Searching the flotsam of existence and selecting only the choicest items. Just don’t call it a blog….
Send your own thoughts if you like.
THE BBC BROOM CUPBOARD IS BACK – SORT OF
Remember when you were young and there was always a presenter sitting in a tiny space accompanied by a stuffed animal to help you thru the programmes? Well it’s back! Comedian Ed Petrie is accompanied in the new slightly bigger than a cupboard set by Oucho, a cactus. Considering the latter can only mumble with a Mexican inclination the whole thing is surprisingly entertaining probably because Ed is used to performing; he does stand up comedy in the evenings. Well not every evening we suppose. What Oucho does outside of work is not known. If you’re too old for Sarah Jane Adventures and MI High, then check out Ed’s website www.edpetrie.com for details of his gigs.
BANK ADVERTS
Never mind whose got the best AER, the really important thing about banks is who does the best adverts. For years they have occupied a battle ground somewhere between the epic overstatement of car ads and the worthy campaigns that try to change our eating habits. Random Access scoured the networks to discover what the banks are trying to say to us at the moment and whether it would really persuade us to hand over our hard earned wedge to an Instant Tracker Reward With Profits Online Saver Whatsit.
High Interest -
Barclays – “Steve” – Enthusiastic junior manager goes out of his way to come up with new schemes. This could be overplayed but thanks to the understated tone and a likeable performance from comedian Tom Basden they are rather endearing. The initial one had Steve leaving a note of his idea on his manager’s desk then trying out the latter’s golf toy, the ball ending up rebounding into an expensive tv. Then he tried to impress his monsyallabic boss who was swimming at the time- only he mimics the swimming motion as he pads along the side of the pool, laptop in hand. In the next ad he sent a rambling message to his own answer phone managing insulting his parents and creating the word “lessgages”. The ads play well for light amusement but by having the schemes explained for what they are you do have a fair chance of remembering them. We like Steve.
Halifax- The post Howard songs – Bottle bottom spec wearing Brummie Howard of course has become a tv ad legend largely because unlike all the other ads mentioned here he is a real employee. It now seems feasible that Halifax recruitment includes prospective employees belting out ` a number` during their interview as Howard has been followed by a raft of all singing all dancing staff. The routines have crossed genres – there’s even an iffy attempt at American rap saved by use of a nifty water effect – and ended up with a huge gospel tinged routine in the centre of a large city (we’re meant to think its New York but it was apparently filmed in South Africa). Noticeably more slick and professional as they progress the latest ads have banished the naffness of Howards’s karaoke singing to the point where the result is actually quite good and you have to marvel at the way the bank’s business has been shoehorned into the lyrics. Plus Howard is back seemingly far more professional than before; does he still work for them or is her perhaps being groomed for a showbiz career?
Nat West – “another way”- We like these ads not because of their rather repetitive mantra (smug busy city person wants their bank to be open 25 hours a day) but because they make a point of saying they are opening more branches. The closing of local branches and the transfer of call centres abroad have been the least welcome banking policy of the past decade and any reversal of these is welcome. And we all hate “trendy wine bars” too!
Nationwide - “It doesn’t work like that” – Hurrah for Mark Benton, lugubrious and distinctly un customer friendly manager of a fictional bank. These ads work because Benton’s character is closer to the real life banking experience than many in the industry would like to admit.
Egg- Guinea Pigs – Your viewpoint on animals wearing clothes may have been forever tainted by the weird and quite possibly drug addled visions of Beatrix Potter but Egg have at least dressed up their realistic albeit probably computer generated guinea pigs in modern clothes. Against a background of tinny electronic music they go about their everyday lives failing to notice the rather obvious robot spy Egg have laid in their midst. This works on two levels; if you’re not amused by the animals you’ll laugh when the robot head comes off. This is a genius advert that more than makes up for Egg’s previous attempts that were just too odd to get a meaning across.
Poor Returns -
Lloyds TSB; “For the journey” - Positively bizarre potato textured figures with odd noses that tootle about in trains. The opening ad of the campaign was actually rather scary depicting a man through the stages of life, thankfully stopping short of his demise, though the whimsical music could not disguise the melancholy. The actual schemes they are selling are loaded with similarly askew imagery- for example savings are represented by a large fish in one of the ads. Coming across like a twisted Norwegian fairy tale the whole thing seems to have emerged from the vision of someone hoping for a music video career rather than having a genuine interest in the bank.
