killer line:

"Cats like Felix like Felix Roasted"

This sent me over the edge. I tried to explain to Mrs P, but I couldn't breathe. I gasped hopelessly for breath. I was a man drowning in quick sand. Helen started laughing too. We were both falling deeper into a pit of hysteria. I grabbed solid masonary to steady myself. My head was spinning. Slowly the laughter died, before raising again when I thought it had passed. Finally, through shear strength of will, I calmed myself.

I don't think there is too much to say about Felix Roasted, but I would like to take my proverbial hat off to the ad agency who convinced the men at Felix to run with this campaign. I mean, that must of been one helluva Powerpoint slideshow with hundreds of animations and flying text.

The brand representation of Felix, a cat called Felix, likes himself roasted. There is no other way of taking that tag line. He is cannablistic. He loves his own tasty flesh cooked at 200C (180C in a fan oven) and served up with a selection of condiments. That is what they are saying. And I found it freaking funny, okay?

At Least They Were From A Northern Culture

People write letters to the Echo for a number of reasons. Some believe other people are interested in their views. They feel they are contributing to public opinion and that by getting their electonically scrawled ramblings into print they are somehow validating their skewed view of the micro-world they live in. Other people have greviances to vent and the Echo provides a service that allows them to rant about the latest "Stalinist" law change, 5 minute late bus or PC gone mad. This allows the police to keep tabs on local trouble makers (when was the last time Exeter had a revolution?).

Most people write in response to someone else's letter. This often ends up being either a war of attrition between two teams of ardent correspondents (see Bashing Gay Bashing, Hunting and the eternal Bible battles) or a good old fashioned stoning. These stonings are where one person stands up and airs a view that no doubt to them seems rational, but in the cold hard harshness of black ink aggrevates the entire E&E readership. The fool's letter then has to sustain a good weeks worth of pounding as people hurl letters deriding said fool's misinformed foray onto the letter page.

One recent example was the woman who complained when she had to pay 40p more to wash her 4x4 MPV. I think she genuinely thought she was going to get support behind her arguments that Tarquin needed the space afforded him by her 4mpg hummer.

For 10 days she was relentlessly hammered. It was like that bit in Spartacus when the guy says "I'm Spartacus", but noone else gets up and the criminal is dragged off to his grizzly and extended death. Great sport.

Tonight's featured letter is another dead cert for getting a good 3 columns of enraged bashing. Take it away, Mrs J E Oldroyd of The Cresent, Exmouth:

I AM DISAPPOINTED BY MY DEVON MOVE

(Uh-oh: you can already hear the tip-tap-tap of disgruntled letter writers)

I moved from Yorkshire to Exmouth last year, not really by choice, and I must say how very disappointed I am with the place.The seafront is dead, with just a few shops, swings for young ones and nothing for a child over six years old.

When you compare it to Yorkshire resorts, it beats me why anyone would want to come on holiday to a place like this.

I do not find the people very friendly at all.

They seem to look down on you as though you are something they have stepped on.

As for jobs, my friend has been unable to find work in Exmouth, although jobs have been applied for on an average of six a week, with no response coming from prospective employers.

At least in Yorkshire you do get a reply.

My friend is fit and able to work part-time or full-time. Why will employers not give a job now the season is in full swing?

Isn't there at least one sympathetic employer in Exmouth who will employ a hard-working man of 35 who likes gardening - or is it that they do not like Yorkshire people? I rest my case.

I fear that Mrs Oldroyd has made a basic error here of insulting the place where she lives and then giving both her name and a reasonable amout of her address. If they didn't like you before, they sure ain't going to now.

The "I rest my case" ending makes little, if any sense. Her case, I think, is that Exmouth makes a poor choice for holiday and place of residence. Her concluding argument to support this assertion is that employers in Devon maybe don't like people from Yorkshire.

Unfortunately for Mrs O, I have got my hands on her friend's CV and can assure her that it isn't the fact that he is from Yorkshire that he isn't being offered jobs. This was put in for a job at Alvin Palmer's Crazy Golf course.



