Tag: TV

Special Guest Post: 7 Reasons I’m Backing Us To Win The Ashes

Hello! It’s Wednesday, and regular 7 Reasons (.org) readers might be surprised to find a guest post here. But today is special. Because today is the day that The Ashes begins, and I can’t begin to tell you how excited the 7 Reasons team are by this. Well, I could begin, but I’d never be able to stop myself and we’d all miss the cricket while I babbled on and on. So, joining us on the 7 Reasons sofa today is Sir Straussy who has taken time out from his busy cricketing and tweeting schedule to explain why he’s backing us to win The Ashes. And by us, I sincerely hope he isn’t referring to the 7 Reasons team; that would be a disaster.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the England Captain are entirely his own and do not represent those of 7 Reasons (.org)*

1. It’s In The Toss. This is nothing new, but Ricky Ponting and I are tossers. We have to be. It’s in the contract. To be a captain you must be a tosser. And I am very proud to be both. So is Ricky. The difference between us is that, while I’m a good tosser, he’s a useless tosser. The stats don’t lie. Using the motto ‘tails never fails’ I have won 59% of tosses as England captain, Ricky has won a mere 49% in his role as an Australian tosser. And with the toss being so crucial these days, that 10% will give us the edge. But, I hear you ask, what happens if tails fails? Is that it? Shall we give up? Forget about this Test? No, certainly not. Again, let’s examine the stats, in the 41% of matches in which tails never fails has gone tits down, I have led England to victories 64% of the time. And as for Punter? Well, under his tossership, Australia have won just 30% of the Tests in which he has lost the toss. So, just remember, if my tossing goes wonky, don’t worry, I still produce results.

2. Younger, Fitter, Stronger. Assuming we go into the first Test with the team I want and Australia go into the first Test with the team I want, the average age of the England team is going to be twenty years lower than that of our counterparts. And even if Australia don’t go with Dame Edna Everage and Bill Lawry, our boys will still be younger on average. If the probable teams that have been bandied about in the papers for the last few days are to be believed, we’ll step onto the field with the average age of 28 years and six months. Australia will wheel themselves onto the field averaging 31 years. That age difference means we’re much fitter. Just take a look at our bodies. No one can tell me Dougy Bollinger is fitter than pin-up sensation Stuart Broad. Or Simon Katich is fitter than Brighton favourite Jimmy Anderson. Or podge-face Punter is fitter than the hairy-armed version of myself.

3. The Hair Apparent. According to the internet, the American writer, actor and comedian Larry David once said, ‘Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair, but a confident bald man – there’s your diamond in the rough’. He was talking about Matt Prior. The one player in world cricket whose surname inexplicably can’t be used with an O or Y to form a nickname.

4. Names. And talking of nicknames, should you wish to use ours on the Scrabble board we will score you an average of 9.5 points per player. That’s a staggering 0.9 points more than the Aussies. When you also throw into the equation that this includes the nickname-less Prior, it almost defies belief. How is this going to help us win the Ashes though? Well, it’s not directly, it was more an observation I made playing online scrabble with Lady Straussy. But it did get me thinking. Us English and South African-English just whack a Y on the end of a surname and be done with it. We then get on with the cricket. The Aussies though, well judging by some of the nicknames for their players, I imagine they spend a great deal of time in the middle trying to think of something wondrous. That must be why Haddin is called BJ, Bollinger is called Eagle, North is called Snorks and the 27 year-old new boy, Xavier Doherty, is called X. You need to concentrate on the game in this game, not faff around thinking of schoolboy nicknames. In some ways this is why I hope Usman Khawaja plays. Though I suspect he’s called Koala.

5. The KP Factor. With his Movember challenge nearly at an end – a contest Monty has dominated from an early stage – and his blindfold cricket ‘viral’ video for Brylcreem out of the way, KP now has the chance to concentrate on what he loves. And, talking about love, the other day the lads saw that the fat lad Warney had said KP needed loving again. So that’s exactly what we have given him. Lots of it. Aussie, watch out.

