When I was little, there was an ad on TV for a product called Tarn Off. It was a bottle of cleaning fluid, and in the ad a glamorous lady in a lovely blue dress had a pile of tarnished jewellery and what not, and she would dip each item half into a bowl of Tarn Off, and hold it up to show the half clean, half tarnished brass coaster or whatever. I ( Read more... )

This week: I have struggled, nay, soldiered on with a cold. Monday and Tuesday I was the sickest person in the world. If that was a real competition, I'd have been given a trophy. A bronzed box of tissues, say, or a giant perspex lozenge. Thursday and Friday, meanwhile, were wretched filthy hot: aggressive dry furnace heat that knocked you down ( Read more... )

Daytime advertising during the Winter Olympics continues to entertain. This particular one has been around for ages. I haven't seen it for YEARS. And yet, here it is to bemuse the casual luge watcher.

Click to view

Eyes should not be there. Any of those theres. Honestly, if any of your underwear-wearing parts sprout eyes and starts singing and dancing, see a ( Read more... )

There are still a few weeks of summer, but autumn arrived about four this morning with a great gust of wind that flapped my bedroom curtains and blew the bins down the street. There's a change in the air ( Read more... )

The December TV guide arrived yesterday. It features an advertisement for a book called Grandma's 1001 Uses For Baking Soda and Vinegar, which is a fairly self-explanatory title, I feel. The advertisement tries hard to build a bit of mystery, though. It says:

You'll discover:

• How to kill small tree stumps with these simple ingredients.
• What will ( Read more... )

Update 1: It turns out asking the public to name machinery doesn't always result in Boaty McBoatface. This tale of a competition to name two gritting machines is absolutely gripping ( Read more... )

I planned to write about what a delightful time of year this is. End of winter citrus season, start of summer stone fruit season. Mandarins and nectarines, my two favourite fruits, in my fruit bowl at the same time. What could be better ( Read more... )

Something I enjoy about this time of year: not the Innovations Christmas catalogue (well, I mean, yes, I do enjoy it, although this year's was just average, with no outstandingly nonsensical items), but The Store's Christmas advertisements. Not because they're particularly good, mind. They're just regular ads.

( Judge for yourself )

I have a new, system-generated password for some software at work: CorpMan. I feel like a superhero ( Read more... )

I am toothless. I mean, not completely toothless. Upper wisdom toothless. The dentist took one look at it yesterday and said, 'Oh yes, that will have to come out,' and then he took an X-ray and then he took the tooth out. No messing about. Just a delightful cracking sound while he worked on it. I thought it was quite quick (I was in and out in half ( Read more... )