Trouser Arouser?

I must admit to being a little nonplussed by the new Subway advert that has hit UK television recently.

It features a young man walking down the High Street, minding his own business when, passing by a Subway “restaurant”, something rather bulbous and bulging erupts upwards out of his trousers and drags him closer to the Subway establishment like a magnet attracting a poker.

I confess I had to do a double take.

Turns out this animated trouser monster wasn’t his Geronimo at all but in fact his trouser pocket turned inside out and exposed to the air in its eagerness to drag the trouser wearer into the Subway premises.

See, such is the excellent value of their wares your own pockets will apparently beg, push and cajole you into spending some of your hard earnt moolah on one of their Meatball Marinara Subs.

Yeah right.

Surely the ad producers must have clocked that the poor guy merely looks like he is getting a great stonking erection at the thought of wrapping his tongue around a Subway Chicken & Bacon batch?

Well of course they did. Sex sells after all.

But I can’t think of anything less sexy than a Subway “restaurant”. It just doesn’t appeal. And mixing their corporate image with bulging erections just turns me off even more.

Urgh!

Hold the mayo?

You’re damned right.

I think I’ll just stick with my usual fish supper...

(Sorry...!)

;-)

The Staycation

Staycation.

I've been hearing this word a lot in the media recently and I suspect it's an occurrence that will only increase in volume as the chipperly named "Credit Crunch" continues to bite.

Basically people can no longer afford holidays abroad anymore. Even more basically people can no longer afford holidays in their own country anymore.

Bognor... Blackpool... Lyme Regis... Centre Parcs... Butlins...

All too damned pricey in this current climate, mate, and that's even before you've counted the cost of getting there, meals, ice creams every day for the kids, the odd spot of bungee jumping, the "penny" arcade, watching Roy Chubby Brown harrumphing his dead horse of an act across an unwashed, ply wood stage...

Much cheaper to stay at home. And more convenient. The kids can have the PlayStation: they're happy. Mum and dad can have a lie-in without the fear of having to mug up on the artefacts in the Museum / London Dungeon / Art Gallery that inevitably constitutes the compulsory "cultural" part of the holiday: they're happy. And the car doesn't break down on the hard shoulderless stretch of the M40: the AA are happy.

Nobody is really missing out on anything.

I must admit, Karen and I abandoned plans for a week away last August and instead pottered around the house, visited friends and tried to spend as little money as possible whilst extracting the most amount of fun from our time off together. I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Not that I've hated my holiday times in Wales, or Italy, or... er, the hundreds of other places that I've been to. But sometimes - let's be honest - holidays can be exhausting. How many of us have come back from a holiday so tired that strictly speaking we could do with another week off just to rest and recover?

So why not just have the week's rest? Why not have a week at home doing something that you rarely get a chance to do in life: enjoy being at home (without being "off sick")?

You could save more than just a few pennies. You could save your energy, cut down on stress and improve your health.

Now I realize I'm probably not doing my bit for the economy by discouraging people to spend their money and I'll be the first to admit I'm flicking my V's at the current batch of gormless Thomson's adverts that are doing the rounds on TV ("...go on, book a holiday with us, you're money is safe, honestly, we're not going to go bust...") but, much as I enjoy foreign travel (and I do), a staycation is just right up my street.

Quite literally.

Butter Wouldn’t Melt

I can’t profess to ever having been a huge fan of punk, preferring myself the hippy undertones of Kate Bush or the soft pop synth sound of New Wave but I knew who John Lydon was and held a grudging respect – even amusement – for the man and his outrageous anarchist antics.

I still have fond memories of him flicking his V’s at the camera nearly a decade later on Saturday Superstore or Going Live or whatever woolly-jumpered guff the BBC was putting out on a Saturday morning back then. Cue pouts of outrage from Mike Read and Sarah Greene – how dare he besmirch our jolly kid’s show with his dirty punk fingers!

Meanwhile my sister and I were laughing ourselves silly like a couple of drains. It was almost as good as the legendary Five Star phone-in where an enterprising little potty mouth managed to slip through the BBC’s “real teen” censors and introduced kid’s telly to some rather choice four letter words. It was a remarkably succinct music review that has never ever been bettered in my opinion.

But I digress. John Lydon / Johnny Rotten was a somebody. He stood for something. He was spiky, dangerous and uncompromising. Values held in high esteem by any burgeoning teen / young adult.

So it’s depressing to note then that dear ol’ John has sold his anti-establishment ethos down the river in order to endorse / sell / promote Country Life Butter on our televisions. John loves Country Life Butter, you see, because “it’s British”. Cue clips of red buses, Morris Dancers and John himself in a nice tweed jacket sinking a large brandy in an old fart’s gentleman’s club. For a minute I thought I was watching the trailer for the next Austin Powers movie (John Lydon as Austin Powers: now there’s an interesting concept).

I realize Country Life are hoping to get themselves a bit of an edge by employing our John to hawk their wares in the Corrie ad breaks but to my mind it doesn’t really work. It doesn’t make me want to go out and buy a slab of Country Life Butter. It makes me want to hurl abuse at the TV screen. It makes me want to flick my V’s right into John Lydon’s pasty lily-white face.

