Times a-changing

A lot of things have been changing lately.

First off, I've moved into my flat. Yes, I've made the move to the suburbs! My drive to work consists of 20 minutes of winding country lanes and lots of trees. Lovely. And on my way home, the same pheasant crosses the same road at the same every day. We're becoming friends.

I think I'll name him Barney.

Anyway. Much more importantly - Pizza Hut is rebranding to Pasta Hut. What's that all about?! Is this really a good idea??? In an attempt to answer this truly global question, The Schizophrenic Hut is running a poll on their website to find out. Current votes stand at 29% loving Pasta Hut, and 71% clinging onto Pizza Hut.

I have a feeling this might all be some cunning marketing ploy to get our attention. They'll change back to Pizza Hut. You'll see. It's a classic case of Choco Krispies - and we all know we'd all rather have a bowl of Coco Pops (boom boom).

The Kellogg's Special K Overdose

The Kellogg's Special K Challenge has been bugging me for a long time - so I think a rant is long over due.

You must have seen the adverts encouraging you to get 'Slimmer for Summer'. If you haven't, I'm sure if you settled down to watch Loose Women or Home and Away, an ad will no doubt grace your screen.

Of course, with summer looming (actually, apparently it's here already - who knew?!) we're being bombarded with self-tanning, travel insurance and feel-good fitness ads left right and centre. Annoying, yes. But to be expected.

But the Special K Challenge is annoying for a different reason. To give you a quick summary, the challenge is to lose 1 inch from your waist in a mere 2 weeks. What a challenge, you cry! But you're wrong - it's not a challenge, it's a hoax!

I could accept the challenge if you had to tone up by exercising and eating healthily - that sounds reasonable to me. But all Kellogg's want you to do is eat their cereal for 2 out of your 3 meals in a day. So for a whole two weeks, instead of eating 28 meals (lunch and dinner) and 14 breakfast meals, you will now eat 28 bowls of Special K and 14 regular meals. And don't worry if you get bored of all the cereal, you get to break your meals up with 2 great tasting Special K snacks every day!

In the words of Alf from Home and Away, 'What kind of kangaroo court is this?!'

Of course if you substitute a proper meal with toasted rice flakes you're going to lose weight. It's really not rocket science. But in case you're not convinced, Kellogg's has even provided us with a 'science' section just to prove that it IS legitimate, it is, it is!

At least Kellogg's will always have the Crunchy Nut ads...

What do a couple of sirs, a prof and a feminist all have in common?

They've been paid loads to promote NS&I:



*yawn* what a boring advert. But let's face it, savings and investments aren't really that exciting.

You've got to admit though, what better way to endorse your product than to get Bob Geldof, Germaine Greer, Stephen Hawking and and good ol' Alan Sugar to give you the thumbs up?

The only shame is that those four have possibly lost a smidgen of credibility along the way...

Brains perform best when they're hydrated

A stroke of advertising genius:

Difficult is worth doing

And the Honda TV ad has arrived on YouTube:

The Power of Dreams

Wowzer! Did you just see the Honda TV ad just now on Channel 4? Abso-bloody-lutely fantastic!

I read about it in the Metro this morning, but all it featured was a column advert stating something along the lines of 'Tonight. Channel 4 at 8pm. Difficult is worth doing'. So I was intrigued, but had long forgotten about it come five past eight.

Then lo and behold, I'm in the middle of watching Come Dine With Me (love it!) when a bunch of red jumpsuited people fell out of a plane in Spain and spelt out the letters H O N D A respectively as they plummeted back down to ground level. And it was all live!

A massive risk take there, but as Honda says, difficult really is worth doing. The ad isn't available on YouTube yet, but I'm sure it will be soon! If not you can apparently watch it again on the Honda website - if it hasn't crashed yet.

Genius! Well done Honda.

Together for London

If you're a Londoner, you've probably noticed these friendly faces dotted around the Underground:



Aren't they cheery.

These characters are part of TFL's 'Together for London' campaign which was launched in Feb earlier this year.

TFL is asking us to stop and think about how considerate we are as passengers. I can save you some time pondering, if you do any of these things - you're not.

To be honest, I'm not too sure how effective this campaign's going to be. I mean, if you're the kind of person who won't offer your seat to a pregnant lady, you must be pretty mean. Is a little cartoon character with a big smiley face and a t-shirt saying 'I will offer you my seat', really going to make you see the error of your ways? I think not.