Name: Stanley Thriplethwaite
DoB: 1972

Experience:

1974 - 1984. Workin' down't mine. 26 hours per day, living in't box in't middle o't road (continue ad nauseum)
1985 - 1996. Workin' up't mill. Dealin wit trouble at said mill.
1996 - Present. Extra in gritty British movies about young lads who are right ponces.

Likes:

Gardening.

Dislikes:

Devon.

Crikey - It's a Posting!

Wow, 13th March. That was a long time ago. Doesn't bode well for post baby blogging, does it? Anyhow, I'm here now and that is what matters.

A few weeks ago we had our follow up scan, presenting us with our last sighting of the baby before it's arrival late September. It looks thus:



Tips for men and other people who can't make out scan pics: it's the head and upper torso.

Helen and I promised each other we wouldn't divulge the names we are considering for the baby, but I feel that I have let down my loyal reader with my long absence from blogging. So, as long as you don't tell Mrs P. I let you know, here are the fore-runners in the Name-A-Parsons Stakes.

Gary II "Son of Gary"
Uke
Ram-Man (I'm particularly keen on names featuring punctuation)
The horse group: Stallion, Mustang or Colt
Slack-jawed
Baron von
Another

Problem is there are sooo many great names, I don't know which to go for. It is tempting to give the child 4 names - one to be used for each season, or maybe a name for each month - I'll have to check up on the laws for that. Fear not though, I am taking the task of naming my firstborn very seriously...

And don't forget, all contributions welcome - each and everyone will enter the grand draw on September 22nd.

Crikey

Crazy, I'm sure you'll agree.

At Least They Were From A Northern Culture

Phew. I've just finished ironing my shirts. Ironing is a reminder that man's advancements may have meant that he can travel to a big piece of rock thousands of kilometres away, develop communication technology that can bring friends on far off pieces of rock right into your bedroom or invent a hundred different ways to blow up big pieces of rock, but when it comes to getting creases out of cotton, we're only one step up from monkeys. Despite all of the patting of their humped backs that scientists do, the reason they can't sleep at night is that they know they have failed in man's ultimate quest. The making of iron-free fabric.

(Not iron-free as in not having to wear chain mail, as in not needing to be ironed. Oh you got that? Of course you did.)

I have shirts that say "Never Iron", "Ultimate Non-Iron", "Self-Ironing Super Fabric". All these signify is that it only takes me 20 minutes to iron them. If a shirt doesn't label itself as such, then it means that not only will it take me a Sunday morning to press the thing, but the moment I turn my back it will conspire to become more creased then an Origamist's napkin at a napkin folding contest. And having followed the recent NFC world championships, I can tell you that is freakin' creasy.

Anywho, tonight I return to the E&E and the strip club story. Wednesday night's paper was a bit of a classic, and I feel lucky to have picked it up considering how little time I have spent on it in recent months. Karma no doubt for my all round wholesome lifestyle and uncontrollable goodness and generosity. Aside from today's featured letter, page 3 held a gripping story worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Devon man Miles Hull allegedly stole a £10 note from his Aunt. "He spent up to two hours in her flat and during that time he went through the cupboards in the kitchen and found a £10 note." explained the prosecuting Mr Crabb. Miles was mean and unpleasant. The trial continues.

No wonder the police have to use toilets in MacDonald's to keep prisoners if this "crime" makes it to court. Why not stick Miles on a repayment scheme of 20p a week for a year and be done with it? I reckon there must be more to it - it sounds like one of those minor crimes that the police use to get a master criminal when they know none of the big stuff will stick. Perhaps Miles is really the kingpin in the big Exmouth halibut trafficking scene.

As I was saying the other evening, the main story that has drawn correspondents to the E&E letters page is the opening of a new strip club on the Quay. As to be expected, there is a load of people denouncing it as evil in its purest form. These people make Mary Whitehouse look like John Leslie's more debauched elder sister. People like Margaret Laing who "prays for the closure of the club." This will surely finally pin God down on how he feels about the whole stripping thing - let's give Him a year and if it's still going I think Margaret will have a sign that her Lord is with Peter Stringfellow. She also adds, insightfully:

"We are not dogs."

