Monday, March 19, 2007, 11:54 PM
To get started, I have to mention thart fantastic Gary Larson cartoon in which an air passenger finds himself sat next to a buck-toothed nerd, and thinks "Dang! Why do I always have to sit next to some weirdo?". However, what the bloke can't see is that the empty seat to the other side of him is about to be taken by an enormous, long-faced ogre with wonky eyes and a crazed grin. It's a classic, and I like it so much that I was telling my sister about it, as we waited on board the late-night flight FR439 back from Hamburg for the weekend. To my left, the aisle seat was yet to be taken, and I was rather tempting fate by mentioning the Larson cartoon.As sure as night follows day, a man sat down in it and shut his eyes, thereby beginning an evening of high jinks, tension and absurdity.
First of all, he totally failed to even respond when the stewardess asked him to fasten his belt. He just remained there, immobile, as she awkwardly reached round him and fastened the belt for him, like a small boy.
But small boys don't wet themselves, and this man (dressed in clubber's gear, and well into his mid-thirties) promptly generated more than a little concern when a little dribble started to form on his seat and drip onto the floor. He was so wasted, that his passport slipped out of his hand and dropped into his piss.
They shook him, lifted his eyelids and took his pulse, and he barely responded to any of this. My sister and I were urged by the cabin crew to jump out of our seats and climb over him in order that he didn't block our exit in an emergency. You could have trodden on his knackers, and he wouldn't have reacted. We were moved to a separate part of the plane, and meanwhile, the cabin crew tried to revive him, mindful that his next act could be... well, anything.
Some people are so terrified of flying, or even so terrified of themselves, that their only way around it is to drink themselves into near-narcosis when they jump on a plane. But just in the same way that drunkenness can cost lives on the roads, a drunken, incoherent passenger on a plane can cost many lives if you have to get off in a hurry. Ryanair comes in for a lot of stick from various quarters, but its cabin staff are first-rate, and I see them dealing with thugs, weirdos, drunkards, hysterical women, agressive lads and disorientated old ladies week in, week out. These are little more than school-leaving boys and girls, and somehow they've been imbued with a steely calmness in the face of violence and idiocy. Regrettably, our comatose passenger will have woken up on Monday morning with very little idea of what he did the previous night, or indeed how his trousers ended up smelling of wee.
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Friday, March 16, 2007, 12:36 AM
Laying into mad and bland advertising is becoming a bit of an obsession, and I was stopped in my tracks by this duo of ads today. I mean, the thing behind this is that it is always being remarked that all cars these days look the same...
This pair of ads goes to show that the advertising guys have followed suit and ensured that all car billboards look the same. Come on, guys - this is billion dollar, planet-scorching business. Surely you can put more effort into it that this?
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Thursday, March 15, 2007, 12:33 AM
It was whilst marvelling at Boris Becker's full head of hair in a new German beer ad, that I realised that he held a remarkable resemblance to certain troll doll puppets that, like him, were highly popular throughout the eighties. I wonder if they could be in any way related?
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Friday, March 9, 2007, 01:20 AM
I'm sure many will have seen this, but I'd like to devote some compassion to the creature on the receiving end of this. I don't mean the female contestant.
This is an NBC programme (called 'Fear Factor' where people can win stuff if they do sick things. Up until this broadcast, African Cave-Dwelling Spiders were best-known for... um... dwelling in caves.
In Africa.
The Ronseal of the spider world.
Anyway, their global reputation takes a bit of a jump when a big show decides to award a woman a Ferrari in exchange for eating one of these animals. There are some economics at work here, but I am still trying to work the sums out.
Anyway, as you can see if you click here, she goes ahead and eats the poor spider, mutilating another in the process.
What baffles me is how we seem to have a moral menu when it comes to humane treatment of animals. If Ozzy Osborne chews the head off a bat (or a dove?) at a concert, it ensures outrage on a grand scale. But if it is a live insect, then it is okay, and fit for public broadcast - you can even drive off in a sports car. All I can think of when I watch this clip is how much better this spider would look in an African cave. I have to concede, it's not a particularly good-looking spider, which is probably why it doesn't venture out of its cave so much. But it's a sad day when the first time you learn of the existence of a species, it's being wolfed-down by a car-hungry gameshow contestant.
It would have been much better if she had had to eat a McDonalds Happy Menu.
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Wednesday, March 7, 2007, 11:55 PM
Now and again, they redecorate tube stations. You wouldn't believe it, but they do. The walls get stripped, tiles will be removed, and the ad boards get scraped back to the first layer. It's a routine thing that will happen once every few years, and most people will walk blindly by.
Here in Oxford Circus underground station, the workmen's efforts have reexposed a poster from the year 1991, presumably the last time that this area was renovated. Since then, at least 500 ad posters will have been plastered over the top of it, selling stuff like Britpop albums that no one cares about any more, fashionable frocks that are now polishing rags, forgettable chick-lit novels and hi-tech gadgets such as Minidisc players that are now totally obsolete.
You can tell the year by the film poster - My Own Private Idaho, which was the first time the general public was ever exposed to Keanu Reeves playing the enigmatic, brooding role which he then made his own. And sat behind him is River Phoenix, who would die a sad, futile death in LA's Viper Rooms 2 years later.
It's a peculiar, almost tender sight - this minor little advertising timewarp is visible for the day or so it takes to sort out the new decorations, and then someone will whack a new 2007 poster on there for some reality TV star's autobiography. We'll catch up in 16 years to see whether anyone still remembers or cares.
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