Poor old George

 The following popped up on my tablet whilst I was browsing Facebook to see if any more people I had never heard of, and who had nothing whatsoever in common with me, wished to become "friends",  and as it seems to be important, I paid it a little attention.

 It is an advert but I have to confess that I don't know what it is advertising¹. The name is Penhaligon certainly, we've established that from the masthead, from the collection of boxes and packages being admired (in a rather creepy and smug way) by the smooth-faced young man and from the display of the same name embroidered on his sweater. But Messrs Penhaligon seem to be featuring the large bottle with the unfeasibly large, possibly quite dangerous, stopper which is named The Tragedy of Lord George.

The young man seems to be reclining on some sort of carriage in the outdoors, in a mountainous and snowy place. Perhaps it is the one-horse open sleigh we hear so much about at this time of the year.  

We are informed that the stuff in the bottle has "notes of warm rum, tonka beans and shaving soap". I think we can fill in the rest of the picture from here.

Scene: A raging blizzard engulfs Penhaligon Hall, time-honoured seat of the Penhaligons in deepest Cornwall. Enter young Lord George brandishing a bottle and old Tregorran, the family brewer

George: I've done it, Tregorran! They said I was mad, but I've perfected the formula. For years we Penhaligons have brewed whisky from the traditional ingredients of pasty juice and the runoff from tin mines. But now we have something to make everyone sit up and take notice.

Tregorran: Nay, young sir, you do be being headstrong. Tain't safe to meddle with the ancient formula. Handed down from father to son that be, and there's always been a Tregorran to make sure that naught was changed. I beg 'ee, sir, think again. Think of your father.

George: My father has always held me back, Tregorran. Laughed at my ideas. Scorned me in front of my friends. Well no more! This ends now. I'm taking this bottle to the brewery on Bodmin Moor and nothing's going to stop me!

Tregorran: Oh sir, there do be a raging blizzard a-blowing. The roads will be blocked. You'll be beset by enormous hounds, I shouldn't wonder, and they do say the Revenue Men be abroad on the A37. 

George: But I don't need the A37! I shall take the one-horse open sleigh. I shall skim across the fields and into the high hills, fortified by tots of warm rum, tonka beans and all the shaving soap I can stomach! Ha ha!  

He dashes off into the night leaving the faithful retainer aghast

Tregorran: Tis the curse of the Penhaligons! Alack that I should see this day. We'll be hearing no more about Lord George, that's for sure. Hmm, I wonder if I could turn his mixture into an Eau de Cologne or something similar. Could retail it for £245 to the fine folks up in London, I shouldn't wonder. Let's see, warm rum, tonka beans and shaving soap. Yes, just need to find a name for it...

-%-%-%-%-%- 

Note:

1. I looked it up just to be sure. Yes, it is a cologne sold to the fine folk of London all right. 

 

Brands, Out With The Old, In With The Same

source: ABC Australia

 Regular readers [Huh?: Ed] will know of my deep and undying respect for those who deploy the noble arts of advertising and public relations. They never let me down when I am scratching my head searching for inspiration for one of these little whimsies. I think this is the first one from Down Under to catch my attention and, judging by the standard, not only of the change in the brand  but the conviction behind the justification for it from the PR people, I need to pay more attention to goings-on Ozwise than has hitherto been the case.

 Australia has long been a major sporting nation but clearly their weakness has been their athletes, always falling short of greatness. Let an athlete pick up a javelin and they would drop it on their foot, with the lacklustre old "Athletics Australia" weakening their grip. High jumpers wobbled on the take-off, baffled by their inability to grasp the nature of the organisation that managed them; runners dropped off the pace, gasping for breath while sprinters from countries with better brands and meaner slogans forged ahead; the hurdlers would have done better trying to vault over a few salt-water crocs with their mouths open [the crocs' mouths, not the hurdlers: Ed ] compared to the depressing effect of the millstone from the past.

No more of that! Australian athletes can rejoice that at last they have a bold, new identity that connects to its storied legacy and sets its sights on an exciting future. No more must they put up with hackneyed, boring old initials"AA". Now they can pin the brand new "AA" plates on their shirts with pride. If anyone should ask what it stands for, it is going to be so easy in future. "AA, mate?" They will shrug nonchalantly "That's Australian Athletics. So much better than that old logo, fair dinkum to the chief executive, they've certainly kicked off a golden era"

I suppose a quick, mozzie-on-the-wall flashback visit to the offices of Bozo and Dunny, Practioners in PR, Sydney is in order....

Scene: A few months ago.  A backroom on the fourth floor. The blinds are drawn. Whiteboards covered in scrawls at one end, a table seating a few sweating executives  at the other. Enter Taz¹, a pommy intern who has somehow landed himself an internship though nobody knows how.

Taz: Sorry to interupt,  but Athletics Australia have phoned about whether we've got the new name yet.

 Rupert: No worries, mate, but damn, they've gotta cut us a bit more slack here. Jeez, you drongos, five hours and we still haven't got a name. They're counting on us. We've got to get away from boring old Athletics Australia.

Kylie: Taz, why dontcha read us out some of those suggestions. Might stir up some brain cells.

Taz: Oh, yes, gosh, er here goes. Athlete Australia. Athletes Australia. Athletes in Australia. Athletes Oz. Athletes Ozzy. Athletes'R'Aussies.

Rupert: Is that it? Stone the wallabies. Let's have a few tinnies and really focus on this, people.

Bazza: Athletics...Australia...it's so close. Australia..Athletics...Australia...

Kylie: Hold it, hold it. I think I may have something.  Rupert, can the budget stretch an extra letter?

Rupert: Dunno, maybe, but you're pushing way over the edge here. 

Bazza : Australia's Athletics? 

Rupert: Close, so damn close. Anything else?

