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

You've got it one Cafram. Oh and you mentioned the worthers original advert. I find I can't help half expecting either the police show up a take the kid back to his real family and the old guy back to the home, or the kid to choke on a worthers cas they are so damn slippery when you try to eat them. I bet he didn't feel like a "very special person then".
Also the persil ads are god awful. They are meant to seem like real people explaining how good persil is. It comes over all wrong and set up though. Its a tragedy really. These products could be brilliant but thier ad campaign does more harm than good.

There's one add, a phone add of some sort, that's been left in 'American' mode - it is SO much better than any add that's ever been dubbed.

It's like they think that we won't notice!! Most of the shows we watch have American accents anyway, so it's not like stuffing up the adds to be UNlike the shows is going to do any good.

Maybe they think the difference will grab your attention?

But it's SOOOOO annoying!!

Hey.. I -never- said they were smart.

I think this has some bearing the government - British I mean - banning most cigarette adverts except in certain places i.e. magazines. The idea behind it was that without the advertising less people would smoke. But the fundamental flaw in that is that it would only work if the number of people who knew about smoking decreased. And you can't achieve that by banning advertising. I started smoking without seeing cigarette adverts so its difficult to believe that it would work on other people. If you want to smoke then you will whether there are adverts or not.

They pulled the same thing here, and went one step further by even banning the use of color ads in magazines... They must be black and white so as not to grab the eye. Now, in a country where it's illegal to interfer with competitive capitalism, I'd say they'd overstepped their bounds... But as long as ... *ahem* ... special interest groups are running the government, the rights erosion will continue.

"in a country where it's illegal to interfer with competitive capitalism"

Can you buy Crack over the counter now, then? No? Then I guess market forces aren't quite allowed to run rampant.

I don't think, when the founding fathers talked about inalienable rights, they were talking about the right to full-colour advertising.

"They can take away my web-offset press if they pry it from my cold, dead hand."

Crack is illegal. Cigarettes are not. No other industry is held to the standard that they are not allowed to use colour in their ads. I still see pretty wacky, colourful advertisements for alcohol... depicting how it's okay to throw away your pager when the boss calls and miscellaneous other things that aren't normally acceptable from people -without- booze in their system.

If you want to argue from that perspective, there are also regulated industries (and used to be more before the deregulation faze set in). The tobacco industry and smokers are being singled out for discriminating restrictions in many areas, and quite frankly cigarettes haven't killed half as many as alcohol (check the statistics for fatal drunk driver accidents). Not to mention the fact that, despite all the current protestations to the contrary, the evidence they've killed -anyone- is mostly conjecture. Quite frankly I'm a firm believer that -research- causes cancer in lab rats.

Besides... When's the last time you heard someone use, "Hey, I was smoking. I didn't know what I was doing," for an excuse?

This might be purely coincidental, but I've been listening to a tape of Bill Hicks, and he says pretty much the same thing, only he's funny with it. What you watch, hear or ingest is nobody's business but your own as long as you don't harm anyone else. I agree, so I would remove all restrictions on tobacco advertising, as long as smokers take out adequate medical insurance to cover the costs they are likely to incur. Then again, it could be argued that the duties payable on tobacco more than covers the necessary medical contribution. Do what you like folks. But please don't do it near me. Whenever I have smokers blowing their putrid shit into my face, I get a deep urge to throw them to the ground, sit on their head and fart up their nose. Share and share alike......

You too, eh?

I will *never* let a Bounty kitchen towel in my house! And as for "The Most Desirable Corolla Ever" - well, first of all they meant the *first* desirable Corolla, and second they were lying anyway!

This also accounts for the reason why it is difficult to listen to classical music in the car: too much dynamic range. It's either miss the quiet bits or have your ears blasted off by the noisier passages.

Personally I have my ears blasted off by the noisier passages. What's that you said?

The same thing happens when you try and listen to radio 4 in the car. For example your trying to listen to oh I don't know...The News Quiz and you turn it up really loud because you can't hear what anybody is saying. Then when the applause comes at the end of the round you nearly bury yourself in the nearsest embankment from the shock of how loud it is.

I feel the same way when someone walks by me smelling like they came out of a bottle. I'm not refering to alcohol here, but perfume. I could never understand why people go to so much bother to cover up the natural scent of the human that they are (supposedly). They bathe in it, slather it over them in layers, and think they're doing the world a favour. Considering that I'm so allergic to it that it makes me physically ill to smell the crap.. erm..

Okay.. I'll shut up now.

I don't have this problem, partly because I prefer I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and partly because R4 is usually transmitting the World Service by the time I come home. Unless it's got round to the Today programme. That really is depressing, getting John "Mr Smug" Humphrys on the way to work and again on the way back.

Oh, I don't know. A bit of grilled politician, prepared by Mr Humphries, on the way to work in a morning can really set you up for the day. I laughed my ass off when he disembowelled Harriet Harman.

There was an experiment done when the advert for the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate™ was aired only in one region of the country. Sales of that product incresed relative to those in areas of the country that were not shown the advert. There will always be daft people who consciously do what adverts tell them but even if we don't like it we'll remember the name and the tagline from even the worst adverts. Quick test to show that bad adverts are as effective in this area as the good ones: What or who is at the heart of communication?

Not the same, though, since Tarzan left the scene

Some good fun this morning (14/9/99). The esteemed JH had some of Lord Robertson, the Defence Secretary. You know the kind of thing:- we're sending 200 troops to help in East Timor, and they may well end up facing weapons sold to Indonesia by Britain. What do you think of that, M'Lud?

I just wish that they wouldn't use really appalling situations like this to score political points. Maybe I'm just a naif.

It really is appalling

(c) Prince Charles, used without his permission