Laughing Babies

The laughing babies caught me again today.

Every time I see it, I resolve to calm myself from the hilarity, but I just can't do it, it gets to me every time. I'd like to employ a baby to laugh all day long, just to cheer me up, wouldn't that be good?

In other advertising news, I wish Kevin (or whatever his name is) from Autoglass would sod off. Yes I understand the need for sorting out your chips in your windscreen, so that you don't get met by smashing glass next time you pop to Tesco, but do you really need to be told 15 times during the course of a morning. I think you don't. I'd rather have the glass smashing all over my face than have to watch Kevin and his smug face again telling me that in most cases it's free. Good for you, Kevin.

We've also decided that we like the Impulse advert - specifically the 'our fling doesn't have to be a weekend thing! It can last one, maybe two more!' - you've got to appreciate honesty like that, although I will admit I'm not sure what spraying Impulse is going to do to sort out the romantic situation, I wouldn't have thought most men appreciated a blast of Impulse in the face, but you know, some people are weird like that.

Is there anything else I can say about adverts today? Oh - Hannah pointed out that in the latest NatWest advert, the branch featured is the Swansea branch, so that's something for you to look out for isn't it folks!

Anyway, enough of my advertising round up - I'll try to do more than one post a month in future...

x

Revealed: The Real Reason Heath Ledger Died

When you think about it, it's obvious isn't it.

She might only have a five second part, but that's all it took.

It's all part of the Mandy Richardson curse. Stay away from that one.

Diary of a Media Cynic

As we all know, I've been a professional cynic since pretty much the moment of conception (my heart's not in it though).

My number one cynical observation of the media has to be my stunning critique that the reason they don't want us to study it (and so deride it so often) is because they don't want us to know what's really going on, and bring them crumbling down. Hey they've got to make money haven't they, and if we all know what's really going on, then maybe we won't buy their papers.

I, for one, don't buy so many papers anymore because I'm of the belief that there's a global paper conspiracy, and that if we consume too much newspaper ink, we're all going to die. And that's a fact. It must be, because I read it in the Daily Express, and we know how great they are, really.

So from now on, I've decided to keep a diary of all my cynical observations and let you lucky, lucky folk here at blog central read it. You can feel all naughty for reading someone else's diary (which I'm told you're not supposed to do, but have always found the rule very boring) and I can take some joy in deriding the world. Well let's face it, as a cynic, there's not going to be much joy felt, but that's OK, it just gives me something else to complain about.

That's all for now folks, keep media savvy, but above all, don't trust anything.

A foray into feminism.

Inspired by the debates of Tuesday and the fact that I am within a few metres of someone actually writing a feminism essay, here are my thoughts (along with some other's) on the topic of the feminist and anti-feminist reading of Sex and the City.

Because I'm not writing an essay, and because I probably should be doing some work instead, I would like to present the following thoughts for your delectation as bullet points, summised into pro and anti-feminist readings:

FEMINIST

- All of the women are successful in their careers. In this sense sometimes this is portrayed as over the top - like we are supposed to believe Carrie's lifestyle on the back of one column a week.

- All of the women live or at some point live on their own, independently rented or owned apartment.

- Despite the several boyfriends/husbands they get through in the time, they always come back to the female friendship group, which is the most stable relationship of all.

- They are shown to have a fairly male attitude to sex in some episodes, especially Samantha, viewing it as outside relationships for instance.

ANTI-FEMINIST

- Although Carrie is successful in her job, her writing is ultimately defined by men.

- They are presented themselves as being very much defined by their relation to men, relationships are very important to them, and ultimately they are all paired off and settle down into a traditional monogamous relationship.

- They are all concerned or, in Carrie's case, obsessed by fashion.

- There is very little discussion about politics, culture, travel, or in fact anything other than relationships (then again, we don't follow them 24-hours a day).

There's probably more, so if you think of them, let me know and I'll add them to list. Now I probably should do some actual work, instead of this dilly-dallying.

Keep media savvy. x

The differences between men's and women's magazines.

My conversational opposite and I, having previously discussed time-travel, multiverses and alternate dimensions soon moved on to the differences between men's and women's magazines. I can't remember how the conversation evolved into this.

Oh yes I can, it was discussing Nancy and Stacey's previous conversation involving the watermelons.

First of all I said that if you read the kind of magazines that feature watermelons so heavily, it's of course going to be very likely that you will have increased exposure to them. I also pointed out that one does not have to read every article in a magazine, there's no law against skipping a page - remember that folks.