Royal Bank of Scotland- “Sheep”- The novelty of seeing sheep wandering around in the city is offset by the way this ad backfires. To the tune of `Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf`, the suggestion is that people are too afraid to switch to another bank so choosing to depict potential customers as sheep is perhaps not the way to go. On top of that they choose to place the offer of £100 if you do switch to RBS at the forefront of the campaign rather than any other benefits. So this is really just as insulting to you as it suggests other banks are. We say “Baaa”.
Bradford and Bingley- “Dreams are so fragile” – On the one hand the green bowler hated girl is a cheekily modern take on the B&B’s old established be hatted image. On the other she is patronising in the extreme, the subtext of the ad being that the company can entirely make your dreams come true in some magical, Disney way. And that without the B&B to guide you through your life you are snookered.
NEW YORK
You know when you visit somewhere and always add your own perspective to whatever the travel guides have to say? Well here are 15 things our LFM learned –
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John Malkovich buys his bagels from Bagel Stix, a shop on the corner of West 53rd and 9th. However he was the only celebrity that any of our party actually saw and after a few days of bagels we never want to see those stodgy monstrosities again! `Malky` can pop round anytime though.
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You should go to the top of the Empire State Building at night, preferably when it’s windy and the clouds are whipping round the railings. You’ll see all the city lights like a massive circuit board and it looks unreal. Plus you don’t have to queue for ages.
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Squirrels in Central Park will not pose for photos. What they will do is sit still until they see a camera or phone being raised whereupon they scamper off laughing into their fur.
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New York is full of Irish bars which are very friendly but incredibly expensive. Staying in them till 4am is not a good idea.
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American football is omnipresent. There are always matches on or highlights of matches or post match analysis or pre match analysis or pre-pre match analysis or basketball.
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The open top bus tour of downtown New York is a must –do because you see everything plus you get an authentic New Yorker’s view of the city courtesy of the guide.
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US TV adverts lack the lustre of their English counterparts and perpetuate the notion that virtually anything can be covered in melted cheese.
However you can get a decent cup of tea in NY. There is a myth that Americans only drink coffee when it comes to beverages but a good deli will rustle up a decent cuppa provided you remember to specify you want milk and tea in it otherwise you’ll get an iced tea which is basically willocky water and no use to anyone. -
To orientate your way round NY, find Broadway which scythes helpfully right through the heart of Manhattan virtually to Battery Park. Beware however of the tourists’ trap of walking the wrong way. You may well be on East 16th St but are you sure which direction you’re headed in? Do not be afraid to get a map out of your pocket or check the numbers of the roads you’re crossing unless you like a lot of walking.
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Alternatively you can take the Metro which is relatively cheap; if you’re there for a week you can get a $24 ticket that allows you unlimited 7 days travel. You really do need to check the map outside the ticket barrier because once you go through, the clues as to which train to catch are few and far between.
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However, you can still see old skool breakdancing on the Metro which will distract you from the “unsavoury people” the travel guides tell you not to look at.
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If you go to Macy’s get a map at the front door. You may feel faintly ridiculous asking for a map of a shop but without it you will be hopelessly lost as this particular shop is roughly the size of Argentina.
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If you buy anything remember the price on the ticket could be a `before tax` price.
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If you want to use your mobile over there it has to be a mega super tri-wizard glockenspiel model or else it won’t work.
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All railways stations should have chandeliers like Grand Central Station has.
NEW BBC IDENTS
We’re lovin’ the latest BBC idents, those funny little bits that play just before a programme starts (I always used to think it was while they put the video tape in). Launched last October they brought us such delights as hippos, kite flying and motorbikes combined with great camerawork and rousing music. More importantly they finally saw off their patronising predecessors which had attempted to cover every possible racial and social type in as stereotypical a manner as they could manage. Funny thing was, despite all of this diversity, the one they used the most was the high wire balancing, which presumably covered everyone not covered by all the others. I know I regularly dangle from ceilings of large palaces unfurling a red banner; doesn’t everyone? Hippos larking about are somehow far more appropriate and somehow reassuring.
