Can't get those stubborn stains out of your cricketing whites?
Now there a new product from Pakistan.
New "Flood". For really built-in grime.
Have you suffered accusations that should be water off a duck's back?
Do your clothes smell of corruption?
Try new Flood!
Are your pockets lined with dirty cash?
Grubby from having your palms greased at work?
Did you wake up today and find you had betrayed 170 million of your country folk and that they want your guts for garters?
Well haven't we all!
Fortunately now there's new Flood!
Submerge yourself in new Flood and watch your problems disappear.
Your character will come up whiter than white.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Sunday 29 August 2010
The Final Curtain
I used to tell a little tale about the first time I saw Last of the Summer Wine.
I was just a young lad, still old enough to roll on along the sides of our circular pouffe in a rhythmic aid to post-prandial digestion. I saw a program that was so utterly devoid of quality, humour, wit, writing, performance, that it made impossible any remnant of pleasure. For the time my life I needed immediately to understand what was on my screen and, if possible, why.
I hunted down the family TV Guide in order to discover the name of the programme, the sole intention being to facilitate myself never bumping into it again. This debacle turned out to be a much loved BBC television - The Last of the Summer Wine. Happily, I thought to myself, "Well thank God it's the last".
This true incident always amused me and over more than the quarter of a century in which my hopeful prophecy has turned out to be more wrong than I could have ever imagined, I have related it a number of times.
But tonight, it came true. It really was the last the very Last of the Summer Wine - the final episode.
The very last of these famously lovable characters careering around in their last tin bath
I'm not sure there was never anything particularly lovable about Compo, Clegg and Foggy. To me they all had slightly sinister overtones but as I watched the last 10 minutes of 31 years of the world's longest-running sitcom, I noticed the cast contained a parade of older actors - refugees from other well-loved sitcoms.
Add in some innocent slapstick, a bit of contrived plot-propelling claptrap and a grotesque laugh track and the formula was in place for... well, let's hope now, the final time.
And in fact, I noticed that they were just a bit lovable.
I was just a young lad, still old enough to roll on along the sides of our circular pouffe in a rhythmic aid to post-prandial digestion. I saw a program that was so utterly devoid of quality, humour, wit, writing, performance, that it made impossible any remnant of pleasure. For the time my life I needed immediately to understand what was on my screen and, if possible, why.
I hunted down the family TV Guide in order to discover the name of the programme, the sole intention being to facilitate myself never bumping into it again. This debacle turned out to be a much loved BBC television - The Last of the Summer Wine. Happily, I thought to myself, "Well thank God it's the last".
This true incident always amused me and over more than the quarter of a century in which my hopeful prophecy has turned out to be more wrong than I could have ever imagined, I have related it a number of times.
But tonight, it came true. It really was the last the very Last of the Summer Wine - the final episode.
The very last of these famously lovable characters careering around in their last tin bath
I'm not sure there was never anything particularly lovable about Compo, Clegg and Foggy. To me they all had slightly sinister overtones but as I watched the last 10 minutes of 31 years of the world's longest-running sitcom, I noticed the cast contained a parade of older actors - refugees from other well-loved sitcoms.
Add in some innocent slapstick, a bit of contrived plot-propelling claptrap and a grotesque laugh track and the formula was in place for... well, let's hope now, the final time.
And in fact, I noticed that they were just a bit lovable.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
You're the Radio
I'm the sleeper, you're the dream, I'm a drifter, you're the place I go.
I'm a song ...
I'm a song ...
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Blast from the Past
The problem with cleaning out your drawers is that you might discover old poetry.
Here is a classic from 14 years ago.
My Favourite Goal
My favourite goal
Was by Peter Beardsley
He hit it
Fiercely
And it didn't Peter out.
Oh dear!
Here is a classic from 14 years ago.
My Favourite Goal
My favourite goal
Was by Peter Beardsley
He hit it
Fiercely
And it didn't Peter out.
Oh dear!
Friday 6 August 2010
Optometrical query
If you have your contact lenses in the wrong way round, does that focus your mind?
Wednesday 4 August 2010
TV Doctrines
I feel like Dr Who
Very old and the last of my kind.
Fortunately it's time for a holiday.
I also feel like Dr When.
When is the right time to move and change.
And Dr How.
How to nurture nature and lubricate change.
Growth needs stimulation.
Roots need bigger planters.
Change needs space, a little Miracle Gro and broadband access.
Or else, your leaves turn brown, your soil turns to dust, your xylem chokes and you settle for dial-up.
Do we fill a position or a void?
Do you enhance something when you are there?
Would you leave a gap if you left? A real one - not just a "best of luck in the future" card.
Would you leave an arse groove in the sofa of life?
Does it matter?
Surely a smattering of mattering is a good thing.
Does. It. Need. To. Be. You?
Early interests in a young life may emerge in dazzling fictional worlds.
You may have started adventures in TV stepping into otherly worlds with a little Saturday night scifi. Why not? It pushes your boundaries with the humanity, colour, allegory and moral stimulation of a great teacher.
It is more than entertainment. Good TV changes people. We internalise those messages and plant and prune and tend as we grow. Or age.
Plant, prune and tend.
Keep pruning. Keep tending. Keep reminding ourselves to keep planting.
(Not in obvious procreative seminal ways. Use a hoe if you must, but I am talking about real spadework).
Still though, despite our best efforts or no effort at all perhaps, before we are pushing up daises, it seems we are destined less to find our answers in the treaties of the Neutral Zone than we are in Gardener's Question Time.
Very old and the last of my kind.
Fortunately it's time for a holiday.
I also feel like Dr When.
When is the right time to move and change.
And Dr How.
How to nurture nature and lubricate change.
Growth needs stimulation.
Roots need bigger planters.
Change needs space, a little Miracle Gro and broadband access.
Or else, your leaves turn brown, your soil turns to dust, your xylem chokes and you settle for dial-up.
Do we fill a position or a void?
Do you enhance something when you are there?
Would you leave a gap if you left? A real one - not just a "best of luck in the future" card.
Would you leave an arse groove in the sofa of life?
Does it matter?
Surely a smattering of mattering is a good thing.
Does. It. Need. To. Be. You?
Early interests in a young life may emerge in dazzling fictional worlds.
You may have started adventures in TV stepping into otherly worlds with a little Saturday night scifi. Why not? It pushes your boundaries with the humanity, colour, allegory and moral stimulation of a great teacher.
It is more than entertainment. Good TV changes people. We internalise those messages and plant and prune and tend as we grow. Or age.
Plant, prune and tend.
Keep pruning. Keep tending. Keep reminding ourselves to keep planting.
(Not in obvious procreative seminal ways. Use a hoe if you must, but I am talking about real spadework).
Still though, despite our best efforts or no effort at all perhaps, before we are pushing up daises, it seems we are destined less to find our answers in the treaties of the Neutral Zone than we are in Gardener's Question Time.
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