Bring back tomato throwing that's what I say.

A round up of Stuff

The last time I blogged it was March. Now it's April. Where is the time going?! Before you know it, it'll be crimbo again - although it has been a bit confusing what with the snow and it being officially British summer time and all. Let's get this global warming show on the road people.

A lot of things have happened since the last time I blogged, so it's time for a quick round up:

• The BBC discovered that penguins can fly.


• Virgin and Google joined forces, to become...yep, Virgle (nice). And in a joint effort, gave us the opportunity to become a 'Virgle Pioneer' and set up home on Mars.


• The second episode of the Apprentice was on. But unfortunately I didn't get to watch it because Grand Designs was on at the same time, and a certain person, whom we shall call 'StickBoy', wanted to watch it. I'm not bitter.


• A Glass and a Half Full of Happiness has brought us the next Cadbury's TV ad full of airport truck fun. Oh to be an airport truck...
  
  
  
  If I have to have Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now' permanently stuck in my head, so do you.


• The tube strike was on. Then it was off. Leaving us all disappointed that we couldn't 'work from home' in our PJs with Trisha and Jeremy Kyle on in the background to remind us that it's really not that bad having a job.


• Channel 4's Vanity Lair is now over. Genius reality TV: put a bunch of 'beautiful people' in a house and get them to vote on who's most attractive. Ten gripping weeks of 'I'm more beautiful', 'No I'M more beautiful'. I only caught one episode, but I think it was the best one. The housemates decided to strip themselves of all make up and hair products to show just how beautiful they really are. In one contestant's words, 'to push themselves to the max of attractiveness'. Hahaha, like I said, genius.


• And of course loads of other important stuff too.

And the winner is [drum roll please] ...

Car Giant (smug man)!

Yes that's right, you (well all 12 of you) voted the smug Car Giant man more hated than Kerry Katona in her straight jacket - and let's face it, that's no easy contest.

It was neck and neck for a while, then Car Giant nipped ahead with an extra vote - and in the end won with 7 votes to 5.

Thanks for voting! More highly important polls coming soon.

Kerry Katona: JUST PLAIN CRAZY

I am disturbed.

All I want is a peaceful journey to and from work every day (ha) - is that too much to ask? But recently, on every wall and round every corner on the Underground, I'm greeted with this:


Hideous!! It's the ad for her new reality tv show 'Crazy in Love' (they make it far too easy don't they?)

Give me Car Giant Man any day!

...and just when you thought your Monday couldn't get any better...

Here he is:



Although I don't think this image quite conveys the full extent of his pouty smugness. Look out for him on the tube. And try not to hit the advert when you see it.

Smug Car Giant Man

I've searched high and low (Google image search) for a pic of the oh-so-annoying Car Giant ad that I saw waiting for my tube on the platform this morning.

But alas, it's not to be found.

Have you seen it? Smug man, complaining about 'the wife', wants to take 'the girlfriend' for a weekend in Paris 'tweet tweet'.

Argh. I think I'm going to add him as number 11 to my list (see below).

But let's face it, you suck smug man because you have to shop at Car Giant.

Diet Coke Plus ... vitamins?!

Indeed. Did you know that? I didn't.

I just saw an advert for it on tv yesterday. Whatever will these commercial giants think of next? Before you know it, there'll be fruit in your Happy Meal.

Oh wait. There is.

I guess with their sales plummeting, Coke had to think of something to get on our good side (especially after that whole Dasani episode which did them NO favours back in 2004. And let's not even get started on Coke Zero...)

Don't be fooled kids, they don't care about your health - it's all about the mula...

Stop looking at my bottom

You know, I don't think I've actually ever sipped on a delightful (or so I hear) Innocent smoothie before - but I sure do love their marketing!



One of their latest online competitions is to write something funny to go on the bottom of their bottles. The rules are:

• Messages must be 40 characters or less.


• Spaces, hyphens, apostrophes and stuff all count as a character.

I don't really think much can beat the one they have at the moment:

"Stop looking at my bottom"

But nonetheless, I have tried. Here's a few of my entries:

Hope my top's still on
Go on. Take my top off. You know you want to.
Mooooooooooo
Glug Glug Glug
My god's a greengrocer

Their 3 favourite will be used on millions of their bottles. So get in there and submit your entry.