Not ill enough for a sick day unless you’re dead
There's a bit of a furor at the moment about a cough medicine advert and the accompanying website which foolishly encourages people to stay at home when they are ill.
Obviously the fuss is from the owners of companies who don't want to lose out on productivity. This may seem a Dickensian sort of work ethic, rather at odds with modern medical thinking, which suggests that taking time off cuts long-term illness and its spread around the office but it makes perfect sense.
Only by coming to work can sick people spray the filthy brown waste that shoots out of one end of their body and the lumpy green effluent that's ejected from the other into the mouths, ears and eyes of their virus hungry colleagues. This vital act of sharing is exceptionally important to company morale, scientifically proven to be 100% more effective as a team building exercise than setting fire to the office.
I genuinely believe 'Stay At Home Simons' as no-one is calling them, will with their selfish desire for rest and recuperation, tip our already unstable economy into the mouth of madness.
So if you are feeling a little under the weather or if your lungs are hanging out of your rectum, be part of the solution, not the problem and go to work because if you don't you might as well change your name to Hitler.
Red hot sex! Win a million!! Just click here!!!
That's something I don't usually do on principle, so sick am I of their flashing and blinking and looping animations, clawing at my peripheral vision like a tiny but persistent eye crab, desperate for attention.
Click here!! Go on!!! Do it!!!! Click me!!!!!! You idiot.
So today I clicked, just to see what great leaps advertising had taken with this, the most zeitgeisty (yes that is a word, becasue I say so) of media.
So here's the report: It's crap.
"Click to see more pictures". Wow, pictures, that's pretty advanced, I've never seen anything like that before, except perhaps on the inside of caves.
"Click here for video" Gosh! Moving pictures! Now there's innovation. They'll be mass producing sliced bread next.
So anyway, there you go, you're not missing anything. I'll check back in five years and let you know about any developments. Who knows, maybe they'll be working towards some clever way of recording sounds so we can replay them at our leisure. That's probably just science fiction though.
RIP Captain Birds Eye
The actor who played the original Captain Birds Eye has died. No jokes about him being made into fish fingers as his last request please. Let’s show a little respect for a Captain who in 1993 was voted the most recognised captain after Captain Cook in a UK poll.
Quite an achievement but for me it puts his death in a new light. Think about it, Captain Kirk didn’t even get to second place. He must have been pretty bitter about that. I detect a motive. Where was William Shatner the night Captain Birds Eye died? I’m sure he claims he was somewhere else advertising cereal but with access to a teleporter, who knows?
That Captain Cook came first is a surprise, who would even recognise him? Now Captain Hook, that’s a different matter, he’s very memorable; curly hair, fear of clocks, massive hook obviously, very distinct. Now that I think about it, he’s another one with a motive.
Then there's Captain Caveman. Say what you like, he's a savage. Sure it's all little pink dinosaurs here and saving the day there but don't tell me that sometimes his Neanderthal rage doesn't bubble to the surface with the force of a volcano. He could have hidden the corpse in his club.
Anyway, he'll be missed.
Love it or Hate it
They're right aren’t they, those Marmite ads?
People really do love it or hate it. Usually when products make a claim it's a little spurious. Not so with this one, some people really, really love it.
I've seen people around the dark, best avoided back streets of Kings Cross, in London. Young men with old men’s eyes and hollow cheeks, talking to better-fed guys in conspicuously thick gold chains and leather jackets. “Go on mate,” Pleads the withered face “I just need one lick. One lick mate. Go on mate, I brought my own spoon. "
Conversely, when people don’t like it, they really, really don't. I have offered good friends of mine a slice of toast and Marmite and I'm sure I've said "Do you want some Marmite toast?"
From the look of disgust on their face all they’ve heard is, "Would you like me to shoot your Grandmother and defecate into the wound?"
So obviously now I have to consider the moral implications of what I've written.
I'm talking about the product, not the wholly distasteful Grandmother comment. You see I'm not just mentioning a condiment; I'm advertising (ish) a product and putting money into some corporation’s pocket. So I should at least know whose pocket I'm lining shouldn't I? But how do you tell? They're all constantly merging, like some kind of enormous ethereal corporate shag-fest, slowly conglomerating into one huge entity. The moment they all finally all come together, I'm sure black clouds will gather in an already ashen sky, thunder will crash and the one true power will reveal itself to us, its willing slaves. We’ll stand on the filthy streets, crane our bent and broken necks to look up, slack-jawed and see, one thousand feet tall, clad from head to tail in impregnable black armour, the fattest, widest grinning Cheshire Cat you have ever seen. The ultimate fat cat.
Probably.