boreders

I just saw the GoCompare.com advert with the opera signer. Apparently, the character, called Gio Compario, the creation of veteran husband-and-wife advertising team Chris Wilkins and Sian Vickers, is intended to reclaim market-share from Comparethemarket.com.

I wander whether 20 years can dull the senses enough to make someone in marketing believe they have come up with an idea? Personally, I cannot fail to make comparisons with The Laughing Man from the classic, and fabulous, ‘Absolutely‘. A stereo-typically rotund opera singer, loud and in-your-face in the most embarrassing way possible. Hmm…

Seriously… Lost is either an act of pure insanity or utter genius. However, I may not be in the position to make a final decision until this time next year.

Almost as expected, watching the finale ended with cries of anguish as the screen went white and the logo appeared. I daresay we ended with yet more unanswered questions… Like who the survivors of the most recent plane really are, what Richard is, and why was Jacob ‘tagging’ people to come to the island. Also, what is so special about Hurley, who only seemed to get tagged to get him to return to the island?

Lock acquires a new layer of sinister significance, too – like he wasn’t a puzzle within a puzzle already! Is he some aspect of the island now – like Christian and Clare have become? Or is he just some weird vessel of that guy trapped on the island with Jacob in the past – and what exactly is the loophole he found?

Is (was) Jacob the Devil?

I’ve just been watching a new episode of Bones, and realized it isn’t very good. Oh, I like the concept well enough, the characters within the ensemble, the witty banter, and more than one of the actresses. However, I find the stories deeply unsatisfying.

If I watch a detective series, I want to stand a cat-in-hell’s chance of solving the crime myself, with or before the characters. I have found, of late, that too many episodes have murderers who were at best extras with a fleeting influence on the story or hinge on evidence so flimsy as to be laughable. In a recent episode where a guy died in a safari reserve, it turned out the killer was a nurse at the victim’s hospital we heard in passing 10 minutes into the story and then not again until the conclusion. I might need to review the content of the episode, but I’m sure there was nothing that would have allowed you to pin the crime on her from facts gleaned in the story. Really, I could be wrong, but if I’m not feeling satisfied, then it isn’t really working as planned. In the last episode, they listed dozens of substances that might have left a false positive on a forensic test, then latched onto pond scum – which linked the crime to one of three characters… Despite the fact one of the other substances being cleaning fluid. Daft!

I may just stick to reading the books… They seem to make more sense.

Watched ‘Lost’ on Sunday (22nd) and by the end I was shouting at the screen. It wasn’t quite disbelief… It might have been relief at the inevitable happening and just wondering where they’re planning on taking it.

I mean, if you came face to face with your nemesis in a situation where you had all the cards, would you – could you – take the advantage? And of that’s what happens here, will they fall foul of the Grandfather Paradox!?

After a period of lackluster storytelling, I’m thoroughly hooked again.

Rupert Galvin… Philip Glenister… Demons… American accent… WHY???

Seriously, Philip has a perfectly decent accent all of his own. I don’t mean DCI Hunt’s gruff tones, I means his own accent. So, why make him speak with a faux American accent, likely to put me off watching the series?

I find myself befuddled at the power of crap advertising. I’m sure most companies spend dissimilar amounts on advertising – some, like car ads, no doubt involve massive sums of cash falling into the hands of marketing people you wouldn’t care to share a meal with (for fear they might cause it to come back up again mid-way through). On the other hand, you would hope that the confused.com Internet insurance broker paid a reletively small amount – and just happen to have got themselves a winning formula.

I mean, the ads stink. Seriously. All that odd nonsense with 2-dimensional props – I don’t even know what that means. Does it mean anything? Perhaps, it means – we spend all our money on caring for you, and get a bunch of crayon-hungry orphans working for toffees do all the scenery work for our adverts. Also, what’s with the ‘Charlie Higson-a-like’ they have grinning and gurning his way through the recent ads. I’d rather have a quiet drink down the pub with the elephant from elephant.co.uk than that guy. You’d probably end up wanting to punch him a lot if exposed for more than 30 seconds at a time.