Kylie: Australian Athletics?

Pause

Bazza: I think it's good. It is good. I like it!

Rupert: Good? That is effing brilliant! That is the answer! Well done, team. 

Kylie: Jeez, finally. And it was so simple, so bloody simple, we just couldn't see it.

Rupert: Taz, why don't you fill in the copy. Chuck in a few standard phrases from our blurb handbook. "Forward looking", "bold", "venture", "exciting", that sort of crap.

Taz: Something about "identity"?

Bazza: Yup. And "legacy"

Kylie: Make that "Storied legacy ", they'll lap that up. Worth another million on the fee. What do we think, guys? Five million?

Bazza: Been at it a whole morning. I say maybe six. 

Rupert: With that extra letter? I reckon they'll swallow seven point five. Invoice that, would you, Tazza.

Taz: Shall I round it up to ten?

Pause. Sharp intakes of breath. Smiles break out.

Rupert: You're a natural, kid. There's a place for you in this firm. You have the true instinct of a great PR man.

Footnote

1. Yes, it's our old friend, last spotted in these columns here

Going into Details

 

I do not live in Wales nor am I female nor am I a regular shopper at Marks & Spencer; however Google has seen fit to feature this blurb in the background page on my tablet (if you swipe right on the desktop). I doubt if a real person wrote this (clue: "It sees shoppers can save ..." is gibberish). As there is no actual content other than the price drop on a dress, the fact gets repeated and regurgitated in such a way that the entire article appears to be about nothing else. I did not bother to click on it to find out more but let my imagination fill in some of the rest (and if you are reading, "Branwen Jones", you can have them entirely for free for your next scoop.

• The saving on this dress is more than twice £12.50
• The price has been reduced by 43%, that's nearly half and a lot more than a third
• The mysterious difference between the £30 drop in the headline and the £28 saving mentioned in the copy is, no doubt, due to the machinations of a sinister force
• Shoppers who buy two dresses can save £56, nearly enough for another dress at the old price
• The dress sold for £65 before the cut, that's 75% more.
• If the dress had been on sale for £250 then shoppers could have saved £213. But it wasn't.
• Clothes often are sold at reduced prices during a clearance sale, savings of at least £28 on elegant yet practical clothing may be experienced, it sees.
• Is anybody really reading this stuff?
• No, didn't think so, I'm off to watch Wales getting thrashed at rugby again.
  

Getting a Grilling - the Aftermath

 I wrote yesterday about the mysterious poster on behalf of the "British Toast Association" that had been put in a prominent place near Ruislip Manor Station. I pondered that it might be a spoof but opted instead for the far more likely reason that sinister forces might be afoot.

Today, whilst in haste to the station to catch a rare train (serious delays following an all-out Tube strike yesterday), I noticed a large group of hi-vis vest wearers near the station, and on drawing closer saw some with cameras and other gear. Their attention was focussed on the mysterious poster. I had intended to take a proper photo but there was not enough time so I caught a quick snap, which I here present to you:

Alas, I missed off the left side where the toast itself was pictured, but at least I recorded something because on my return, a  few hours later, the yellow-jacketed crew was gone, the street was quiet and the poster had been replaced by something else.

So it was all a stunt after all, an advertising shoot or perhaps a TV sketch, or a clip to be used in a drama. Or maybe there really is to be a British Toast Association and they were preparing the publicity material for the grand launch, presumably at the Dome (or whatever it's called these days), complete with a display of precision toast-ejection by a group of girls on horseback, balloons showering crumbs over the Thames and celebrities munching away merrily for the cameras. I look forward to missing it.

Ready and Waiting

 Sky Sports, who have for some years secured the rights to broadcast football matches, have put up posters to publicise this well-worn tit-bit of useless information. Useless, because if you are the sort of person who pays to watch sports broadcasts then you already know, and if not, you don't care. But be that as it may, they have clearly fired their Head of Creative Thinking and appointed some bloke that the personnel manager met down the pub. For the slogan on the poster is

"We're ready. Are you?"

Call me a mad, wild-eyed, clutcher at straws if you must (and I know some of you are keen to have the chance) but I had assumed that a company that has spent many millions of pounds in securing its exclusive deals and which has huge experience in broadcasting and streaming sports content, would actually be ready for the start of a new football season. This is what they do. This is how they earn their money. Several weeks ago their planners would have opened up their diaries and carefully pencilled in the dates of the first matches. Then they would have written them on to the big wall-chart hanging up at the back of the office, next to the flyer about the annual outing to Canvey Island and the note begging people to kindly not take the last of the milk without replacing it, thank you very much.  Then they would have compiled a list of things to remember:

1. Cameras
2. Warm clothes in case it gets cold at night
3. Spare batteries for lights
4. Thermos flask
5. Notebook to write down names of scorers and people sent off
6. Return rail ticket
7. 500m of high-duty 600w power cable
8. Folding canvas chair
9. Sandwiches

and with that, they could go out for a long lunch in the knowledge of a job well done.  They were ready!

 That completes the first half, as it were. After the break we shall be back for all the action as we examine the second part of the slogan. Stay with us!

-&-&-&-&-&

We're back with all the action in what should be a blistering second half of excoriating invective. The question that must be faced is our state of preparation. They are ready. Are we?

I dunno. I mean, it's not really anything to do with me. Every year the football season begins more or less at this time. One has gotten used to it. But am I ready for Sky Sports being ready? No. I shall never be ready. I don't even know what they mean in this context. If I were not ready, what would be different? They will broadcast matches. I, being a non-subscriber, will not watch them and will do so in the blissful knowledge that I wouldn't watch them even if they were free. I don't want to watch their content. 