6. Midge. That’s the nickname of Mitchell Johnson, presumably because like a midge he has no sense of co-ordination. Anyway, he has vowed to make me crumble. Which is lovely. I’m looking forward to it at tea. But Midge has also vowed to make me suffer under a bouncer barrage. This goes back to the 2006/7 Ashes where I fully admit I got out hooking twice. Midge wants to exploit this perceived weakness. Given that I was caught behind four times in the same series, one could be forgiven to think I am far more susceptible to the one that pitches in the corridor of uncertainty and moves a fraction away off the seam. Mind you, Midge’s corridor of uncertainty is only slightly smaller than Steve Harmison’s, so perhaps that’s what he means anyway.

7. We Are England! To paraphrase Hugh Grant, ‘We may be an England cricket team, but we are a South African one too. A country of Allan Lamb, Basil D’Oliveira, Tony Greig, Robin Smith, Robin Smith’s brother. Nasser Hussain’s index finger. Nasser Hussain’s middle finger come to that. And a friend who bullies us is a Commonwealth country that wants to become a Republic. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to whip out my guns more often. And the whole of Australia should be prepared for that.’ Actually, it sounds much better like this.

*Unless he makes fun of Ricky Ponting or the French.

November 24, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons to Love Peppa Pig

It’s Saturday once more, and the 7 Reasons team are taking a day off to indulge their respective hobbies of eating tiramisu and…er…not eating tiramisu. Fear not though, for we leave you in capable hands. Strapping himself back into the 7 Reasons sofa, taking a firm grasp of the joystick and doing things that we don’t understand with flaps and ailerons is Richard O’Hagan: By day a mild-mannered lawyer, and by night a fearless writer, warrior, superhero and defender of owls (possibly). Here’s Richard.

I know what you are thinking – why is a grown man extolling the virtues of a TV show for the under-fives? Well, first of all, there’s the fact that it is one of the few kids shows that can be on in the background without raising my blood pressure to boiling point, just by being a steaming pile of old twaddle, such as In The Night Garden. Nor is it a complete rip-off of a fifty year old idea, like Chuggington. In fact, you can watch it as an adult and be far more entertained than you can watching any soap opera. There are many reasons for this, but here are just seven of them:

1. The Car Is Magic. Even better, the car is magic and no-one seems to realise it. Whichever way it is parked, the car is always facing the right way when it is next needed. And the steering wheel changes side according to which way the car is going. It is as if it has ESP. In fact, lots of things in this town have ESP. In another episode there is a campervan with an ESP satnav – you just tell it where you want to go and it takes you there. Adding ESP satnav to the magic car is the only thing that could improve it. It would also reduce the number of times that Daddy Pig gets lost.

2. Daddy Pig. Daddy Pig is some kind of idiot savant. He is guaranteed to be 100% wrong about everything. If you ever wanted to win the Lottery, just ask him to pick 42 numbers and you can guarantee that the winning seven will be the ones he didn’t choose. Similarly, if he claims to be an expert at anything, he won’t be. Curiously, he never claims to be an expert at civil engineering, which is his job – although on reflection this is probably a good thing.

3. Incest. How many other children’s shows deal with this? Yet where Peppa lives, there is only one of each species of animal. Either there is a huge amount of inbreeding or a lot of cross species experimentation (which would at least explain why the elephants are the same size as the cats). The only exception to this rule would seem to be Peppa and her brother George, who have cousins – which leads me to suspect that, despite the accents, the series may be set in Kentucky.

4. Madame Gazelle. Mme Gazelle is possibly the scariest children’s character ever. She is clearly some kind of witch, at the very least. She has taught everyone in the town, even the adults, without aging at all. She can play guitar equally well both right and left handed. She speaks with a Franco-Germanic accent and is, frankly, terrifying. I suspect she has a house with a very large and well-developed cellar.

5. Miss Rabbit. They say that men cannot multitask, but compared to Miss Rabbit no-one can. She sells ice cream, she runs the fire station, she mans the checkout at the supermarket and is in charge of the recycling depot. And that was just on Monday.

6. George Hates Peppa. Despite the facade of a very happy family unit, George actually hates his big sister. Every time he fantasises about something, it involves Peppa being eaten by a dinosaur. Frankly, after your three year old has watched every episode a hundred times, you will be having the same sort of thoughts

7. Serving Suggestion. And, at the end of the day, how many children’s characters tell you how to cook them?

The people behind Peppa Pig went on to make ‘Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom’, which is rubbish for at least another seven reasons.

October 16, 2010
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Write 7 Reasons While Watching The Football

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Ghana v Serbia, one of those games that I’m not desperate to see, but because it’s the World Cup I feel I should. So I did in the knowledge that it would also give me 90 minutes (plus half time) to write 7 Reasons. Easy.