Then we digressed into which magazines I read. My CO(conversational opposite) asked me if I had read Zoo and Nuts (I think he was joking), but I replied that yes I had. I said I think they're better than their female equivalents. At least they're not full of contradictions and confusing statements such as "Woah, look how fat celebrity X has got since she put on 2lbs", flip the page, "Why can't we be happy with our body shape?" flip the page again, "here's a diet to help you lose weight". And remember, you can't be happy with an imperfect body shape, but you should feel mighty guilty about that. Happiness = thinness, unless you go too far, then you're an anorexic disgrace, but what made you like this in the first place? What a nightmare.

Just stick to Zoo, you know what you're getting, a naked lady, something about a car, a joke, a bit about football and maybe something a bit weird. That's much better than all the crap that comes out of Cosmo and the like. I also said something highly profound about the male icons being famous for doing something such as being a good football player or an actor, whereas female ones were more likely to be famous for having a pretty face or big knockers.

I really was on a roll today.

That's it, no more thinking for ten years. Officially.

30 hours of football on television.... good Lord no!

Yesterday I was watching the no.1 current affairs program on the box - yes, The Wright Stuff on channel 5.

Matthew Wright was complaining about the amount of Euro 2008 coverage that will be on the BBC and ITV despite the fact that no home nations will be in the finals. He then went on to suggest that this added up to a the sublimely large figure of 30 hours. Given that the tournament lasts about two weeks or so - surely this only adds up to 2 hours a day? If people really cannot find something better to do with their lives than watch television for 2 hours a day then I think we should start to worry. Have these people never heard of music, books, conversation - leaving the house?

I realise that some people will be miffed because EastEnders is on an hour late or something, but seriously I don't think it warranted a fifteen minute vitriolic campaign by Wrighty. In fact it bordered on xenophobia, suggesting that nobody would want to watch foreign teams playing, adding that only Polish immigrants are going to benefit. Now, I'm not a massive fan of football myself but I know that lots of people watch it for the sake of watching a game and seeing competitors at a high level. I'm sure that many people will pick a country that they are particularly fond of/tied in some way to and follow that instead.

And never mind all this, Wrighty failed to acknowledge the several million people in Britain who don't usually have a team in such competitions anyway, yet still have to put up with blanket coverage on the UK-wide television network.

Poor show Wrighty!

Electioneering - A review of election material

A selection of "junk mail" has passed through our letter box in the past few weeks. It's not the usual endless montains of menus from Pizza Time, but a last ditch attempt to get people to vote for certain parties.

We received "handwritten" letters in the post, which banged on and on about all the good work that one party had been doing in the area, but neglected to make it obvious which party they were writing from. I don't know if they were relying on us having a knowledge of the name of the candidates, but it didn't work. We eventually figured out that it was from the Liberal Democrats as indicated in the tiny small print, that alone made me not want to vote for them.

The Lib Dems seemed to have been making the most effort to convince us however as they also sent round a free "news"paper, which basically slagged off their rivals. Again, it wasn't immediately obvious that it was from them, but was presumably intended as a "subtle" attack on Labour and the Conservatives to make us think - we must vote for someone else! The paper was very sensationalist and, in my view, made a spectacle of the whole issue. But I suppose, that's the nature of modern politics.

There are a number of problems with these electioneering tactics. It's a big waste of paper. Luckily here in Cardiff we are fortunate to be provided by the council with recycling opportunities for such wastage. Secondly however, it's sensationalist style really does dumb down the political debate.

But I'm not going to on a big rant about dumbing down because that's been done far too often. Instead I would like to suggest that at least it gets us talking about it, and it may, in at least some cases get people looking at something related to the elections, if only for a brief second.

Well after this local election double-blog bonanza I am all blogged out.

I'm off to wait for Peter Snow and his swingometer (if you were reading yesterday's blog - this is NOT an innuendo - everyone knows I'm hot for Jon Snow.)

Keep media savvy x

Fish-hooked

This advert has been deemed the most offensive of all the year. Apparently this has the ability to cause distress to kiddies.

If that's the case why don't the parents have a nice chat with the kiddies and tell them this what happens to them if you put a cigarette in your mouth, and maybe some of the 8 year olds won't take it up - or maybe they'll just bypass the cigarettes and go straight on to the crack. What a cynical outlook on life!