BUILDING BONFIRES
If you’re wanting to build a bonfire, there are a few tips you really need to know. First you need to pick a good location, at least 15 yards away from anything that might catch fire leading to a major calamity. To build the ideal bonfire, lay a bundle of tinder sticks between two logs (presumably you can get these at Logs R Us?) and then criss cross layers of thicker wood and tinder to make a platform. On this, build up a wood pyramid increasing in size and make sure there’s a small tunnel into which you pass your light. Experts advise against using petrol or paraffin because it’s too good and will probably singe you as well as the wood. And why not chuck a fish on top so you have something to eat?
STUFF
When you’re thinking of conquering the world you’d have to plan years in advance to ensure your underground base is up to scratch. You’d need to scour the market for a suitable volcano; inactive of course- I bet some unscrupulous estate agents omit to mention the still smouldering cause of those choking fumes when they show you round. Then you’d need to do a lot of work hollowing out a wider area to allow your `things` to be moved in and as your `things` are more likely to be flamethrowers, missile launchers, laser weapons and groovy countdown clocks rather than sofas and coffee tables, dimensions will be important. The prospective subterranean despot may also feel the need to incorporate something for those quiet moments; surely they don’t spend all their time plotting and planning. In fact it could be these diversions that prevent them from pruning their plans from the sort of convoluted schemes that always require something to be done by midnight. Why do they always choose midnight? Why does nobody ever say “Unless you hand over a zillion euros by ten past seven my lasers will destroy the Eiffel Tower”. Only an underground dwelling villain is likely to be up and about at midnight; the Mayor is probably sound asleep after a whiskey sodden reception.
What’s all this about the Arctic Monkeys? Gordon Brown said at September’s Labour party conference; “I’m more interested in the future of the Arctic Circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys”. Notwhistanding the subsequent rush by journos to find out about “this great new group the Arctic Circle”, the statement was the sort of toe curling trendiness that seems to infect our whole way of life. There is no earthly reason for a politician to mention current pop groups and the only reason anyone need refer to the Arctic Monkeys is to mention how they robbed Guillemots of the Mercury Music Prize. Still, I wonder if in the past Gordo might have said: “I’m more interested in a desert oasis than in Oasis”. I was going to list several of these going back to the 1940s but paper is not here to be wasted.
That’s what people at Uni would do. Did you notice how I used the word `Uni` there and not University. This slang seems to have become the accepted descriptive noun for a place of post A Level learning. Nobody goes to University any more, they go to Uni.
People just don’t rave about Twiglets any more the way they used to. What you could do with is one of those programmes like `The Top 10 Best Ever Twiglets` and give media types the opportunity to rave on about how great they were and how their absence in the mainstream is seriously hindering the progress of snacks. There was a certain cachet involved in Twiglets however and they were often used to create false social barriers, for example I remember a function where some of us were invited to retire `upstairs for wine and twiglets` but the invitation was pointedly not extended to all present. So all of a sudden it seemed that to be seen to be climbing the social ladder you had to be in with the `Twiglet Crowd`. A big drawback of this snack is of course hinted at in their name – the fact that their taste is indistinguishable from that of wood. As anyone who regularly chews wood for a pastime will confirm. So, it could just be that Twiglets fell from favour because people wisely decide they would rather not eat bits of wood. This probably explains why yogurts with nut in them have also mostly disappeared from our shelves. I doubt that Twiglets will be back, unless of course decking in gardens is back on the agenda, in which case the Twiglet Mountain that’s built up over the past ten years can be mined to provide a new generation of wooden planks.
BROADBAND BLUES
In times of hardship, people pen blues songs about their situation. How long before the first “ I can’t get me no broadband” lament is echoing from porches everywhere? Its oh-so-simple according to providers who gleefully focus on price at the expense of anything approaching technical or practical considerations, thus mesmerising the unsuspecting punter into thinking a good thing is coming their way. On the face of it, they are right. Broadband is, we’re reliably informed by those lucky enough to connect without a hitch, faster and more flexible than dial up and if you go wireless you are finally rid of cables trailing all over the place. The problem is that reaching this nirvana is a journey fraught with frustration.