1. The Girlfriend (Part A). She knows I’m watching the football whilst trying to write 7 Reasons. She asks me what the topic is. I say, ‘Darling, it’s 7 Reasons you shouldn’t write 7 reasons while watching the football’. She muses for a second, then replies, ‘Multitasking. Men can’t multitask’. I look around. She’s on the kitchen floor, watching the football, talking to me and cleaning a barbecue grill with a toothbrush. I feel admiration for my girlfriend. She can multitask with the best of them. But now I feel challenged. I must finish my 7 Reasons piece before Ghana finish Serbia. I don’t like the pressure.

2. Spelling. I spend more time concentrating on the football than on the page in front of me. This is dangerous, as when I don’t concentrate I have a habit of miss-spelling ‘tootbrush’, writing the incorrect version of ‘peace’ and adding multiple erroneous apostrophes. I also spell ‘eronous’ incorrectly.

3. Clive Tyldesley. Nothing is really happening in the game. Ghana have a throw-in just inside their own half. If I am ever going to get a chance to write something while watching the football, this is it. I look down. But as soon as I do Clive gets excited. I can only assume this is coincidence. I look up. Nothing is happening. Serbia have a goal-kick. I look down. Clive gets excited. I look up. Nothing is happening. I look down. Clive gets excited. I look up. Nothing is happening. I look down. I feel my neck. It’s beginning to hurt.

4. Immaturity. I see a player called ‘Panstil’. This amuses me. I spend ten minutes desperately trying to think of a joke that involves the word pants. I finally think of one. All I need is for Panstil to make a sliding tackle and lose his shorts. If he does I can say, ‘Lucky he’s still got his panstil’. I then realise this isn’t very funny. I note I still have a lot of growing up to do.

5. The Girlfriend (Part B). We are into the second half-time. The score-line reads Reasons Done 3 – Reasons Still To Go 4. My girlfriend – now attacking the grill with a brillo pad – asks what I’ve got so far. I read them to her. I wait for the laughter. It comes. Eventually. But then, so does, ‘You have a very strange brain’. I would have preferred her to compliment my shorts. I am wearing nice shorts. Clive gets excited. I look up.

6. Other Sport. Watching the football means I am missing all the other sport that’s on. I still am not sure which position Jenson Button is on the grid – and the F1 coverage has started on the other side. Nor, by watching the football, am I keeping up to date with the domestic cricket scene. I stop writing reasons for a minute. I also stop watching the football. I check cricket scores on my iPhone. I look around. My girlfriend is looking at me. I realise I am not doing much in the way of multitasking. Clive gets excited. I turn back to the screen. Nothing is happening. I have fifteen minutes to think of a final reason.

7. The Girlfriend (Part C). I am struggling to think of a seventh. My girlfriend asks me how I am getting on. I say, ‘Darling, I am struggling to think of a seventh’. She replies, ‘Well if you manage to think of a seventh I know that you can multitask. So next time the football is on you can peel some potatoes too.’ I am conflicted. She has just given me the seventh reason I shouldn’t have written this while the football was on. I have done it. I have proved men can multitask. But I have also proved why men shouldn’t multitask. Clive gets excited. It’s full-time. Ghana have won. And so has The Girlfriend.

June 14, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Watch Eastenders

A few weeks back, Claire Quinn talked to us about freckles. And why they rocked. So convinced were Marc and I by her reasons, that we popped outside to catch some rays. We’ve just come back in to find Claire back on the sofa. She’s watching Eastenders. So while she tells you why it’s great, Marc and I are going back outside.

1. Happiness. Ok I hear you… “Eastenders” and “happy” aren’t really words you ever hear in the same sentence. The deaths, marriage break-ups, screaming public arguements in The Queen Vic and the miserable bloody face of Billy Mitchell might have something to do with this. But on reflection, your life feels a whole lot better!

2. Fashion. Pat Butcher’s famous horrendously oversized earrings, Bianca’s silver puffer jacket, actually I can’t go on; the visuals in my head are causing too much pain. What I do realise though, is that I have impeccable dress sense. Thank you Eastenders costume designer person. Who needs Trinny and Susannah?

