It Stinks!

What is it with the morons in advertising and plugging bog products?

"Muuuuuuum, I want to-do a-pooooh!"

"All right, darling, come on then."

"No, I want to-do-a-pooh in Paul's bathroom!"

Cue smiles of endearment all round and the brat with the splat is next pictured pulling his pants up in an unidentified lavatory.


What, in the holy name of fuck, is going on here? This is just wrong on so many levels.

Firstly, that's not quite how the conversation would go round at Pither Towers if my imaginary child approached me with that twining "Muuuuuuum" bullshit.

"Muuuuuum! I want to-do a-pooooh!"

"Father, Adolph, father. Mum's the one with the beard. Anyway, whaddya want?"

"I want to-do a-poooh!"

"Well, knock yourself out, kid. Just relax that sphincter, open the bomb doors and let it go."

"But I want to-do-a-pooh in Paul's bathroom!"

"You fucking what!!!!? Are you sick or something, you little bastard! Daddy didn't, if you'll excuse the pun, splash out £10,000 on a new bathroom just so you can Charlie Chaplin it round to the neighbour's to drop your load. Anyway, just how do you think Paul is going to react to you going over there just so you can shit in his house? Hmmmm?"

Secondly, do I really need some little turd emphasising his status in life by twining the word "pooh" at me in my living room? I am familiar with the concept that shit stinks. I am also familiar with the existence of air freshners. I don't need some colon-stuffed kid talking me through the finer details.

This comes on the back of that other slice of advertising genius which was a previous advert for air freshner in which a kid was filmed sitting on the bog, just post-evacuation, and shouting "Pooh! It stinks!"


It's all because kiddies are cute, apparently, and so anything they do generates the exclamation "Aaaaaah!" from those around. Well, I haven't been blessed with children but even if I had been I would not find ANYTHING endearing about my spawn having a shit! Come to that, I find NOTHING endearing in ANYONE having a shit - even Bettany Hughes (all praise and peace be upon her).

There's nothing wrong or shameful about bodily functions, Pither! No, indeed there isn't. What is objectionable is sharing them with the whole fucking world, especially by using kiddies in the belief that they make them cute and not stomach-churning. To me, the imagery of a five-year-old having a shit is no more pleasant than that of Bernard Manning relieving himself of a flock of sparrows on the pan. Maybe I'm getting it all wrong? Maybe I'm just too sensitive? Maybe I should welcome equally basic adverts featuring adults?

Tissues, for instance? "Mum!! I've just jacked off and the bucket's full!!" - Thank God for Kleenex.

Toothpaste? "Oh darling, I wish you'd told me before I did that to you." Yes, Colgate dissolves even clotted blood and bits of uterus to give you fresh breath again.

Get the picture? I could go on but I think I would be defeating my own argument if I did.

Advertising, kids and methane have already gone to Grantham - I just want to make sure they stay there.

Black Power

Simply Irresistible!


Advertising is a corrupt and morally bankrupt industry. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Often, it’s not so much what they say that is sickening, it’s what’s left unsaid that deceives.

Take for instance the new Just For Men advert on telly. So sweet, you’re supposed to think. So heart-warming.

TWINING KID 1: “Dad, it’s time.”
TWINING KID 2: “Yeah, you’d be a really good catch for someone.”

Cut to the day after and dad decides to act on his precocious spawns’ advice. He buffs up his luxuriant barnet, paints out his grey hairs with Just For Men and instantly pulls some bleedin’ supermodel who just happened to be hanging about with no queue of men behind her desperate to get into her knickers. A wand is waved and, Hey Presto! Instant happy family again. All thanks to hair colourant.

Not quite how it was, I think. What about all that film on the cutting room floor? What film? This film?

TK1: “Dad, it’s time.”
DAD: “Oh shit, are they open?”
TK2: “No, not the pub. You’d be a really good catch for someone.”
DAD: “Yerwhat?”
TK1: “Yeah, if you had jet black hair instead of hair with bits of grey in it you’d be able to pull some deep, intelligent, discerning bird who was in no way superficial.”
DAD: “Fuck off, will you, and pass me that can.”
TK2: “Go on dad, it IS time. I mean, you’ve been lying on that settee, masturbating and watching Trisha ever since mummy fucked off.”
DAD: “Callous bitch! And she still hasn’t told me who your real fathers are.”
TK1: “You were boning that woman from the florist’s, be honest. Anyway, mummy didn’t like anal sex and you knew that. Still, she’s out of hospital now.”
DAD: “Frigid cow!"
TK2: “Well, it’s time. You’re probation is up. That ban on making contact with any women aged between 17 and 105 within a 200 mile radius of home is lifted now.
TK1: “Yeah, get out there, shagmonster! You’ve got a knob like a babby’s arm holding an orange!! You’d make a really good catch for someone.”
TK2: “We’ve got the number of a high class prostitute in Chelsea – we found it in grandad’s wallet.”
TK1: “If you remortgage the house and sell us for medical experimentation you could have a hell of a night out with her.”
DAD: “Go on then. Pass me my hat – and my pants.”
TK2: “Don’t forget to colour you hair first, though. I mean, I think women will find your history of wife battering, chronic flatulence, alcoholism, bankruptcy, animal abuse and indecent exposure in public places really endearing – but grey hair? Get real.”

I think Just For Men had better go.

I Cans't Take N'More!

I am slowly but oh so surely going out of what's left of my mind, what with being laid up, hardly able to move and all-but housebound.
I have caught up on all the reading I can but day upon day of silence, interrupted only occasionally by the sound of a page turning, is soul destroying. That has led me to turn inexorably to the Devil's Lantern and it is sucking out the last vestiges of spirit in me. I no longer "watch" what's "on" the box. I have instead found myself staring, glassy eyed at whatever is flickering on the screen at that particular moment, all the time pondering some great televisual mystery posed by the subject matter. For instance:

1. Why do they put canned laughter on so-called comedy shows? The laughter is recorded, right? Well, why don't they screen the show which prompted the recorded audience to laugh instead of putting on something which just isn't fucking funny!

2. How many bastard episodes are there of The Bill? They must record up to 24 every fucking day! "In the beginning there was The Word - which will be followed by The Bill over on ITV."

3. Why the fuck does ITV feel the need to advertise its news coverage? How does that work? It's the fucking news, for God's sake! "Come and watch our reports on the the hurricane - it's a damn site better than the BBC's poxy earthquake!"

4. Why are programmes recorded at Volume Level A while the ads are recorded at Level Z? You can hardly hear a bloody word of what's on so you turn up the volume and then, just as you've got comfortable, the commercial break comes on and some twat starts screaming at you about bog cleaner!

5. Does anybody outside Millwall actually buy Diamonite jewellery off the shopping channel?

6. Is there something in the contracts dished out to presenters of the shopping channels or those bloody awful early hours quiz-call shows which stipulates that they have to be, or at least act as if they are, limp-wristed, lisping, chase-me-bet-you-can't gay bar-loiterers?

7. Who decided that the news is better if its read standing up?

8. Is someone seriously trying to kid us that the ridiculously vacuous and Barbie-esque Lara Lewington who does the weather on Channel 5 ever managed to finish a Janet and John book, let alone go on to get a degree in climatology?

There is more, much more, but as Scott said, I don't think I can write any more. All of the above can go.