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

I wanted to make a comment about a McDonalds ad, but have been hinered by a fear of starting the next McLibel case!

Isn't it great how 'womens hygene' products seem to imply that once you've got that extra protection you've been waiting for, you'll DEFINATLY be wanting to take up all those extreme sports you've always wanted to...

and why is everything illustrated by furry creatures these days? like your 'inner you' and even your hair problems...it's stopped being origional and I don't want to get rid of cute little sprites and the like, I'd be quite flattered if one decided to live with me

Crumbs! Hello! What you doing up at this time of night?

I actually saw an amusing public information film (as they used to be known) about smoking related impotence earlier, with a couple of fingers holding a cigarette. The ash falls off towards the end in an amusing manner. Maybe I'm just easily amused.

I find smoking related campaigns rather distressing, as unfortunatly I am a smoker trying to quit. (althought the impotency one wouldnt cause me too much worry!)

I reckon the best yet is the ones about arteries clogging when the ash is fat and dripping all over them eeew! The new ones are just rubbish, oh dear a boy wont fancy me! as if thats the most important thing.

They've done studies and found pretty much nothing helps, so they're just pumping money into stop-smoking campaigns to pretend they don't really want the uge fat load of tax they get from smokers

sorry that was a bit of a rant!

I'm a smoker that's quit trying to quit (for the time being, anyway), & you're spot on about the revenue (how many times over do we pay for our inevitable hospital care?)

Bouncy: I think the one with the mobile phone conversation was about how you want a cheap connection so you can take your time. Rather than rush through it like they did in the ad.

Slightly off-topic, but a product seen today in Boots, Kings Cross Station:

Olay Regenerist Rehydrating Lotion. Amino-peptide complex, light moisture, £19.33 per 100ml.

Rehydrating lotion. Hmmm. That'd be a moisturiser then.

(They also do a 'Daily Regenerating Serum' at £35.00 per 100ml, if the lotion isn't expensive enough for you.)

Do people actually buy this stuff? (Don't answer that, it'll only depress me).

One set of ads that really gets me is the ones for nicotine gums and patches. In every one I've seen, the person trying to quit is a woman. This could mean one of two things. Either only women are sensible enough to want to quit, or only women need some form of chemical assistance to quit. However, I read some time ago that such 'aids' are of less use to women because of their reasons for smoking. I can't remember the whole article, but it seems that nicotine addiction is only one problem (and not always the main one) that women have to overcome when quitting, whereas with men it's the main problem.

I'm not convinced that patches etc don't work primarily through the placebo effect.

I noticed one last night where a woman is spraying herself with an aerosol to cool down. It's supposedly refreshing, and an experience not be missed according to the 'sexy wow' face she is pulling. To illustrate just how cooling the effect is, she sprays it over a camel to cool it down. The camel winks appreciatively. If all this wasnt rubbish enough already,when she sprays the camel, she is visibly upwind of it, and the vapor cloud contents of the spray go the other way and don't even get the camel.

Would ya believe it ?! I came to this thread to discuss the very same ad!

I was going to comment about this: the advert says something along the lines of the product 'cooling you and the air around you'. Correct me if I'm wrong but would it not be very difficult to create a liquid product that DIDN't cool the air in some way (assuming the liquid is RTP)? You could use the same reasoning to tell people to exhale more often as the liquid in the breath will have a cooling effect on the air.

Roymondo, nictoine replacement definitely kills the craving for nicotine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but rehydrating lotions / moisturisers just form an oily layer that stops moisture evaporating yes? And replenish all the skin's "natural oils" that have been lost, err, somehow. Would you not be better off just drinking more water?

And without the oily layer, moisture would still be able to evaporate and you wouldn't need any of these artificial cooling sprays either .

You'd be better off in the long run buying one of those squirty things used in the garden. I've been toying with the idea of getting one to cool down our pooches.

or, an even cheaper option, just go up to someone and ask them to lightly spit on you. Not neccesarily a full on flob, but blowing a raspberry with a little light spittle. And if this is too intimate a request to make to a stranger, then just ask family or freinds to do it* After all, who needs expensive air pressure cannisters when just a few good old salivatory glands and a bit of effort will suffice.

*nb we advise that you ask them wether they have just been chewing tobacco or eating fish before you ask them to spit.

Or ask them to yawn. You know how sometimes you get a little spray comes out when you yawn?

Or get a dog to lick your face.

roymondo, the nicotine patches and gum are nicotine replacement therapy. All they do is provide the body with a source of nicotine other than cigarettes. The advertisements make what is effectively a 'medical' claim - they have an effect on the user's nicotine withdrawal. Under British law, nobody can make such claims for a product unless the product actually fulfills the claim.

You are however still missing out on all the other chemicals in cigarettes you might crave.

I sit corrected! Having tried quitting before, it wasn't the nicotine that got me, it was the circumstances. Allen Carr reckons that the nicotine hit wears off after seven minutes (coincidentally, the same period as cocaine). I was fine all week 'till I got down the pub on the Friday, necked a few pints, and the willpower slipped. A fairly common problem, it seems.

The patches may well provide a relief to nicotine cravings but I reckon there is still a placebo effect in that you generally feel more equiped to face the lack of cigarettes, something to do with your hands wise etc....so i still think there is some element of the placebo effect going hand in hand with legitimate medical help