3. Money. Who can name me one family that owns their own washing machine in Albert Square? No? I didn’t think so. Neither can I. However, I do own one. Eastenders has made me feel rich!

4. Family. I don’t think it would matter how dysfunctional your family is, watching this soap makes your family feel positively normal.

5. Geographical Knowledge. I am an intrepid explorer! Well I am in comparison to the Enders lot… I mean, I know more than one pub to drink in, I have more than two choices of restaurant to dine in and, well, basically my life doesn’t revolve around 100 square feet. Which leads me nicely onto…

6. Employment. Not having to restrict myself to 100 square feet around my abode, I realise I have a much greater range of jobs to choose from. Thankfully, I am not restricted to market trader, hospitality worker or mechanic.

7. Dirty Laundry. No, I am not repeating myself. I am not talking about washing machines again. I am talking about personal information… Eastenders has taught me that airing your dirty laundry in public is NEVER a good idea. Why would you EVER humiliate yourself like that in front of all and sundry? If I didn’t want everyone to know that I think I am a cat, I wouldn’t start announcing it publicly… oh shit.

May 22, 2010
7 Reasons To Be Self-Employed

1. It’s 00:00 to 23:59, not 9:00 to 17:00. You can choose when you work. If you want to work at 3am on a Sunday morning then that is fine. You answer to no one but yourself. Unless you live with your partner and your computer is in your bedroom. They probably don’t want to hear you bashing one out in the middle of the night. An email I mean.

2. Social Media. To a normal boss in a normal company, the likes of twittering and facebooking are seen as distractions. To the self-employed though, they are vital tools of the trade. All self-employed people have a streak of the entrepreneur about them. They are always on the look out for ideas. Which is why conversation about ‘imaginary friends’ on twitter is classed as research.

3. Sport. A whole lot of sport happens during the day. Cricket, tennis, golf, baseball, The Olympics (all forms), various World Cups and World Championships. That is a heck of a lot of sport you are missing while working for some major conglomerate. Or the Co-Op. Not only do the self-employed watch all this sport, they all use it to their advantage. Watching Stuart Broad knock over Ricky Ponting’s poles doesn’t half motivate you. Okay, it motivates you to keep watching, but when the day’s play is over, then you are pumped to do some work. Or you will be after dinner. And the highlights. Actually, you’ll be ready at the end of the Test. But you will be ready. Just a shame the deadline has passed really.

4. Chores. They can be done at anytime you like. Cleaning the bathroom can be Monday at 10am. Food shopping can be Tuesday at 2pm. Having your haircut can be Wednesday at 11am. And if you are really lucky you’ll get the OAP rate.

5. The IT Department. Everyone in IT is a muppet. It’s official. They think you should know what SMPT means and how to locate the back-gate entrance for Microsoft Outlook. No one knows that stuff. I don’t even think there is a back-gate entrance for Microsoft Outlook. I think he was trying to make himself sound clever. The thing about working for yourself is that if something goes wrong you don’t have to phone someone up to ask them how to fix it. You can press reset and blow all the dust away from the back of the PC. And more times than not it works. Within minutes you are flying through the front door of Microsoft Outlook. In your face Sam in IT.

6. Tea-bags. You don’t have to share them and no one is going to steal them. They are yours. You can also have the brand and flavour you want. None of this value stuff, you can have proper tea from a proper tea plantation. Imported directly to you if you like. I get mine from Sainsburys.

7. Your Fee. It can be what you want it to be. If you want to charge £300 an hour, you can. You won’t get much work unless you are Pete Doherty’s solicitor, but that’s irrelevant. You can go around saying, ‘I charge £300 an hour’. Though when you end up working in the local pub you should probably stop. It makes you sound like a prat.

April 19, 2010
7 Reasons Australians Shouldn’t Make Television

1. The Weather. It must be quite easy to present the weather in Australia, it’s always “nice” there, so you probably don’t have to be too bright to do it. That would explain this weatherman being outwitted by a pelican then.

2. Wipeout Australia. In Britain, we have Total Wipeout, a programme in which pudgy, potato-faced middle-managers from Droitwich lumber around a ridiculous assault course. Wipeout Australia uses the same course, except everything is harder and the machines go at about five times the speed. The people they send around don’t seem any leaner or sportier though, that wouldn’t be any fun.

3. Skippy. In Britain in the ’60s, men whistled at attractive young women in mini-skirts. In Australia in the ’60s, they whistled at kangaroos. Still, they seem quite happy.