It begins with the assumption companies make that very house or flat is exactly the same and that if you plug cable X into socket Y and then configure away everything will work. “Begin networking!” they declare at the end of the instructions with the confidence of a teacher who’s just explained a complex maths formula and not noticed the blank faces. So of course when it doesn’t work, who do you turn to? It is honestly difficult to tell whether the problem is with your pc or laptop, with your ISP, with the router or modem, with the power sockets, with the phone line or maybe it’s all down to global warming. You just don’t know because the process is devoid even of those incomprehensible error messages beloved of Microsoft like our old enemy Spool 32. The fact that any potential fix lies at the end of a call centre, usually staffed by people who are quite possibly from another planet, never mind another continent leads to endless calls where “at national rates” they can ask you facile questions. They fail to realise you don’t want to check everything yourself – you want magical solutions.
Broadband probably works fine if your phone socket is the right type, it is located in the right place and you understand configuration, routers, modems and how it all works. Whatever the smug techies tell you it is patently not as simple as riding a bike, frying an egg and changing a light bulb though possibly matches trying to do all three at once.
There is no easy answer but if any sort of answer does materialise we promise to share it with you next issue.
IT’S GONNA GRATE!
With the world as it is you’d think it would be easy to guess who was in receipt of the most bile on message boards and chatrooms but the current holder of most vilified person on the internet seems to be the Frosties Ad Kid. You must have seen him in the infamous tv ad- bogbrush barneted boy singing tunelessly in a Suggs from Madness stylee about how the cereal is “”gonna taste great” as he leads the whole town along the street like some Pied Piper. Quite apart from the fact that the sugar coated cereal is never likely to taste great, the clip seems to trigger all the things that annoy us about adverts- repetition, naff songs, bright colours, smug kids and a sense of occasion about something mundane. Perhaps we should expect no more from a company who’ve relied for decades as a mascot on an animated tiger with a Bowie- like ability to change with the zeitgeist but even so inflicting such an irritating ad is hardly going to endear us to the product it is?
What it has done however is mobilise thousands of internet users into debate and unfortunately for the kid he’s borne the brunt of a wave of hatred while the ad itself has become the inspiration for several urban myths. There was even a rumour spread that he’d killed himself after being bullied over the ad, untrue though its not hard to imagine he’s on his way to visit his agent with a machete right now. Another even more bizarre rumour was that he isn’t a real kid at all but a CGI creation. Yet another is that he was terminally ill and was given the ad as a last request (who would seriously want their last achievement to be a Frosties ad?!!) so when he rises above the crowd at the end it is symbolic of him rising to Heaven!!
Amongst the comments made about the ad are that the kid’s voice “operates on a frequency which toys with people’s bowels”, “I’d nominate the kid for an ASBO”, “the kid wants a bullet, the cheesy f****, but it’s the tune that stays in the brain for days” and the rather ridiculous “I used to like Frosties adverts but this one was really annoying”. Frosties Kid does have his supporters though; one person on Yahoo defends him because “he had the courage to go in front of the whole world”, while another says “he did a very good job and with much enthusiasm” while one person claimed it was her favourite advert in the world ever!! Some of the debate goes wider, such as posing the question “who eats Frosties on a plate?” in reference to one of the lines while Tony the Tiger is not immune to the flak with one wag having spent about 3 seconds coming up with the alternative line “It’s gonna be great, smashing Tony over the head with a plate”. Perhaps the choice comment on youtube says “I think his voice is weird but the song gets in my head”.
Kellogg’s official and probably slightly bemused response to the furore is to say the ad is popular, the boy lives in South Africa (perhaps under the advert protection programme?) and is fine.
Whatever you think of the ad it has kicked up a mighty media storm and if you pop over to youtube you can see a surprisingly large number of entries including spoofs (one of which is slagged off for using cornflakes instead of Frosties), a subliminal message version and even a remix.
And, if you can’t wait till it’s next on tv (probably in about two minutes) here are the lyrics in full:
They're gonna taste great!, They're gonna taste great, I can hear the sound of Frosties hitting me plate, They're gonna taste great, With Tony our mate, Well everybody knows Frosties taste great!
Even ladies who wait, Or a pi-rate] And a hungry teenage brother who's out on a date!)