I can only assume she is thinking of lap dogs.

However, maybe surprisingly there is an equal number of people willing to defend the new establishment. These men unashamedly pronounce their feverant excitement about the coming club. It is also interesting that a more than usual number of these letters are posted, which would suggest these guys haven't discovered the internet where, I have been reliably informed, naked women can be found in not insignifcant numbers.

The toppermost of these letters was from Dave Robinson. The great orators have known how to pick a pertinent quote that cuts to the center of an argument, rendering their position stronger through the use of some past great's words. Dave knows this and brings to the table two lines that for me are the be-all and end-all of the strip club argument. So stand aside Churchill and M.L.K.:

Finally, I must object to the harsh criticism of the dancers themselves.

In the words of American rapper Wyclef Jean: "Just 'cuz she dances go-go, that don't make her a ho, no."

The girls are simply stunners, proud of their bodies and keeping fit in a profitable way.

I can't wait for the opening. I'll definitely be a regular.

Wyclef maybe gone - till November at least - but his words are still providing hope and strength to dirty young men everywhere.

At Least They Were From A Northern Culture

I haven't been reading the letters page of the E&E for a while, but there is no doubt on what the main topic of correspondence has been. Exeter is to get a new lap dancing club opening up on the Quay. Unsurprisingly there has been a feverant group of indignant moralists, bemoaning the fall in morals of society that allows the creation of such a place of debauchery within Exeter. It sounds like the city will be twinned with Sodom.

On the side of the anti-lap dance crew is the E&E itself, which ran a piece of slightly dodgy entrapment journalism. From what I could gather from the skim reading I did, the Echo sent a young female reporter to be interviewed as a dancer for the new club. She pretended to be a strapped for cash and desperate to earn some extra money. The Echo reported its shock that the girl was given tips on how to dodge tax and, horror of horrors, she was even told that the owners of the new nightclub could put her in touch with a massage parlour if she wanted to earn a bit more on the side.

The Echo was disgusted.

Thing is, if there was a girl looking for assistance getting into the world of massage, she might want to look in the classified pages of her local paper. Here - beside the ads for 18+ local flirts, bored divorced housewives and dark dusky ladies with adult interests and premium numbers - she will find Chinese Pink Girl, A1 Oriental and Platinum Massage, all of who might be able to offer advice on getting into the massage business. I wonder where a local paper willing to carry such ads could be found? Why in the outraged (but happy to take get money wherever they can) E&E, of course!

Original Source

A wise rap artist once said “Television, the drug of the nation. Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation. Television.” I think it was John Barnes, but that’s not important. Television offers an alternative reality that is open to the Machiavellian and the propagandist, the devious and the Littlejohn. People who twist word and image into a funky flashing feast for the eyes, and we just sit and nod and accept. A recent statistic I made up shows that even with the intervention of the Super Mis-Information Highway, nearly 97.3% of our opinion is formed either directly or indirectly from the old gogglebox. Shocking, I think you’ll agree.

The main problem is that Television is just so damn authoritative. Sure, people spend a lot of time on the internet, but in terms of providing us with information that we believe in it is only one step up from the weird guy in Halwill pub with hair that looks like Einstein’s might of if it was more unkempt. Even when reading the most grounded, serious story from the most grounded, serious website, you still get the feeling that it probably stems from the mind of some IT employee with a strange sense of humour, a penchant for lying and time to fill between episodes of Columbo and Quincy, ME.

Television has no such problems. If television says something, we listen and accept. And the really clever thing is how T.V. uses context so that we don’t need to process the information at all. It is already bagged and tagged for us as good or bad. We don’t want programmes like Question Time that promote argument and various view points. Aarrgh. We want our opinions fully formed and edible in one easy bite, preferably dressed in a sultry voice.