4. Advert. Halfway through, so it’s time for a break. Would you like one of these? It’s undetectable, you know.

5. Soaps. The bush, mushrooms, a mysterious pig, a flaming hand – it has to be a soap opera. Obvious, really.

6. Marriage. This sort of thing never happened on Richard and Judy.

7. The dream. Okay, you knew it had to turn up somewhere didn’t you? That classic Neighbours dream sequence which came out of left-field and astonished the audience. No, not that one, this one. The accents are spot on, by the way.

Okay, it’s time for an admission. I was wrong. All of this stuff is awful, yet somehow brilliant. I’ve had so much fun putting this post together that I’ve become convinced that Australians should make more television – perhaps even all of it. As long as I don’t have to watch Paul Hogan again I’d be quite happy. I might even buy a hairpiece.

March 2, 2010
7 Reasons To Watch The Winter Olympics

1. Primetime. This time around, the Winter Olympics are in Vancouver. That means it will be shown on the TV in the evenings. Assuming you are reading this in the UK that is. Watching sport on a weeknight evening is brilliant. It is what makes life so enjoyable.

2. We Might Win A Medal. And if we do, it will almost certainly be won by someone we haven’t heard of. In a sport we know nothing about. But come Sports Personality of the Year in December we will all be voting for her. Or him. Or them. Those of us who aren’t voting for Rory Delap that is.

3. Last Chance To See. The British Ski and Snowsport Federation has gone into administration. This could be the last time you get to see Great Britain represented at the Winter Olympics. History in the making.

4. Anthems. It gives us a chance to hear National anthems that we don’t normally in the Summer Olympics. The Austrian and the Swiss for example. I can’t tell you whether they are any good or not because it has been four years since I last heard them. But we’ll find out next week.

5. Curling. Despite being one of the earliest nations to have adopted widespread use of the vacuum cleaner, Britain is actually quite good at a sport that involves sweeping. Even more astonishingly, the captain of our women’s curling team is a teenager. Predictably, she isn’t involved in the sweeping, preferring to leave a big mess containing worn clothes, dirty plates, miscellaneous make up and cds without cases in the path of the stone.*

6. Commentary. The Winter Olympics provides commentators with the opportunity to commentate (naturally) on sports that they are none-too-familiar with. It gives you the chance to shout at the TV whenever they make a mistake. But there are also commentators who see it as an opportunity to make a name for themselves. They’ll try and make the sport far more exciting that is actually is. Don’t take my word for it. Watch this. And make sure you stay with it until 2:20.

7. Baring (sic) Up Under The Strain. I know everyone has seen this, but I can’t think of another reason. And I chose this particular version of the video because it is called, ‘bob sled chick rips pants and shows her ass in a thong…sexy’. Thanks jimni999
.

*This is not true, Eve Muirhead is bloody brilliant – and probably very tidy too.

February 12, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Be Able To Quote Eleanor Roosevelt

1. “There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands.” For use when your wife returns home from a bit of shopping, to see that you have tried to do the dusting as she asked, but you have just dusted around all the objects on the mantel piece. She doesn’t think this is a good enough effort.

2. “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavour.” For use when your friends ask you why you don’t just settle down and get a normal job instead of being the perennial dreamer. A man who longs to catch one hundred buses in one night would fall into this category.

3. “I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.” For use when you think that to make a sex joke funny you must include crude and vulgar language or demonstrations.

4. “Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyse may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.” For use when you are in Waterstones trying to work out what to buy your wife for her birthday. This should be enough to drag you away from anything that has Jordan’s face on it to something like Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About The Bike: My Journey Back To Life.

5. “Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.” For use whenever someone suggests you may be getting a little narcissistic. Or when you are fourteen and your Mum has just found a photo of Posh Spice under the mat in the bathroom.

6. “A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” For use when you are the producer of The World’s Strongest Woman.

7. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along’.” For use whenever you switch on the TV to find one of the following filling your screen: X-Factor/Britain’s Got Talent/The Persuasionists/America’s Next Top Model/Britain’s Next Top Model/Piers Morgan/Kerry Katona/Katie Price/Harriet Harman.