What works is the tagline, for some reason. “Con-fused-dot-com” or however you might render it in type. Suddenly, I find myself engaged in (and listening to) conversations where people feel the need to end their sentences with a “dot com” rather than a full stop. “Did anyone see that internal memo… I’m confused.com.” … “Anyone planning on doing the washing up… dot com?” … “I’m just off for a Number Two dot com.”

I’m not certain it’s necessarily selling more insurance, but like Micheal Winner’s “calm down, dear”, it has that catchphrase quality about it that allow it to linger on long after the adverts that spawned it have passed into oblivion. I’d be interested in seeing any studies about the phenomenon that might exist, and whether these catchy soundbites have any particular impact on behaviour.

Relevant reading:

In the distant past, Channel 4 provided an oasis of incredible alternative comedy that turned heads and raised smiles. In those days Vic and Bob were having a Big Night Out, Frank Skinner resided in My Blue Heaven, Robert Lindsey was funny in Nightingales and in the wee small hours of the late evening we could all take a trip to Stoneybridge and beyond (what beyond Mucker?) with the cast of ‘Absolutely ‘. Yes, yes – they did release a couple of vidos in the early 90s, while Mr Don and Mr George got their own series and a video of their own; but, it has been some 20 years since the series and no one saw fit to release the whole series for home viewing until now.

So, I shall certainly be buying this one. Too long have I waited. Memorable characters like the Little Girl, Frank Hovis (on the lavatory), Calum Gilhooley, and the grumpy old man (whose cry of ‘Arse’ preceded the plaintive cry of Unlucky Alf’s ‘Bugger’ by more than 10 years). Yes, it had ups and downs, but so did ‘Monty Python’. While ‘ethnic’ comedy has not necessarily worked since, ‘Absolutely’ seemed to transcend this with characters both lovable and loathable with a British twang and a Celtic brogue.

Anyway… before I make a fool of myself with more comments, I’ll leave you with a piece of unreservedly juvenile humour in the lavatory with Frank Hovis:

From Fox News Sunday, 10th February:

WALLACE: So, why do you think [Barack Obama has] gotten this far if people don’t know what he stands for?

BUSH: You’re the pundit. I’m just a simple president.

You couldn’t summarise Bush a great deal better than that…

Suicide bombs. Unrest in Chad. Public sector pay cuts. And Holly Willoughby’s cleavage. I had to raise them again, because another tabloid did yesterday, with another front page picture and a claimed plethora of complaints. To be honest, Holly wore a nice dress with dropped frontage, but nothing eye-watering… nothing like Jodie Marsh’s number from ‘The Mirror’ last week.

Quite why this poor woman has drawn such ire from the press beggars belief – I mean, these articles question her judgement and highlight the distress she’s causing (to about four people)… while selling more papers with some nice colour photos. The paper noted that Phillip Schofield complimented Holly on her dress as a veiled reference to all the media coverage and that Holly appeared to look down towards her cleavage as if acknowledging what he co-presenter really meant. To me, the picture looked like Holly had decided to refer to her script in a moment of amnesia bought on by embarrassment.

Of course, you know if she comes on next week dressed in a burka, she’ll still get a couple of pages coverage in all the gutter press…

I was less than shocked to discover today that The Mirror has managed to stretch out Holly’s cleavage to a further day of discussion with a 2-page article discussing the right and wrong amount to show in public. Obviously just a chance to show a dozen or more pictures of celebrities in flesh revealing dresses, from the tasteful and currently highly popular Angelina Jolie to the utterly deranged and hardly dressed Jodie Marsh. With death in Kenya, incompetence and nepotism in Parliament, and street violence on the rise in the UK – you can see why women and their breasts demand so many front page inches.