However, they have posed the question so do they expect an answer? Should I phone them, wait for the inevitable recorded message about going on their website and how important my call is etc etc before some salesperson answers:

Salesperson: "Hello, sorry to keep you waiting, how can I help

Me: Gasping a little, a catch in my throat "I'm not ready. I'm so sorry. I meant to be. I tried. But I am not. You are, you told me so, you went to the trouble of putting up a poster by the station where I had to see it. I feel I've let you down, let everybody down, I'm so miserable and I just want to kick the cat, only I haven't got one, you see how unprepared I am, help me, help me please"

Salesperson: Can I interest you in 240 channels of unspeakable tat for just £250 plus VAT a month and only £600 to pay if we are unable to provide the service and you cancel?

No, I can't go through with it. I shall remain unready. Ethelred didn't pay to watch the Northumbrians beating the hell out of the Picts and I shall follow his example.

Special Selection

 Posters advertising Coca-Cola have appeared in the streets of beautiful (and once more, extremely warm) Ruislip. Rather than extol the thirst-quenching values of this beverage, assuming there are any, they feature a large photo of a radiant Kate Moss¹ and some strap-line about a competition featuring 000's of prizes selected by Ms Moss herself.

It's hard to believe that a wealthy lady, whose partner is one Nikolai von Bismarck², would be arsed to visit the offices of the Coca-Cola company (even though they are in Uxbridge, just a few short stops on the Met from Ruislip), rather than loll about on the terrace of her chateau, watching her soul-mate drawing lines on a map of Europe and pondering alliances, but there it is. We are now forced to imagine the scene.

Scene: The marketing department at Coca-Cola HQ, Uxbridge. A manager is dusting off the flipchart and practising buzz-phrases.

Manager to herself: 'Imaginate the unperplexible'. 'Ground-breaking enterprise paradigm-shift'. 'Pro-active synergistic customer-facing synergy'. Oh, God, that last one's wrong. Think, Nigella, think. What the hell is is it? '

Door opens. A radiant Ms Moss is ushered in by an overwhelmed intern

Taz³: In here, Ms Moss. Gosh, may I say how much I loved your heroin chic look, I'm definitely going to do heroin just as soon as I've earned enough to buy a box

Moss: Awfully sweet of you, young man.

Manager: Kate, lovely to see you

Moss: Wonderful to see you darling thinks 'Who is she again?'

They air kiss, several times.

Manager: Can I offer you a drink?

Moss: Cor, I could murder a cuppa tea and a custard cream.

Manager: Ah, not one of our ice-cold, super refreshing, real thing, carbonated and made with a secret recipe that definitely does not include cocaine, not any more, any way, tins? 

Moss: Do me a favour

Manager: Cup of tea for Ms Moss, Taz

Taz: Right away. I'll nip down to the cafe by the station. Shouldn't take more than about ten minutes. exits

Manager: Now we won't keep you long, I know you're leaving to do a tour of the Maginot Line with Nicky. It's just a matter of your personal selection of the prizes.

Moss: I've given it a lot of thought in the last two minutes. You say I need to select 000's?"

Manager: Not really. There'll be 500 of each. So just four selections will satisfy the Advertising Standards people. 

Moss: Jolly good. One yellow mug, one green one, one blue one and one red one.

Manager: Thank you so much Ms Moss and the cheque's in the post.

Moss: Bleedin' better be, darling.

Footnote

1. Ms Moss, b 1974, is a model who, according to Google, rose to fame in the 1990s as part of the "heroin chic" fashion trend. Speaking as one who was once famed for being part of the "aspirin ponce" fashion trend, I recognise her as one of my peers.

2. Yes, really, if Google is to be believed.

3.  He certainly gets around.

Patronising Tweet Of The Day #2

 I really thought my go at Mastercard recently would put an end to this sort of thing, but no, it's summer, the real admen are all on holiday and the apprentices have taken over the laboratory. Today another financial institution, who really should know better, decided to serve me this in my Twitter feed:

 

 

This is the same NatWest who, having occupied a prominent position on Ruislip High Street for some 100 years, (I include their ancestors, such as Westminster Bank), have announced that the branch is to close. The nearest branch will be at Uxbridge, not far but anyone going from Ruislip will have to allow a minimum of 30 minutes for the round trip.

"Never stop starting". I thought this was a reference to a vintage car where the choke was left out on a cold day. I recall driving my family's Ford Anglia in such a way, the car jerking forward and then spasmodically stopping before a fresh push on the throttle (being careful not to flood the engine) kicked it back into life. Cars don't do that any more. They can indeed be accurately described as "never stop starting".

I don't suppose this was what NatWest had in mind. It must be a kindly exhortation from them to the rest of us - "Hey you lazy lot, stop slacking and get on with it. Never, I repeat NEVER stop starting! If we catch any member of the public not starting we shall confiscate their paying-in books!"

Sod that. I shall stop starting as much as I like. I shall wake up on a fine sunny day and think "Today is the day to do a bit of starting. Not right away, let's have breakfast and a leisurely sit-around first, then maybe a nice cup of coffee but definitely before lunch, or at least very soon after it, if it's not clouding over by then and there's no test match to listen to, okay, maybe in the late afternoon, no, it's too late, the moment has passed. Tomorrow. That's it. Tomorrow I shall start. I shall not stop. I shall not fail in the eyes of NatWest. I will never stop starting again. Unless it rains."

You might have thought that having dreamed up this stupid slogan, the admen (or the interns) would put their feet up with a sigh of content and get back to gambling billions of our money on derivatives (whatever they are). But no. No patronising tweet is complete without a hashtag slogan. And what a slogan it is. Einstein, Weinberg, Hawking, Smolin, Rovelli¹- your boys took a hell of a beating. The boffins at NatWest have got there first. Time is not just relative - it has been collapsed entirely. Tomorrow begins Today! There is no future because you are already living it. 