If you live in Oz, mate, Or the Empire State, Even ladies with personalised number plates,
Or a bloke in a crate, Well he knows they taste great!
They're gonna taste great, (you can start the fly swatting dance here) They're gonna taste great, They're gonna taste great, They're gonna taste great! They are gonna taste GREAT!
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
Top of the Pops worked best when it did exactly what the title suggested. It’s a surprisingly simple idea – have some of the week’s most successful singles performed- and it was only when people tried to alter the concept that the BBC’s venerable pop institution stopped working. Many reasons have been suggested for the programme’s demise, principally involving technological developments that mean people can get their pop fix instantly via the internet, MTV, mobile phones and so on. Also, the show suffered from being at almost the opposite end of the week from when the charts were announced plus the last few years had seen a dreadful re-invention into some sort of magazine show with less music and more behind the scenes gubbins and facile interviews. We may well live in a multi music delivery age but TOTP offered unique performances that you wouldn’t get elsewhere. It could provide an enormous sense of occasion, sometimes to those who knew the story behind the artist – such as Take That’s big epic choir performance the week Robbie Williams left- or simply through pure spectacle – like Adam Ant’s use of all the stages in one performance or Marc Bolan lying on top of a huge star and being raised from the floor! These TOTP appearances, usually miming and usually in the studio, are the real loss to an industry that loves to show off. Sometimes the ideas were mega simple; like in `Running Up That Hill` when Kate Bush and her band formed a sort of pyramid shape or when Blazin’ Squad employed a hundred red hoodie wearing kids to accompany them. Sometimes they were just different, such as when Kurt Cobain sang `Smells Like Teen Spirit` in a totally different register to the original. Often you had to applaud the effort that went into the likes of dance routines or the sheer silliness of the costumes. TOTP was unique and there is a groundswell of opinion that it will come back in a few years. Lets hope that’s true.
The rules of buses …Nobody really has much to say about buses. They are not seen as glamorous or desirable and people would really rather not use them except that, for one reason or another, they have to. One of the qualities required of a bus user is the ability to just accept what is happening because there is nothing you can do to change the situation. There are certain things that are a given when using this form of public transport and provided you do accept them then you’ll be OK. The rules of buses are…..
Buses will not fall over. Foreign tourists have been heard to worry about whether double deckers will tip over when taking sharp corners and as far as we know this has never happened. They do become open topped though when trying to clear bridges that they obviously can’t.
Buses travel in groups like policemen and teenagers. The timetable may well say they arrive at 5 minute intervals but you can guarantee they will not.
Somebody else’s bus is always more frequent than yours. They however will claim all they see is your bus when you know that all you see is their bus.
If there’s another bus at the stop all the other buses go past even if they are supposed to stop there.
In the winter there is no heating on buses and they are actually colder than being outside. In the summer, when it’s hot, the heating kicks in creating temperatures roughly similar to the rain forests of Brazil.
Bus seats are not designed for people to sit in. As each generation becomes taller so bus seats shrink in size.
Certain groups of people can do what they want on buses, slicing through the carefully established etiquette. These are; women with prams, very tall scary looking teenagers and groups of people larger than four.
Bus drivers should never be challenged regardless of what they do. Behind the cheery disposition with which they may welcome you aboard lurks a foul mouth that makes Gordon Ramsey seem like an angel.
Bus drivers see their job as racing against other buses from other companies to get to the destination first. Passengers are mere hurdles along the way.
Booker, what Booker…A Sunday newspaper recently sent manuscripts of already published novels, including one by Booker prize winner V S Naipaul, to a selection of agents and publishers and they were all rejected. This amazing scenario exposed the fact that the publishing industry, which seems to view itself as more highbrow than other media, is just as susceptible to the desire to make things `sexy` or to kow tow to celebrities. The exercise was carried out in response to the increasing tendency for celebrities to be able to get book deals very easily while real writers struggle to even get a reading. One book industry figure told the paper: “Publishers tend to go for newcomers who have something sensational to offer, or established names.” He admitted that the industry was also just as likely to go for glamour ahead of genuine literary talent; “being 29, blond, good looking and vaguely famous should be enough to get you a book published nowadays”.