Keith Lemon was asking the questions, and Joey Essex was responding. His level of anything resembling intellect was so low that it escapes anyone's radar. Judge for yourself.
Keith: How many sides does a square have?
Joey: Six.
Keith: What country does Danish bacon come from?
Joey: Germany
Keith: Which country borders Wales?
Joey: London. No, Russia.
The Maths Don't Work
Sorry, Garnier, but your TV adverts are a fucking joke when it comes to endorsement by those given new products to try. Whatever "Olia" is supposed to do for someone, it seems to get the thumbs up on the mathematics side. There are two adverts on the go. In one, 85% of 860 women agreed with some piontless claim, and in the other, 93% of 441 women agreed that Garnier's product was doing what it claim on the pack/tin/tube. In both cases, the sample was not too bad and the percentage endorsing things was okay. There is a third Garnier advert on the TV this last week, where for whatever reason, a separate product is promoted. This time, however, the endorsement falls rather short of anything of help. 74% of 71 women agreed. WHAT? Let's be clear on this; to be persuaded that this overpriced product is worth buying, women are supposed to based their purchasing on what just fifty-fucking-two women said they liked? There are over three billion women on the planet and because 52 agreed with some-or-other claim by Garnier, that's supposed to be reason enough to buy it? Bollocks. Especially when the other 19 were unimpressed. Pathetic marketing!
Bake Off - Timing Is Off
I had the misfortune to see Mary Berry making a cake a week ago. It was a Christmas Cake, which she covered with icing that didn't even make it to the cake board around the side. Poor attention to detail. Less so than the attention paid by the twats that decided to air this programme about 11 days before Christmas, considering the whole exercise was a waste of time for all viewers - seeing that she announced, during the decorating, that the cake should be prepared at least three weeks before Christmas! It was no doubt a repeat (for that is the only part-excuse that the BBC could come up with to make any sense of things) but nevertheless it was a faux pas. It reminded me of what my mum used to do many times over the years - call me the day after someone's birday and ask if I'd remembered to send a card. Timing is everything.
Not Dead Horsemen
Yesterday at 1pm, there was television coverage of some show jumping from London. The Daily Mail TV Guide chose a curious way of describing this in the schedule - as follows:
Live Equestrian: Olympia 2012
Now, the word 'equestrian' can be used as an adjective (the most common usage) or as a noun, to mean a rider on horseback. If it was being used as an adjective, then the programme should be 'Live Equestrian XXXX' but there was nothing to follow the word. If it was being used as a noun, then clearly the riders on horseback would be alive rather than dead. Whichever way one looks at it, the programme name is flawed.
Comedy Comment of the Week
This came to us today, courtesy of Roy Hodgson, who has apparently indicated that England could win the World Cup in Brazill, in 2014. The funniest joke of the year, surely, just creeping in to win in the week before CHristmas. That's a good one, Roy.
Emergency Shopping
I know what nuclear supplies are - well, in my house anyway. I have long used the term to mean things with a long shelf life that I purchase when they're on offer. Nuclear shopping can be fun, save money, and throw up some weird hoards of things in the pantry. Watching the early evening news on TV yesterday, a reporter was interviewing a woman in Carlisle from the high street. The woman confirmed she was doing some emergency shopping. I discussed this concept with Mrs MWSC, and we could only come up with one answer on the merits of (and need for) this style of shopping. If the woman was shopping, probably for presents, then it was still just shopping. It may have been shopping in desperation, shopping with no consideration of quality or price, shopping in a panicked state, but it was not really 'emergency shopping'. Only if it was her brother's birthday and he was due at her house in an hour, could she claim to be shopping in an emergency. But it was unclear whether the shopping was deemed 'emergency' adjectivally, with 'shopping' being a noun, or adverbially, with 'shopping' being a verb. The only sensible basis for classification like this that Mrs MWSC and I could agree on was for presents that would be suitable for presentation in a future emergency. In other words, a generic present - an item that could be handed over in an emergency to give the impression that it had been purchased with thought and care well in advance for the exact occasion that was arising. The genericism of the items would mean flexibility for various people to be receipients, as dictated by circumstance. An unexpected visitor bearing a gift could be catered for quite easily, with reciprocation.
Cash Converters
What a weird and wonderfully bizarre place! The mix of items for sale, and the values attached to them, make for challenges to the intellect that outdo anything on Mastermind. There was far too much rubbish in the shop for me to comment on now, and I am not going to report that I rode away on a mobility scooter, nor that I purchased one of the 84 Wii boxes that were available. I did buy three DVDs for a pound, but not a DVD player - I don't need one. I did however notice that there were a couple for sale. One of the slim silver contraptions had the standard tiny label affixed to the front, but without figures for the deposit amount or the six further payments necessary. The asking price for the item was just three pounds, but it was the tag-line underneath that perplexed me, and I struggled to consider what other attribute this device could have that might make it still an attractive purchase!
DVD Player
Doesn't play DVDs
Can you think of anything that would be a worse sort of hint in aiding the sale of a DVD player?
Christmas Films
I see we're in for some long old slogs. Spartacus is beaten by Cleopatra, and Ben Hur beats The Lord of the Rings. I don't mean literally, of course. I am talking about the length of films and the slots they fill in the TV schedules. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is allowed four hours on Channel 4, and with the film being 201 minutes, there's 39 minutes of adverts and padding. For Ben Hur on Channel 5, given four hours and ten minutes for the 212 minutes of film, there are 38 minutes of adverts and padding. Over on ITV4, the three hours and fifty minutes for the 184 minutes of film mean padding and adverts of 46 minutes. So for the channels with advertising, we have the following results, and can make the following deductions:
For the 'commercial' channels, the shorter the film, the more time is devoted to advertising. I suppose that's mildly generous of the channels, and it's quite clear to me that these 'epics' have caused them to take the piss to a lesser degree than normal, when it's not uncommon for there to be as little as 3 minutes of programme per minute of advertising (especially on Channel 5).
What is perplexing, though, is the showing of Cleopatra in a time slot of 3hrs 55mins on BBC4 today. This means that with no adverts, the maximum available time for the film is 235 minutes, although there's always some touting of programmes and unofficial advertising at the end of the marathon. So, 230+ is bound to be realistic. The confusion comes from the film itself, which has lengths of over six hours in the original amount filmed, 320 minutes for the Director's Cut, a standard running time of 248 minutes, 243 minutes for the version originally shown after filming, and the 192 minutes of the eventually released version (Theatrical Cut). So, what version does BBC4 have in its library? This is not adding up, and I sense the flawed influence of Garnier here!
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