This got me thinking about the kind of person who is likely to complain about advertising, what compels them to do it, do they have nothing better to do or is it a good thing, a kind of regulation from outside. Unfortunately, these complainers are, in all probablity, far outnumbered by the type of kill-joys who deemed the Quorn "touch my food, feel my fork" advert as a promotion of "bullying". Oh dear. Luckily, the ASA saw sense and didn't ban the advert.

Tomorrow I will be doing a round-up of some of the election media to come my way, in conjunction with my special election day blog on my main page! It's a polling day blogging extravaganza!

That's all for now,

Keep media savvy. x

Rebranding Kinky Porn.

Today's media blog was going to be rebranded, but after facing several budget cuts, I've decided to stick with the old familiar format.

The Daily Mail waves goodbye to its audience of "middle England" and instead ushers in the new era of "midBritain" so as not to offend anyone in any of the UK's other nations. Personally I would be greatly offended if anybody thought I was reading the Daily Mail, so whether I was in middle England or not would be far from prominent in my mind. It also strikes me that those indeed occupying middle England are probably unaware that Wales or Scotland exists.

Along the same lines of filth press, the Express' latest marketing ploy is the strapline "10p cheaper than the Daily Mail (and 10 times better!)". Now now kids, you don't need to fight over this, you're both as filthy as each other! In my eyes, this would be like discussing who is better, Hitler or Stalin? It's not really a contest you want to be in either way is it really?

Today's no.1 story on the BBC News website is entitled "When does kinky porn become illegal?". It comes of no surprise that the British public is obsessed with this kind of thing, but it's nice to have it reassuringly delivered from the most British of all institutions, the BBC. Nice work! Why they don't just rebrand violent porn as something along the lines of "unconventional and refreshingly daring!" is beyond me - but then again we all know what a big fan of rebranding I am!

And in other news, mind control still presses on, today I folded under the consumerist subplot and bought some more Smarties. The Smartie Party can indeed continue!

Anyway, I'm off to judge whether the latest installment of "Necro and Goat Porn Monthly" is just too darned illegal for my liking.

Keep media savvy. x

Saturday Night Television

Lots of people like to complain about Saturday night television.

They moan about how it's not as good as it used to be, and there's nothing to watch anymore.

I've got a useful tip for these people, turn off your television.

I think it's about time that people learned not to rely on the goggle box. Believe it or not, there are other ways to occupy your time. Hey - why not come on here and read my blog? Yay! It seems to be that we have a need to be entertained 24-hours-a-day.

Well I reccommend actually talking to your family and not expect to sit in front of the television at 5pm and have it babysit you right through to bedtime.

And after all, if you really want television to get better, if you turned it off they'd have to make something better wouldn't they?

Keep media savvy. x

Adverts, mainly.

Does Channel Four need to be publicly funded? I think the beauty of something like Channel 4 is that it doesn't have any government input, so it can be, potentially free. Then again, advertisers probably define what it does more than we'll ever fully know. I know one thing for sure, it wouldn't be right for Channel 4 to go along the same route as Channel 5 and ITV - i.e. producing rubbish and relying solely on American imports (respectively). Perhaps if Channel Four could come up with something a bit better than the now extraordinarily stale Big Brother to be this summer's breakout hit, then it might stand a better chance of a brighter future.

The ASA has banned some of the gambling adverts which are prolific on many of the lesser quality channels nowadays, given the vulnerable nature of the brains watching these channels (bit of a generalisation I know - but oh well). I'm a bit surprised they were allowed at all in the first place. Even I, a (resonably) sensible person has often wondered if I could end all my problems by winning big on a gambling site. And don't even get me started on that one where that stupid bint wins 20p and goes running round the house in excitement. I'd rather stick with a safer form of gambling - eBay.

The new Oxfam ad is pretty good as charity adverts go. We all know my ambivalence to the Donkey ad (see my main blog) but this one is a real departure for Oxfam. Away are the images of malnourised Africans, a sight which we are all too used to seeing (unfortunately). Awash with such images on television, we become blaze and forget the real cause. So good on them for employing Tim Burton-esque graphics to shed some light on the matter. This charity is much more deserving than any donkey charity anyway!

ITV's "finally" launched it's own on demand service. I can't quite figure out if ITV genuinely believe it when they say that "quality entertainment" is "finally" available, or if they are for once acknowledging the fact that they are incredibly slow and miles behind their competitiors, 4OD and BBC's iPlayer.