TVs authoritative voice is why advertising works. If we were presented with a product in the form of a written document that gave it to us straight, we wouldn’t buy a tenth of the crap we do. KFC – over-farmed mutant chicken in fat. Cheese Strings – elastic non-dairy product with synthetic everything. HSBC – money grabbing morons who couldn’t even get my address right after 8 attempts of me literally s.p.e.l.l.i.n.g. it out for them. But if instead you give your product a load of flashing lights, some music or a half-baked ‘comedy’ script acted out by a stupid little girl in a stupid little frock, then the public are a million and two times more susceptible.

However, if you occasionally take a step back and actually listen to what you are being told, you say “W’aaaaAATT? aloud.

Example

Original Source shower gel advertises itself as using 9763 individual leaves of mint in every bottle of shower gel. Wow, the viewer’s unconscious says, Sounds good. I may pur-chase some on my next trip to Tesco. But if you stop and consider this selling statement, it really isn’t that great. It suggests wastefulness and inefficient material usage that no doubt requires the kind of intensive farming methods that that programme on BBC2 told me was a bad thing. Now I’m confused. Who do I trust: naked man in a field or Adrian Childs? And that is a question few of us want to consider.

The same thing was said by PG Tips in their ad for their tea. “We only use the top two leaves in our tea”, they smugly claimed. Excellent, said the viewer’s unconscious, And here I am drinking this shite like a muppet. But what about of the rest of the tea plant on PG Tips’ land? Burned and destroyed? Who cares, as long as only the top two leaves are making it into my mug, which I guess is what I always wanted, I just didn’t know it. It is basically the European’s rape of the buffalo happening all over again. Why can’t we be more like the Native American and use the whole of the beast, be it tea tree, shampoo bush or noodle coated sheep. (And if Pot Noodle steals this idea of a sheep with a coat of noodles - which they will - I will sue them for every last dehydrated penny they’ve got).

Yet despite these decidedly dodgy claims of productual greatness, the companies can work them into tools of selling, all thanks to television’s ability to dictate directly to our minds.

Pop Quiz

2 questions so that you can test how well you think you know me.

1. Who would I have to say is my favorite artist of all time? According to WMP I own 16 albums, 236 tracks or 17 hours, 8 minutes and 51 seconds of his/her/their music (Clue: It's not the Charlatans)

2. Who, apart from the delectable Mrs P., makes me say 'mmm' and nod gently?

Got your answers? Click here to find out if you're right!

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

I like to lie. Not down, as in not telling the truth. I think it is both big and incredibly clever. Only this evening, I had much fun telling my good wife that I hadn’t purchased any chocolate covered confectionary for her down at the local food-store. Not only was it hi-larious, but it also made me look good when it turned out that in fact I had bought her some. I am a great husband.

(Product name change. Dime Bar = Daim Bar. WTF??)

Not everyone should be allowed to lie. I think it is reasonable to expect our doctors and teachers to retain a certain level of truth, at least when presenting the facts of their jobs. Other professions, such as mechanic or law academic*, have a much looser open relationship with the truth. Some occupations, such as being a punt tour guide on the river Cam, seem to have the telling of massive pork pies as a pre-requisite higher than the ability to use a big stick.

Advertising has a similar approach to the truth as that of politics. In an ideal world, the advertiser would freely lie about their product and there would be no comeback at all. A car company could say “Ah oui, this autocar changes into a big robot that can ice-skate, non?” Purveyors of disgusting foodstuffs could pretend that their dehydrated chemical mush was in fact mined by some ridiculous stereotypes. And pharmaceutical companies could pretend that through the use of sickly scented gas you can have any girl you like. Ahh chloroform, where would my love life have been without you?

Of course these are real, lying adverts. But the fact is they use advertising lies that no-one really believes are true. If an advert feels that there is a chance it might be accused of not telling the whole truth, then it resorts to using small print.

Small print is a method of saying something good loudly, whilst saying the truth quickly and quietly. Unfortunately it doesn’t work in conversation. If at the end of a first date you say something like “I had a great time tonight. We will really have to do this again. I will call you soon.” followed by the disclaimer “This is not a binding committal to us meeting or speaking again. ‘Great time’ is only relative to the last month of watching late night poker whilst eating citric flavoured pork scratchings and drinking Merrydown cider. Offer made on condition that my date with the captain of the local netball team goes badly and I am still desperately lonely. All subsequent meals must be paid for in accordance to personal consumption. Your first drink will be provided free, but all subsequent drinks must be purchased in a ‘rounds’ type system unless there is a clear chance of some sweet loving.” It just doesn’t work.