This must make office life rather tricky down at the bank. 

"Withers, I'd like to see you tomorrow to review the Arkwright files"

"You mean later today sir. Tomorrow begins today"

"Ah. Yes. Damn, have to slot you around 11pm due to all the other things I had scheduled for tomorrow that are of course happening today. By the way, you're dressed a bit casually, aren't you?

"I'm off to the golf course for the tournament"

"But that's not till the day after tomorrow"

"Exactly sir. But as tomorrow begins today, then the day after tomorrow must be tomorrow but tomorrow begins today. Bye, sir"

Finally, in the interests of transparency, I should point out that I do not bank with NatWest and am unlikely to do so in the future (assuming the future exists). I shall be even less likely now that they have removed the nearest branch to me. Or <cue sinister music> can it be that tomorrow actually started yesterday and I have already opened an account with them? <fade out sinister music, replace with continuity announcer> "Tune in next week, whenever that is, to find out".

Note

1. The first few physicists specialising in time, relativity and cosmology, I could think of.

Remove This Filth Now!

 The following ad keeps popping up in my Facebook feed. 

No, Joby, I do no wish to create sick digital content. There is far too much of this already on the Internet. And it is a mark of our degraded sense of morals that you continue to promote decadence and dissolution. [That's the standard of alliteration that you are justly famed for: Ed]

You may think it a little savage that I should choose to blast what could be a simple typing mistake with all the firepower of this well-respected blog. But I did give them fair warning. FB allows for comments on ads and I have previously drawn their attention to it. Did they bother to change the wording? Did they have the courtesy to acknowledge my contribution with grateful thanks and a voucher for one of their useful products? What do you think?

Those Awful Advertising Slogans - No. 17 - Toyota

 Toyota, the largest manufacturer of motor vehicles in the world, is also, not surprisingly, a major sponsor of the Olympic and Paralympic Games that have been held this summer in Tokyo. I have no issues with Toyota supporting the games and in particular putting their hefty marketing muscle behind the assistance of athletes needing help.

What I do resent is the slogan that this massive business has adopted to showcase their efforts. It only came to my attention recently, when a large poster appeared in beautiful Ruislip, but apparently it has been running since 2018. Here is one of the many examples of the use of the slogan.

 I am certainly not the first who has looked at these three words and pondered, deeply, about why it is that marketing people are so offensive. A cursory glance on Google showed that a frequent search on Toyota and Impossible is "What does Start Your Impossible mean?" and the answer, according to Google, is

"Start your impossible" is a catchphrase that Toyota made up and it means to "start making your impossible dreams possible.

Good. I am not alone. I really cherish that phrase "made up". They just knocked it out in their shed, as it were.

Let us not waste too much space dissecting the mentality of people who try to turn adjectives into nouns. They know what they're doing.  Presumably it goes down well with the kids, or something, Why they couldn't use "Start your impossible dream" I don't know. It's a helluva lot better as a slogan, and it rules out the alternatives that we at Ramblings naturally came up with when considering how the slogan should have been crafted:

• Start your impossible ambition to expunge admen from decent society
• Start your impossible attempt to make vehicle manufacturers take direct responsibility for poisoning us with diesel emissions
• Start your impossible campaign to make it impossible* to drive a car with the windows open whilst playing music loudly.
  

I suppose the guys in Tokyo really think they are doing cutting-edge, innovative marketing. But they are not. Like all car companies, they are inherently conservative and terrified of doing anything really new. The three-word strap-line is so firmly established in the ad world that it seems nothing can shift it and, if what they really want to say is several words longer, then they just cut out the extra words and leave it up to us to guess.

*Sorry about the repeat of "impossible". I couldn't think of an alternative and it's getting late

Even now you ask questions

 About a year ago I compiled a list of silly names bestowed on cars by their manufacturers for my frankly, rather brilliant, series,  101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die . These monickers were sufficiently off-putting and ludicrous for me to safely avouch that I would never buy the wretched vehicles. That should have been the end of the matter. 

I am at the moment a satisfied driver of the Skoda Octavia. (Now there's a nice, sensible name. Easy to pronounce and no head-scratching about what it means). Sadly the worthy folk at Skoda did not see fit to follow their own, fine, example. Today they emailed me to suggest I take an interest in their latest electric SUV (yes, it had to be an SUV like most of the cars with stupid names that I excoriated back in October 2019). This one is called the ENYAQ IV and it looks like this:

I'm glad they are excited. I'd love to be able to proceed to the excited stage. Even a mild frisson of interest would be nice in these difficult times. But I am, naturally, held frozen by contemplation of the name chosen for this little, boxy thing.

First, what is this mysterious word? I have something of a background in IT and am aware that the first commercial computer, built soon after WWII ended, was called ENIAC (the Electronic Numeral and Integrated Computer). It does seem that Skoda have chosen a name remarkably similar, albeit they have shoe-horned a Y and a Q into places that they really do not belong. The use of the Q, in particular, is of course terribly fashionable amongst designers, especially when they drop the normally-accompanying U (Yes, Nissan Qashqai, hang your head in shame).

But what on earth does ENYAQ stand for? It must be an acronym for it is presented in block capitals. (We shall have to pass over consideration of how on earth I missed the preceding three versions). Here are some suggestions, proposed by the top-level emergency quick-think-of-something team here at Ramblings Central.