And finally, the Daily Sport has rebranded itself. I hope I'm not the only one who is sick to death of the "be a bloke, read the sport" advert that is being paraded around. I have long-been cradling the naive hope that this kind of bloke had become extinct, then again, praise indeed that they have in fact managed to learn to read anything that resembles a newspaper, even if it is the Sport.

That's all for now on this Media Ramble.
I hope you have enjoyed today's blogging extravaganza - next week this blog will be rebranded just like everything else out there.
Keep media savvy.

Mind Control

I'm starting to worry. 

I think the confectionary industry is controlling my mind. Today after watching the new smarties advert twice... I felt an overwhelming urge to consume some Smarties. 

The blue smarties are back, and with it so is my consumerism. After last week's rant against buying food and consuming stuff, I cracked and spent 17p on 3 carrots. Ever since then it's been completely downhill culminating in buying a multi-pack of Smarties! Yes that's right folks! I have been a hypocrite. Tut tut tut. I had to buy a multi-pack, they don't sell single packs in the shop, and my compulsion was so strong that it had to be done. I am weak. 

It has been pointed out that mind control can't be at work, because I don't buy everything I see on television, but that's probably just because I don't have the money for everything I see, so my mind acts out by forcing me to buy Smarties. I also have a strong desire to get my child immunised. I know, I don't have a child! The other day, I wanted to buy a pizza! I don't like pizza! What's going on?!

I'm meant to be media-literate, and yet the advertisers are taking over my mind! No! This must stop. What is the answer? Is the answer to stop watching commercial television? Maybe it is, but then how am I supposed to watch old re-runs of Mock the Week?! Answer me that!!!

Do the advertisers define what we think or just what we think about? In our capitalist society product proliferation is so rife that there is no way we can make a sensible decision about which shampoo to use. If we were to give each a reasonable trial, we'd die before we decided on the best one to use. So the question is - choice, is it good or is it bad? It's good because we have lots of nice things to look at, lots of nice things to eat. But the problem is, we can't possibly choose which is the best, and we'll probably all get fat. 

I know this blog isn't very good and probably hasn't made much sense, but then I'm in a chocolate induced stupor. 

I think it's time to finish today's blog, before something else makes me want to buy something. Why can't I think for myself anymore? 

I'm off to have a Smartie Party. 

16th April

So ITV, with their endless dirth of digital channels with 24 hours to fill have decided to enrage fans by missing out the second episode of new hit drama Pushing Daisies. How pathetic. I admit that this program is probably not the best program ever to be broadcast (then again, coming from ITV, maybe it is), but surely finding an hour to stick this program on ITV4 instead of showing 30-year-old repeats of The Sweeney wouldn't harm anybody.

So Shameless inspired the entire Shannon Matthews saga. Admittedly, no good plan starts with getting the inspiration from an episode of Shameless, but I hope it doesn't turn into another whipping boy for the tabloids and mid-markets to blame society's ills on.

The French are in uproar because their Eurovision entry is going to be in English in a vain attempt to win. Why they care is beyond me, nobody cares what the entry is like, as long as you've got enough countries that are basically the same as you and have not done anything controversial to make any enemies - you'll probably win, whether it's in English, Polish, Afrikaans or Gibberish. Having said that I don't think Afrikaans or Gibberish are actually allowed because they are not official languages of any European state.

Crappy Five channel "Five Life" is being renamed "Fiver" in a bid to attract younger audiences. Yes that will surely work.

Finally, after watching an episode of Animal Park today on BBC2, starring Ben Fogle and Kate Humble, I feel compelled to remind readers that Longleat is not actually that great, and I think you'll find that West Midlands Safari Park is much better, although Longleat does beat WM on its monkey front.

That's all for now.

Keep media savvy.

Welcome

Welcome, to my first, and possibly only media blog.

Inspired by my own media diary some months ago, I've decided to keep a short media blog as well as my other one, my fans will be wetting themselves with excitement at this thought.

This weekend, as I have been in Budapest, my media intake has been severely limited.

The only channels available in English are BBC World, CNN and Sky News. I have to say Sky is the worst as they have the same news constantly all day long. BBC World is OK, but sometimes they have very serious news on and I just can't handle that very often.

On the way here I read the Economist, where I found out that in the U.S. after some states have banned smoking in bars and restaurants, the number of drink drive accidents has gone up. Crazy yanks.

Well that's all for now, my next media blog will probably be more extensive after I get away from watching the same crap all day.

Keep media savvy.