In written form, it obviously does work, and small print can often be found loitering around at the end of financial adverts or for things that are too good to be true. However, some adverts inexplicably seem to feel it is necessary to safeguard themselves against even the most dim-witted of persons. Like the Daily Mail, who felt its advert for a free Paul McKenna DVD needed the small type “This is not hypnotism” scrolling along the bottom. This leads me to believe that at some point the Mail was considering trying to hypnotise people through its advert and thus needed to reassure everyone, most of all itself.

Oral-B also uses ridiculous small print in the form of the word “Dramatisation” on their toothbrush ad. Does anyone really need to be told that the giant swinging bristles of the CGI brush that dislodges boulder-sized lumps of plaque, perhaps isn’t 100% how it happens? Maybe they are the same people who still need to be told that the camera behind the goal is showing the reverse angle. (Who are those fools? I know – Carlton Palmer).

Other small print is just amusing, like the warning for the Robert Altman film that it contains mild comic references to suicide. I’ve been trying to think how a reference to suicide can be both mild and comic, like a light-hearted anecdote told between the well-to-do, but it is beyond my capability.

Finally, I would like to turn my attention to the biggest liars of all. Gemini FM, Exeter tin-pot radio station. For the last few months they have been running an advert, or segue way between songs, where Idiot Man (for it is he), says things like:

“Gemini FM. The only place where you will hear Jamiriqui followed by Christina Aguillera.”

and

“Gemini FM. The only place where you will hear Razorlight followed by the Scissor Sisters.”

and

“Gemini FM. The only place where you will hear Eminem followed by the Chilli Peppers.”

It’s such a big lie, that it stoopifies me that they can say it. Every radio station that plays pop music plays those artists. Most of them have problem played them following each other. And this is where lying advertising goes too far. It is one thing to tell a small half-truth, or to use fanciful imagery to illustrate your point: it is another to take the truth, douse it in petrol, burn it with a blow torch before urinating on it and dancing on its sodden remains.

This advert needs small print. It needs big small print. It needs klaxons played before and after it, with 12 Gregorian monks chanting in two tone “Li - ar. Li - ar” throughout its duration. I sincerely hope all involved are damned for all eternity for their lies. Don't think I don't mean that**.

*Small Print: Some readers might take umbrage at this comment. Of course, I’m kidding. There are many fine mechanics who couldn’t lie if they’re favourite oily rag depended on it.

** Make that all eternity plus 1

Nurofen

For months now there've been loads of Christmas adverts, but a recent addition of a traditional seasonal advertiser has sneaked in, and although on the surface it might not appear so, it is as Christmas an advert as Kerry Katona cracking a sub-cracker level joke about frozen birds.

The beauty of the Nurofen advert (for I think it is they) is that it is trying to advertise against what its biggest selling point is. In their advert they have a man sawing logs, with infra-red showing the pain he is feeling in his arm. Significant red areas demonstrate that a woman is experience burning agony in her lower back as she lifts heavy bags into the back of her saloon car. The solution is to take Nurofen. Job done.

Thing is, the significant jump in sales of painkillers has nothing to do with the fact that we are carrying more shopping or, er, chopping more wood (I think this was the most seasonal thing that the advertisers could come up with that men might do that would cause them pain.)

Ha, good try. The reason we buy a load Nurofen, ibroprofen, paracetamol, asprin, Anadin and Alka Seltzer, put them in a blender with half a pint of egg nog and knock it back in one is because we are hungover. We are hurting due to our own lack of self-control. We are experiencing the kind of head-splitting pain that can only result from 4 parts excessive alcohol, 2 parts over eating and 3 parts excruciating half-memory involving one of your shoes, a kebab, the neighbour's letterbox and the cry "Now to put the turkey in the oven".