• Effervescent Natural Youth Alliance of Quebec
• Enthusiastically Neurotic Yet Audaciously Quixotic
• Extremely Nice Yet Awfully Quick
• Every Night You Are Quaint
  

And if you have any suggestions do please send them in to the usual address, where we shall glance cursorily over them and promptly send them back. Meanwhile, shall I take up the offer to keep up-to-date with the latest "straight to my inbox"? Gosh, I don't know, I like it when emails meander around a bit, get classified as spam and are rejected, have all their special characters stripped out, get reformatted, translated into classical Urdu, spend some time in someone else's inbox, return for a rest to the transmitting server and then finally drift in, yawning a bit and ready to settle down. Gives them a bit of style, teaches them the ways of the world and how to smile through every misadventure. But I wager that, even after all those capers in cyberspace, we will still be no wiser as to what the hell ENYAQ means.

 

 

Obscuring the Message

This ad pops up regularly when I browse through a certain well-known media website. It is oddly fascinating but, as you will have to come to expect, for the wrong reasons.

F-Secure is one of many tech firms supplying security related software. I have never used them but have no reason to doubt the usefulness of their products. This is, of course, irrelevant to my interest. For, as is sadly common with this sort of ad, nearly the entire content is taken up with a picture. They could have used this space to explain more about what they did, why their stuff works and perhaps how much it costs. Nope. A full two-thirds of the space (and they are paying the said media website for the privilege of clogging up my timeline, remember) is the image of an attractive young lady smiling warmly at the camera whilst perched, a little coyly, on a flight of steps in some office or maybe a flat.

 The young lady is not named or identified. She is dangling a smartphone but seems much more interested in whatever the cameraman might be saying. "Come on darling, undo a couple of buttons", perhaps. And hence, rather than click on the ad to find out more about the benefits to my online security from investing in F-Secure, I naturally ponder about this female (remember, she is worth twice as much as the contents of the ad). A number of possibilities suggest themselves, viz: 

• She works for F-Secure and her happy whistling as she brings round the afternoon tea-trolley lightens everyone's day.
• She is the girl-friend of their marketing director.
• She would like to be the girl-friend of their marketing director.
• She has recently found her phone that she thought lost forever and has invited a photographer chum in to record her relief for posterity.
• She is an experienced hacker and denizen of the "dark web" and is precisely the sort of person who must be warded off by the appropriate security software.
• She has installed  F-Secure on her phone and is jolly pleased with herself, despite her IT knowledge being not much than knowing how to press the power button to turn it off.
• She is the copywriter at the ad agency and author of "Stolen data can lead to financial losses", shortly to be published as part of a series. Other titles include "A nicked car might put up your insurance premium", "Don't fall of ladders if you can help it" and "You better have a napkin with that sticky bun or you'll get marks all over your screen".
• She is actually modelling the beige cardigan in another photo-shoot and has nothing whatsoever to do with any software vendor.  

And now see why I love this ad. Every time I see it, I add another line to this list. In the long winter evenings I intend to take it out whilst I sit beside the fire and look it over approvingly, making the odd emendation here and pencilled note in the margin there. With such a feast of entertainment, my time for exploring the more risky corners of the Internet will be greatly reduced and hence my risk of stolen data will be minimised. Job done! and I didn't even have to buy the software.

Those Awful Advertising Slogans - No. 16 - Money Supermarket (again)

It's a quite a while since the last one in this series. I had begun to hope that better times were upon us. But no, once again we are confronted by a slogan that is simultaneously baffling, irritating and frankly rather nauseous. Not only that, but we have a repeat offender. They just didn't learn after my piece of some four years ago, although I note that they have parted company with their ad agency on that occasion, the pretentiously named "Mother" and gone for the slightly less pretentious but no less skin-crawling "Engine".

Yes, it is our old sparring partner Money Supermarket and this time they have clearly gone for the random name generator approach. You have three columns of words, words about finance and business in column 1, words denoting emotions in column 2 and various nouns of well-known things in column 3. Thus a spin of the dice might give us "Business Happy Clowns" or "Technology Wistful Petunias". What we got this time was "Money Calm Bull" and here is the cash-loving animal doing what all bulls love to do:

pic: Money Supermarket page on Facebook

A confession. Though the current campaign launched a few weeks back and there are ads on TV, some, no doubt, featuring our bovine friend and his trusty inflatable life-raft, I have failed to see any of them. I first became aware of the hitherto unknown link between cattle and valuable pieces of paper from posters recently put up around beautiful Ruislip (which thereby rendered it marginally less beautiful). I have no idea how the animal remains serene whilst maintaining a precarious balance amidst the shark-infested waters into which it seems to have drifted. Regular readers will not need me to add the inevitable "and I couldn't care less".

Fascinatingly, a browse for synonyms for the word "bull" produced many pages of fine examples but all on the lines of "hogwash", "twaddle", "double-talk" or "balderdash". How very satisfying. Money Calm Hogwash is an excellent slogan and I commend it to you whenever anything promoting Money Supermarket (and perhaps anything created by Engine) should cross your path.

As if the random name generator was not enough, those clever chaps at Engine added a cunning "Be like" to the slogan. Be like a bull. Enjoy a short life rampaging around meadows, servicing cows and scaring the life out of ramblers wearing red jumpers, then all the fun of a ride to the abattoir and some sharp knives. But calmly.

I think the sharks are the winners here. Sooner or later that bull is going into the water. There's not going to be a last-minute rescue because even if a ship should pass, our horned ruminant has no way of signalling its distress (anyway it will be too calm to do so). Either a large wave, a gust of wind or the slow leakage of air will do for it, and then it's definitely beef frenzy time with plenty of prime rib, t-bones and sirloin for all. Wealth Expectant Shark - there's a slogan to savour.

-*-*-*-*-*-

Do you work for a ruthless, thrusting, City firm? Does my slogan Wealth Expectant Shark match your business aims and morals? It can be yours for a very reasonable fee. Contact my agents, Crankshaft, for a quote and a sight of the temptingly-priced Terms and Conditions.

Misleading Tweet of the Day - Gatwick Express

This may or may not be the start of a new series.

