h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for all your replies and comments. I think we are still a long way off publishing the book!
Another one I discovered was the name of a local builders skip company Barney..............wait for it..........Rubble!!
I would put one of those smiley face things in at this point but am still not totally au fa^ with the technology, Or my French quotations come to that. Pherhaps there lies in another collection???????

At the age of fifteen (nearly 30 summers ago) I was walking up the path to school behind my chemistry teacher. He was singing, 'If you tune into your radio station, you must make sure it's Radio 1. Much more music, much more fun - Radio 1!'

You can tell I was traumatised - I can still remember it!

The slogan that's really geting up my snout at the moment is that one for headache pills that starts, 'Trains, 300 miles per hour! Mail, 300,000 miles per second! Things are getting faster all the time!' Or something like that. What the hell are they on? It's complete poo, so far as I can tell.

I'm not altogether convinced by, 'Red Bull gives you wings,' either.

Incidentally, Researcher 185825, if you put something on your personal space by clicking on the 'edit page' button and writing some stuff, then you can receive visitors who will leave you friendly messages. You can give yourself a nickname too, if you like, by clicking on 'preferences'.

If you want to play with smileys, just click on one, like this one - - and you will be magically transported to their home!

If we're including company names, there's a light goods vehicle hire company somewhere around Yorkshire called "Van Gough".

Car slogans:
"Handles life beautifully."
"Live the dream."
"Live it."

Sorry, I don't know which companies they're from and I'm sure there's more.

There was an ad hording which astounded me about 15 years ago, it showed a picture of a young black kid, wearing a scrapy t-shirt, no shoes, carrying a ghetto blaster on his sholder, in the desert standing between the tracks of a vehicle which passed by in the rainy season leaving two deep tyre tracks the ground now baked hard. The slogan said "He only knows three words of English: Micheal, Jackson, and Uniroyale".

The presumption that he should know any English at all is a bit shocking, but anyone who's aware of Uniroyal's cv in the 3rd world (Bopal for example) can see what bad taste it was in. Unbelievably tacky. It only took a week or two before all the posters in town had been altered by some naughty soul to read "He only knows three words of English: Yankee Go Home".

So are you trying to tell us that it was you who did it ? If so, then here's a great YOWSA!! GOOD JOB!! for you.

I the mid80's, there was commercial on German TV for butter. Not for a particular brand of butter, but just for butter generically. They sang an aweful song that culminated in the line "Das ist echte Butterfreude" (translates as "this is real butter joy"). For whatever that meant...

Yelbakk

Somebody's already mentioned L'Oreal's 'Because I'm worth it' slogan. I notice that this has changed to 'Because you're worth it'. The original slogan always made me look at whichever celebrity was doing the ad and think, 'Because *you* can afford it!'

On the subject of trains, the old 'We're getting there' always made me add, 'Late!'. And there used to be a poster ad for 'Yorkie' chocolate - 'What do you call someone who takes it more than one chunk at a time.' The answer was 'Sir', which I always wanted to paint out and replace with 'Bigmouth!'

"The slogan that's really geting up my snout at the moment is that one for headache pills that starts, 'Trains, 300 miles per hour! Mail, 300,000 miles per second! Things are getting faster all the time!' Or something like that. What the hell are they on? It's complete poo, so far as I can tell."

I trust you're thinking of the radio advert. It's "athletes are getting faster all the time" and isn't it stuff about email and faxes before? It's a dreadful advert, anyway.

"Athletes are getting faster all the time" - that's right, I'd managed to suppress some of the detail. It's on TV as well.

It sounds as though the advertising execs sat down and said - 'Hey , let's think of some stuff that represents speed'. And then they just took 3 things at random and stuck them together.

It's so banal and vacuous, it drives me potty!

'Maybe she's born with it.. maybe it's [insert cosmetics company here]'

Really gets on my proverbials.

Especially cos they sing it with those high voices.

'Think Broad' - a certain cable companies new slogan. I hate it already, and it hasn't been launched yet.

One company name that amused me when I first saw it, but is now wearing thin:- "Walter Wall Carpets".

maybe she's born with it-- then again, maybe she spent three hours in Makeup and Costumes in order to look like that.

I have a deep-seated dislike of any commercial, whatever the slogan, that tries to suggest that I *must* wear make-up (to be more attractive, more successful, more glamourous, whatever). And how can they say 'Maybe she's born with it' when they're advertising lipstick or nail polish? Nobody's born with lips or nails that colour!

yes, it's like they're saying, "you're ugly and a deadbeat. but, if you smear goop on your face, you can change all that!"


what about that one that goes(or something similar), "you've lived with messy roommates and a nowhere job. you've even learned to live with your own cooking. but you *don't* have to live with furniture that has more of a history than you do." i know i've got the wording all wrong, but the general message is the same....

'WAHHHHHHHHOOOOOOO BOOOODDDDDYFOORM - BODYFORMED FOR YOOOOOOOOUUUUU'

I hate that too. Simply because it's so damn loud...

1. If I am worth it, then I would buy something a lot better than the stuff advertised.

2. If I was born with it, then I wouldn't put on make up.

Hence, for those who really do look as they say, they won't need their products. Thus the rest of us must be all really ugly, not worth it without the slap, and genetically unfavourable. Thus I must be a waste of space without - and with, I can only aspire, and not be, for when it comes off at the end of the day, there is the real, not worth it, born with nowt, face.

I'll go and kill myself now. In a completely humane fashion, of course

you don't have to play ads backwards in order to hear terrible messages in them....

A radio ad in regional Western Australia:
"Choosey carpet choosers, choose at carpet choise"
re: post 25
Jim, it was the Union Carbide plant that blew up in Bopal

Rod

U-Haul-- Adventures in moving

i don't *want* an adventure when i move....