I know it. You know it. Even educated fleas know it. And some of them aren't even that smart. But Nurofen continue this charade. And who can blame them? They are a serious, grown-up painkiller. They don't want to admit their principle users are the weak of will, the sunken-eyed indulgist, the sod-headed office oaf. And we don't want to admit it either. Everyone is happy.

Jack Shen 2

You know sometimes there is something really important that you want to do and you think to yourself "I must do that" but the only times you think of doing it are when you are not in an appropriate place to do it? Sure you do. Like downloading Cliff Richard's "Devil Woman" or checking the oil in your car or releasing those hostages you took back in the late 80s. Well that's what keeps happening to me with our friend Jack Chan.

About a year ago I stumbled upon a troubled man, Mr Jack Chen. Remind yourself here. I kept meaning to find out how he's getting on, but was never at my computer. Until this evening.

For those of you who can't be bothered to click the above link, Jack was dumped by his girlfriend. Like for many people, this was hard for Jack to take. Unlike many people, Jack decided to document his pain and anger through a blog containing his attempts to win back his sweetheart via the tried and trusted methods of epic, rambling poetry and posting pictures of month old tear-soaked tissues.

Like anyone who has a heart, I found this Hi-larious and couldn't wait to see how the old boy was getting on. But wait, the old link no longer worked! Nooooooo!

However, I didn't spend 5 years surfing the web for nothing (or perhaps I did). After a few well aimed searches, I found him again. Hoorah! Click here, post-haste.

The year started off hard on Jack - his valentine gift of two dolls modelled on him and his ex-squeeze appear to have remained in their box. Then came the classic posting "My Best Friend Is Alcohol..." followed by the reminiscing on the "Love Book", written by their personalised pens. As Jack says "Why would u close the Chapter of our "Love Book" with sure bad ending??? The person that get hurt the most is ME!!! Cruel that i would described U!!!" Touching.

Following a couple of new poems (I think "The Unforgiven Love" is perhaps his masterpiece) and some rather withering remarks on his ex's new boyfriend ("The Loser"), there is light at the end of the tunnel. Jack has a new girlfriend. Hooray!

But hold on there young mustang. I feel there is reason to be cautious. Firstly, Jack's introductory posting on this new lady starts with how long in years, months and days it is since he broke up with his old one. Secondly he constructs of 100 reasons why he loves his new girl (but stops at 58.5). This is worrying enough, and closer inspection does nothing to allay my fears. For example:

12. I fall for u cause u r a real dumbo!
32. I fall for u cause u r a little piglet.
33. I fall for u cause u look real dumb at times.
41. I fall for u cause i have met someone that will disturb me.

Now it's been a while since I've been courting, but I'm pretty sure none of these phrases would impress the farier. To test this I am going to try them out on Mrs P - results to follow shortly!

The Worst Book I've Ever Read

Hooray! I've just completed the worst book I've ever read: The Fourth K by Mario Puzo. This incredible book has THE worst plot ever. Allow me to outline it for you:

* The President's daughter is kidnapped
* The Pope is shot dead
* The President's daughter is shot dead
* The President (who is a Kennedy relation) responds by bombing an entire city to ashes in some small Middle Eastern state. Totally and utterly destroys it. But don't worry, it was leafleted 24 hours earlier, so the only losers were the fat cat American investors. Hoorah!
* Two wizz kid scientists blow up a nuclear bomb in the middle of New York. Kennedy's assistant lets them do it so that Kennedy can win a second term
* 50 pages are spent on the President's new girlfriend
* 75 pages are spent on a mormon who is a bit wierd and good at shooting cardboard cutouts
* Some people have some sex
* Kennedy wins a second term. He is the most liberal President ever
* Kennedy proposes to set up labour camps in Alaska with the plan of forcing the inmates and the next few generations of their family to stay up there
* Kennedy passes an 99.9% perfect lie detector about the nuclear bomb, which he knew about
* Kennedy gets shot dead by the mormon

I don't really have much more to say about it then that. I don't think I have to. Awful.

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.