I present to you, plain and unadorned, a tweet as it appeared on my tweetline or whatever it's called today.  Before you read my comments, study the whole of it and consider what it is trying to convey.

If you take the time to read it then it informs of delays to the railway service between Brighton and Gatwick (and poor old Eastbourne as well). If you simply scan it lazily, letting your normal perceptive skills take charge, then you will focus on the 60% of the whole that is composed of a picture. A picture of delays, of anxious passengers looking hopefully up at departure boards, perhaps of a harassed traveller running to an airline boarding gate that is about to close, all driving home the key message that there are problems?

Not a bit. We see, cunningly pictured in a nostalgic black and white, a couple strolling insouciantly (I think that's the mot juste) along the platform. No doubt their train has arrived on time and they have in mind a leisurely check-in, a drink in the bar, a pleasant flight and who knows what in a seedy backstreets hotel in Rotterdam afterwards? She thinks he's leaving his wife at last. He is juggling her and another girl friend in Rotherham as well as his long-suffering wife who thinks he's off to yet another boring sales conference. Little do either of them know that a sinister duelling-scarred man in a black cape is also on that platform ...

Ah, as usual, my imagination has run away with me but you see the point? A picture may be worth a thousand words but in this case those words are utterly misleading. I have forgotten all about the delays. My musings about Simon and Kath (not forgetting Deirdrie in Rotherham and Glenda in Sidcup and the mystery man¹) have diverted me from the key issue, that there are delays on the Brighton line. Never mind, I don't use that line so I couldn't really care less. But if it was you, you were in danger of missing a flight and were panicking about how to reach Gatwick in time, would this artfully staged photo (comprising most of the message, let me remind you) make you feel that the Gatwick Express people:
a) cared about your journey?
b) cared only about projecting a misleading image of themselves?

Footnote:
1. Could this be the long awaited return of Count Indesit Ariston de Dietrich?

Dr. Commuter helps out ... baffled Colgate users

Dr. Commuter writes: There are many deeply troubling questions that confront us in our daily lives. Is there a God? Does my partner still love me? Are there severe delays on the train, again? We doctors call this class of problem "The stumpers". And a worthy candidate to join them is that posed by an advertisement for a well known brand of toothpaste. Going directly to the heart of the matter it demands to know "Are you totally ready""

This question is undoubtedly of great philosophical significance and it is not easy to do it justice within the limited confines of this column. Many have questioned their state of readiness, since it is hard to assess this until the situation for which one is preparing has come about. For example, a tiddlywinks competitor may feel that he is ready for a challenge but when he sees his opponent confidently winking away he may find his own confidence diminishing.

We face a far greater problem as we dissect the meaning, if any, of this question for the crux of the issue is the interpretation of "totally". Are we totally ready? How would we know? Must we take an examination to find out? Is this something that a smart computer app could assess? How in any case could we be sure that, in all conceivable circumstances, we were ready, unless we undergo  each of them and this would take many more lifetimes than any of us has at our disposal (not to mention an inordinate amount of toothpaste, we would be utterly sick of the taste of it long before the end of the exhaustive testing process).

It is surely better for our peace of mind that we put aside thoughts of "total" readiness as belonging to a class of problem that we doctors call "Stupid ideas dreamed up by admen", ignore the product being advertised and remove an unnecessary source of stress from our lives.

Lose the Lot the Trading Way

I frequently review and criticise advertisements for their subtle, or blatant, attempts to seduce us into buying something, whether by selective manipulation of the facts, use of utterly irrelevant images or sound bites or by playing on our emotions to create a false connection with a brand. How refreshing  - and yet rather chilling, for reasons I will explore below - to see one that appears to be direct and honest.

Click on this to see it larger

This one popped up on a website offering online word and puzzle games and has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm rather baffled why the advertiser thought it worthwhile at all but, leaving that to one side, what we have here is someone offering gambling trading in - well, they don't bother to say what it is you will be trading, it probably doesn't matter much because if you are sort of the person whose eyes light up with pound dollar signs at the word "trade" and do an instant mental find-and-replace with the phrase "easy money" then no doubt this ad will suck you in.

I'm glad they regard themselves as a "broker with integrity". The strap-line "Sharks and Co, brokers who'll take you to the cleaners before you can grab a coffee" was probably rejected at an early planning session. But it is the little paragraph at the foot that compels our attention. Having used large letters to promote themselves as intermediaries for trading, they then inform us that 73.5% of "retail investors" (you and me, in plain talk) lose money this way.

Now, if you are someone like Boris "Don't bother me with statistics" Johnson you can blithely ignore this warning, assume that you yourself have no less than a million to one chances of losing and go ahead and put yours and the nation's shirts on a bet. [This piece of anti-Brexit rhetoric is brought to you entirely free as a bonus for reading this far: Ed] And, if you are anyone with a brain, you will surely look at this and think "Gosh, thanks for the warning, guys, my money stays where it is". What we seem to have here, ladies and gentlemen, is an anti-ad, an ad that actually begs its readers to stay away from the poison on offer, and therefore surely one of the most honest ads ever submitted.

Now for the chilling part. Admen do not deliberately waste money. They must have inserted this notice, not to put off potential customers but to draw them in. They are, I assume, complying with an industry regulation by putting up the warning of losses but they don't care that they are encouraging such losses. The ad runs anyway. Therefore, they must assume that plenty of readers are indeed brainless and reckless and furthermore that, even though the ad is encouraging people to lose money through making trades on things they clearly do not understand, this company is going to enable them to do it. It is exactly the same as a dealer in hard drugs saying (in large print) "Feel great and relaxed, sniff all your troubles away" and then in small print below "Drugs lead to dependency, addiction, despair and suicide". 