John what the hell are you doing? Surely your mortgage is paid by now? Why?

It’s one thing to be a national character...

Quite another thing entirely to be a national caricature.

Eh?

Funniest advert on TV at the moment is the one for Garnier's UltraLift Deep Wrinkle A Zone. Apparently it does exactly what it says on the tin and "targets deep wrinkles in your A Zone".

I know I'm being juvenile but the thought of approaching a cosmetics counter and asking for a cream that targets the deep wrinkle in my A Zone has me hooting with laughter.

How could the director of this advert have been so blind to the obvious double entendre?

What next? Are Garnier and Preparation H going to merge?

Isn't that going to be a bit messy?

Shameless Plug

In an example of totally shameless plugging I hearby present an excerpt from the current home page of my personal web site, Pocketropolis:

So there I am walking along the main shopping thoroughfare of my own home town when suddenly the crowds part like some sort of Biblical miracle (the parting of the chav sea) and with an awful demonic whirr a shape both diabolical and familiar approaches my terrified form at a speed which must surely induce immediate suffocation in its rider. Amid the red and chrome glint of this monstrous beast I perceive a weapon of perverse shape and engineering aimed inexplicably at my quivering heart. I have a split second to dive out of the way and with the adrenalin still pounding in my ears I hit the carpet of the Pound Shop to my left as this pavement behemoth trundles blindly passed without even a by-your-leave or a thank you. As I pick myself up and wander dazedly back out into the sunlight I watch as other poor pedestrians are likewise terrorized by this path hog. Not content with owning a mobility scooter built like a Chieftain Tank, it’s driver has also seen fit to attach a pair of crutches to it in such a way that the vehicle is now equipped with a pair of state-of-the-art lances. I strongly suspect that this scooter also had full mine laying capacity and side mounted scud missile launchers beneath the seat but due to the speed of its acceleration I really can’t say for certain...

The rest of the article can be read via Pocketropolis.com or Pocketropolis.co.uk.

Thank you for your kind attention.

MFI

I’m a bit nonplussed by the current MFI advertising campaign.

Not that I particularly care about MFI or their marketing ethos, you understand. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever shopped at one of their stores or even driven within a 5 mile range of one. I’ve lost count of the number of Boxing Day half price MFI sales that I’ve deliberately avoided over the years. When I’m freshly gutted up on hot turkey the last thing I want to do is shuffle around a mouldy warehouse in Erdington looking at a vast panorama of corner sofa suites and pre-built Devonshire pewter knob handle shelving units.

I mean, come on. I’ve got some taste.

Their new television adverts, however, are impinging on my psyche with some degree of success. Though not in the manner that their marketing experts had hoped for...

The catch line is that an MFI showroom is so expertly put together it’s just like being in your own home. Cue various family groups – all from the scummy end of town – having blazing rows and white trash spats against a backdrop of hastily constructed MFI furniture. The camera then pulls out as Wayne and Waynetta continue their Jerry Springer style dispute to reveal that lo! The couple aren’t in their own home at all but are in fact in an MFI warehouse looking at the wonderful array of suites and design ideas that the store has to offer. Gosh.

So much like home is MFI that the couple have plainly forgotten where they are and are carrying on like they’re in their own kitchen!

Oh ho ho. Chortle chortle.

Unfortunately the advert stops before they start hacking at each other with Stanley knives and then running upstairs to their MFI Kingsize Divan bed to start shagging each other witless like a couple of bit-part actors from Shameless.

Cos that apparently is what the average MFI customer is like.

Hmm.

That’s not exactly selling the store to me.

So it looks like I’ll be spending Boxing Day at home once again this year too.

Half A Sixpence. Mary Poppins. James Bond. It’ll be dire telly but better that than spending the entire afternoon watching Tracey and Kevin gouging out each other’s Marlborough scabbed eyes at MFI...

Vision Express

Being rather visually pedantic I’m always greatly amused when I see the Vision Express advert on TV. You know the one: some drippy guy in a raincoat walks through a forest with freshly developed photographs dropping out of the back of his coat every second.

Personally, if I was shitting Polaroids every time I took a stroll through the Forest of Dean I don’t think an optician is the first person I’d be booking an appointment to see…

Fray Bentos

Actually my previous blog posting has got me thinking up suitably down-at-heel, greasy-cafe, common-as-muck food based phrases that I would love to hear Dervla Kirwan utter with her gorgeously chocolatey Irish voice.

So far I’ve got:

1) "Fray Bentos..."
2) "Hot buttered mash stuffed with cheap, greasy pork sausages..."
3) "Reconstituted beef burger alternative slathered in out of date gherkins and rancid tomato sauce..."
4) "Snotty eggs fried in gristle laden fat with black bits floating on the top..."

and

5) "Bernard Matthews..."

Oooh... I’m shuddering all over!

Dervla Kirwan

The current proliferation of Marks & Spencer adverts on UK TV have somehow seeped into my subconscious and I now find I have an urgent desire to have Dervla Kirwan as my personal menu reader whenever I go out for a meal. Just the thought of her lilting voice crooning “double egg and chips” or “Chicken Royale with extra fries” sends shivers down the spine of my wallet…