February 3, 2010
7 Reasons Not To Watch The Snowman This Christmas

1. It’s A Repeat. Every single year it’s on. And I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t get any better with each passing year. Not even HDTV has made it an enjoyable thing to watch. Which is such a shame really, because The Snowman himself is just about perfect. He is the only snowman I have ever seen who looks good in a hat. And I’m not just saying that. I really believe it.

2. The Song. A little known fact is that the version of ‘Walking In The Air’ used in the film is not sung by Aled Jones, but by choirboy Peter Auty. A more widely known fact is that whoever sings it, it is still bloody annoying. Oh, and another thing. You do not walk in air. You fly.

3. It’s depressing. I am not entirely sure why it is billed as a wonderful Children’s adventure. I mean, The Snowman turns into a puddle at the end. That’s as horrific a way to die as I can possibly think of. I know the writers did it to prevent him coming back in a dodgy sequel, but surely there are better ways. He could have been broken up for a snowball fight or something.

4. The Great Escape. Now, I haven’t actually looked at the TV schedule, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be on at about 3.45pm on some channel. The same time as The Snowman will be on on the other channel. The Great Escape is a far superior film. Its got tunnels and motorbikes and Germans and a character called The Big X in it. The Snowman didn’t have a name. Nor was he German.

5. It’s Mind Blowing. The film is completely hallucinogenic. I imagine this is the kind of thing The Beatles saw everyday when they were working on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Only it didn’t make The Beatles want to smash the TV screen with a tin of Quality Street.

6. It’s Wordless. I don’t know if you have noticed, but there is no talking it. There aren’t even bloody subtitles. It’s just 28 minutes of nothingness. The unrealistic nature of this is infuriating. If you were a young boy – as I once was – you would be saying something if a snowman asked you if you’d like to go for little flight somewhere. You would also have put gloves on. Holding a snowman’s hand without gloves on has to be the quickest way to hypothermia.

7. The Idents. This year it is sponsored by Iceland. (The place where no one’s Mum actually goes, as opposed to the country). It means you have to witness those bang-head-on-wall inducing adverts. Who would have thought that they could be even worse without Kerry Katona in them?

December 24, 2009
7 Reasons TV Adverts Annoy Us

1. Interruptions. Let’s start with the obvious. Ads interrupt programmes. And just when you are getting into them as well. Now you have to wait five minutes to see if the bloke is dead or not. Then you find out he isn’t and curse the show for being unrealistic. He shot him in the head for goodness sake.

2. Voiceovers. That famous bloke is doing the voiceover for a financial advert. You just can’t place the voice. You spend the whole evening trying to work out who it is. You can’t sleep. You are tired the next day. The presentation goes badly. You get fired.

3. False Advertising. Some of the claims that adverts make are quite frankly bollocks. Take Gaviscon for example. ‘Oh no! I have heartburn. I won’t be able to save the stranded hiker using my rescue helicopter. I know! I’ll have some Gaviscon. That’s much better. Now I can save lives.’

4. Michael Winner. If Michael Winner is not annoying enough, it’s his bloody stupid catchphrase, “Don’t worry dear, it’s a commercial”. Twat.

5. Dubbing. It’s an advert for some sort of grooming product. Probably a razor. Or Just For Men. The gaudy font clearly shows it’s an American advert, so why have they employed some Brits to dub over the top? And why does it never sync properly? It’s just very, very poor workmanship.

6. They’re loud. Because everyone knows we go to the kitchen during the break, the ads are 50db louder than the show you are watching. Naturally, you turn the volume down as the adverts start. When you get back in the room you forget to turn it up again though. As a result you miss the really important conversation that explains how Inspector Frost knew the murderer was the one with the wooden leg and the false eye lashes.

7. They can’t keep it real. Not all adverts are bad. The spectacularNicole and Papa ads for Renault Clio had the British public on tenterhooks. I don’t know how many Renault Clio’s were actually sold, but that is hardly the point. Nicole was fit. As this – one of the first ads in the series – proves.

As the series went on we fell in love. With Nicole, Papa and the Clios. So much so that 23 million of us tuned in for this – the final outing. But, of course, the advertising agency just had to ruin it for us didn’t they?

Reeves and Mortimer? What the hell were they thinking? A nation mourned and Nicole ended up working for Rover. She was made redundant in 2004 and now sells ice-cream from the back of a burger van.*

*This is not true.

I feel much better now. Amazing to think I used to be in advertising really

November 10, 2009