A cynic like myself, who despises all forms of commercial advertising, will ignore this sort of ad anyway. But how many will be tempted to click on the "Trade now" button so that they can "trade directly from advanced charts" (and that really is snake-oil)  and, get this, "analyse market trends". Yup, in a world where skilled professionals do nothing else but study and analyse markets, you, the ignorant amateur, can outfox them all and decide how to invest your savings just by looking at a few lines on a screen and maybe extrapolating them through cunning use of a pencil and ruler (note: drawing lines on a computer monitor with a pencil may damage the glass). And then you can join the three-quarters of investors who lose money (and how much do the winners actually make, you may ask, but don't ask me because I haven't a clue).

We shall not be studying 100 types of charts, with or without the tempting promise of overlays. We shall not be clicking on the button to trade now or at any time.

Would you like to invest in the Ramblings Financial Derivative? Charts with overlays are available  (once we can find that old pack of graph paper stuffed down the back of the desk and sharpen up a few coloured pencils). Send all the money you have to the usual address. Terms and conditions apply including the one that says we don't have to answer any enquiries or account to you for your money. Warning: You'll lose everything with this utterly useless investment but as you probably haven't bothered to read this far, we have no scruples about putting this warning at the bottom of the page.

Those Awful Advertising Slogans - no. 15 - Lloyds Bank

The current Lloyds Bank advertising campaign is ubiquitous. Posters and press ads and a full one minute expensively-produced television ad where a small community living by the sea ("Ah"), get up really early one lovely day ("Ah") and go to watch some nicely animated computer images of black horses pounding along the waves. The ad concludes with the adorably attractive young girl, who is pre-figured by some cunning close-ups as the leading character, stroking the neck of one of the horses, (probably the most darkly handsome but they all look pretty similar to me).

Lloyds slogan, often coupled with some reference to their exceptionally long history, is "By your side".

The good folk of Hebden Bridge will no doubt watch the TV ads with many a hollow laugh and curled lip. For it is in that town that Lloyds have decided to close their branch, the only bank branch surviving after others left and those who need physical contact with a bank must make a lengthy journey elsewhere.

There would be nothing much to jeer at if Lloyds actually carried out their business in a way that justified their slogan. But they don't. It is pretty clear whose side they are not on - the small towns and small businesses of the UK. And there would be no complaints from me if their slogan truly reflected their business values. "Quick bucks our speciality" or "Sod you, we're OK" come readily to mind. Don't forget this is the recklessly led institution that took over HBOS in 2008 and then required £20 billion of our cash to stay afloat. We, the taxpayers, are the ones who have been by their side and how richly we have been rewarded. [That last bit is to be said in a mocking, sarcastic tone, I should think: Ed]

Dr. Commuter helps ... Marks and Spencers

Yes, I'm sure we are all desperate to know the answer to this age-old stumper. What, indeed, makes Christmas, Christmas? A top level team here at Ramblings has been fully engaged with research into this most vital of questions for at least the last four seconds and I can now exclusively reveal their findings.

Our conclusive results are expressed here as succinctly as possible so that you can get on with the rest of your busy lives and not waste any more time scratching your heads, possibly failing to hear the phone with a last minute order that could mean make or break for your business and consequently being sacked, breaking up with your spouse and falling into a life of misery amidst the dustbins at the back of Ruislip station. Or does that sort of thing only happen to our editor? [It was only once and I'm over it now, OK? Ed]

The answer is:

a):   It's because of whatever we choose to do on Christmas
b):   Er, there's no need for a b because the a was so great*
c):   That's all folks

By the way, I have not bothered to screen the video that was packaged in the tweet shown above so I have not the faintest idea whether they managed to answer the question all by themselves and I couldn't care less anyway.

-*-*-*-

If you have any questions for Dr. Commuter please send them to the usual address. Terms and Conditions do not apply between now and Black Friday but we cannot undertake to do anything about your questions until afterwards, at which point they will apply again and with renewed force.


* With thanks to Rik Mayall from whom I have lovingly ripped off this line

Will They Never Learn?

I've written once or twice in these august columns about the blatant gap between the claims made for Artificial Intelligence and the reality, particularly when it comes to communications from web-based businesses to people like me. Or, in fact to me (I don't know what they send to people like me but it is probably similar). Prompted by no less than three dull emails received this morning I am prepared to return to this topic.

PayPal are keen for me to fill in a survey. The purpose is

to help us better understand your business and payment needs

I don't have any business needs that are any of their concern. I do not trade. They know this. Nothing I say can better their understanding because, to relapse into database terminology for a moment, if you add any number to null it is still null.

They are not offering payment for their estimated ten minutes of my valuable time, only the chance to receive a £5 Visa Virtual Reward. I have no idea what this is and the amount is hardly tempting so I am inclined to fill in a Virtual Survey rather than the real thing. Here we go.

Virtual Survey Question #1: May we ask you questions about your business and payment needs?
Answer: No.

My old friends TripAdvisor are terribly impressed with my ranking vis-a-vis the other researchers based in beautiful Ruislip (Yes, I managed to convince them I was not a resident of Crymych). I am, it seems, placed at number 34 in the list. I think this is jolly good and worthy of a glass of champagne but they are not offering to supply one, the miserable sods, Instead they want me to write another review and if I do - and my knees are still knocking at the prospect in offer - they will advance me to the glittering and hitherto unheard-of heights of number 33!  I will do my best but they will have to excuse my shaky handwriting.

And finally an electronic missive from Sainsbury's, a supermarket that Mrs C. and I patronise on a fairly regular basis.  With the strapline "Be the first to see our Xmas ad" it goes on thus:

To say thanks for shopping with us as much as you do, we've picked you out to see our new Christmas ad before tomorrow's big reveal on ITV at 7.45pm. So let us set the scene, then get watching - there's some behind the scenes footage for you to enjoy too.

If they want to thank me for being a regular customer they've got a bloody funny way of showing it. I dislike ads in general (as even casual readers of this blog might gather). As Sainsbury's know perfectly well from their records, there is a very high probability that I will do my Xmas shopping there. Only an adman could think that a Xmas ad could be a source of excitement. Only a stupid adman could think there was any point in advertising something to someone who is a regular customer anyway. I lack the words to describe someone who appears to think that giving me the opportunity to watch an ad before it is screened on TV is a reward for my long-term custom. Perhaps I might borrow the phrase used by one of the candidates in the current series of The Apprentice to describe the business acumen of one of the others - "Less than a frozen pea".

The Icy Hand of Fate

There's nothing like being reminded of one's mortality, particularly on a wet Monday morning, as Mrs C and I surveyed our garden after torrential rain the night before. It is often thought preferable to adopt a more optimistic, life-affirming approach to the start of a new week. This is not the philosophy of the admen (or perhaps adwomen, let's call them adpeople and move on) who advise a well known price comparison website. (You know the one, Examine the Muskrat or something). Instead, they have clearly made a serious effort to get the "Non-Sequitur of the Year" award by sending me an email with the strapline "Get ready for a winter of fun" and following this with the remarkable statement

Make sure your life insurance is in place today so you can enjoy all the fun that winter will bring.

 I don't really need to be reminded to get ready for fun. Fun is the very essence of the Ramblings household's existence. It's non-stop fun from morning until late at night and we don't stop just because the first snowflakes are falling. Far from it. The moment the roads ice up, flights are cancelled and the A & E departments fill up with flu sufferers, we are out there, driving over black ice, chasing dogs across frozen lakes,  going out without a vest on and all the other madcap fun things one does in winter.

So it was timely, nay, helpful, to be reminded that one could enjoy all this fun even more with a bit of life insurance. Then it really wouldn't matter if we died screaming as the car skidded across the carriageway into an oncoming gas tanker, or we lay coughing up our lungs in an overcrowded ward where the medicine had run out because it was waiting to be cleared through customs (thanks, Brexit). We could die happy because someone else would inherit even more cash than they would have done anyway (assuming the life assurance company paid out - presumably they would have get-out clauses that exempted them from any payment if the death was our fault, and doing anything fun-like in winter probably counts).

I suppose what the adpeople wanted me to think was "'Ere, hold on a mo, I was going to attempt the North Face of the Eiger in winter (again)  but I won't really enjoy it, scrambling up the Hinterstoisser Traverse in a blizzard and rocks raining down, not unless I've put some life insurance in place. I'll just be worrying myself sick instead. I'll take out a policy. There, now I can break my neck and everything will be alright, nobody cares if I live or die provided I leave them something to spend".

It would have been far more helpful had the email said something like "Don't take any stupid risks this winter. Avoid dangerous winter sports, Wrap up warm. Drive carefully (if you have to drive at all) and let's all be here for the spring". But then I wouldn't have panicked and bought life insurance, would I?

Anyway, let assure my correspondents that I am absolutely ready for a winter of fun, just as ready as I would have been without their reminder, in fact. And I look forward to a spring of jollity, a summer of festivity and an autumn of unrivalled entertainment. So that's that.

I'll just make a note of that

I have had my share of digs at Microsoft over the years. I keep trying to kick the habit - really, it's all down to will-power - but can you blame me for having another go when the following pops up on my Facebook feed?

If you don't know, the "Surface" referred to is a laptop computer but, as they say in one of my favourite films Airplane, that's not important right now. Let your mind boggle gently on the assertion that "Employees lose 76 hours a year looking for lost notes". It is so breathtakingly stupid that it deserves some serious analysis and could only have come from the same creative geniuses that gave us "The New Busy".

• The source of this information? Not given. 
• Who are these mysterious employees who spend so much time rummaging through filing cabinets, emptying waste-paper baskets and interrogating their innocent colleagues about who walked off with their precious scraps of paper? We don't know.
• Who do these people work for? What do they do? Does this "research" apply to farmers, bus-drivers, soldiers, shop assistants, factory workers, miners, coastguards, traffic wardens and TV comedians who present travel programmes? Or just to a few people who happen to work for Microsoft and who are unbelievably disorganised and poorly managed. (Sarcastic voice off: That would be the people responsible for Windows 10 updates, would it?)

This sort of stupid generalisation is neither true nor helpful. If it is meant to be some sort of average, then, given that "employees" has not been defined, it must apply to all employees worldwide. Which, given that the vast majority probably do not do much in the way of making notes (see some of the examples of occupations listed above) suggests that a small number spend an amazing amount of time scratching their heads and pondering why the Post-It they carefully stuck on their computer monitor is no longer there - hundreds if not thousands of hours a year. How on earth do they hold down their jobs? How did they get them in the first place? - Surely they would never have made it to the interview because they would have lost the note telling them where to go.

Perhaps the next advertisement could include the following.  Every statement is verified by the Ramblings Research Institute and absolutely not made up, honest.

• Employees spend 93 hours a year watching their computers boot up, display little blue circular things to indicate that the processor is too busy doing something else than to accept any commands from you and reading security updates that merely redirect them to webpages containing pages of endless gobbledegook about "security issues being addressed".
• Employees spend a further 35 hours a year reinstalling drivers that the latest Windows update has uninstalled, calling IT Support to find out why their network connectivity has gone down and throwing coffee mugs at the screens at yet another message asking them if they wish to trust a printer.
• Some employees waste an astonishing 114 hours and 18 minutes a year reading, gawping at and finally reacting with contumely to moronic advertisements by certain large firms who, unable to explain why we should buy their products clearly and simply, resort to invention and misinformation.