With their Ute teetering an the brink of disaster, could this pair have misunderstood the lady?
Watch it here and make up your own minds. Castlemaine XXXX at its finest perhaps.
Author Archives: thatconsultantbloke
when tv adverts were fun – good sport your missus – another from Castlemaine XXXX
Filed under fun stuff
mobile phones and boring people
Why is it that the mobile phone culture dictates that a person’s volume on their phone is in inverse proportion to the substance of their conversation?
Riding home from London on the train last night I was joined by a fellow businessman, but a complete stranger. His papers identified him as working for a company that I know well and he spend much of the journey making and receiving calls, but I heard probably less that 30 words over about the same number of minutes of talk time despite the fact that we were sat so close. A shame in some ways because, being in an industry where I frequently earn my keep I might have picked up something useful.
Three or four rows in front and behind were a man and a woman who were both so loud that every word rang out through the carriage, and boy were they inane. Having seen them both neither looked like a gormless moron, but they both sounded that way. Do these people think that a lack of decent conversation skills can be overcome by shouting?
Oh, the joys of train travel.
Filed under fun stuff, random rants
wiltshire wildlife june 2011
The local Sparrow and Starling youngsters are going through 5 or 6 fat balls a day at the moment. The Starlings are just starting to show signs of transition from juvenile feathers to the adult plumage and are feeding themselves, but the Sparrow young still, mostly, need to be fed.
Despite reports of a decline in Sparrows in recent years we have a good crop and can often have as many as 20 flitting around with their complex air traffic control stacking them for a turn on the feeder.
Fortunately we’ve had no sightings of the larger birds of prey that turned up towards the end of last year, but the Pigeons, Gulls and Crows still have spats amongst themselves, uniting against the Magpies and the Heron.
Samantha Squirrel was last seen in August and so we think that she has gone to that drey in the sky. She would have been at least 6 and had been through some hard times. A strange thing though; it was four summers ago that she moved herself and her two babies into our loft and we had to evict them in fear that they would chew up wiring with the attendant risks to them and us. Twice in the last few months an adult squirrel has come down our path, run unerringly up the cherry tree to the corner of the house where Samantha made an entry, looked around and then run back down the tree and left, ignoring the adjacent bird feeder. Could this have been one (or both) of Samantha’s offspring, following some memory of a previous home? Maybe I’m just being wishful, but why would a squirrel just turn up, check that location and leave?
This is the fourth year that we have not had a fox take up temporary residence under our deck. Having been a regular maternity ward for several years we had enjoyed the spectacle of the youngsters play fighting in the afternoon sun, even if we did not like some of their, shall we say, personal habits.
Filed under wildlife encounters
the end of tennis as I knew it
I’ve read in the paper’s over the last few days about it being 30 years since a certain loud mouthed brat made his mark at Wimbledon, and almost in some way celebrating those events.
For me I can only mourn the passing of a game that I used to enjoy watching. J P McE may have made the game more exciting for some, but his blatant gamesmanship in producing those stage managed tantrums was a turn off and so I did. I’ve only watched part of one Wimbledon event since (some awfully piggy faced woman was making equally piggy grunts every time she hit the ball) and that was because I was a guest in the house; I would not have watched from choice.
The Brat should have been thrown out when he failed to heed the warning and told to come back when he could get on with the game. Instead they reduced tennis to the level of professional wrestling.
Filed under fun stuff, random rants
when TV adverts were fun – Carling Black Label parody the Levi’s Launderette ad
The Levi’s launderette ad, where the handsome young man comes in and strips down to his boxers, was a memorable ad in its own right(see below), making a star of Nick Kamen and also bringing a new audience to the music of Marvin Gaye.
Then The Oblivion Boys had another go at it on behalf on Carling Black Label. Enjoy it here.
As a bonus, check out the original Levi’s 501 ad.
Filed under fun stuff
why are publishers so reluctant to pay up for content?
I’m in the process of having to take strong action against one publishing house and am actively chasing another for payment for articles that I have written for them and, in the former case, for several photos to accompany the article. Both articles have been published against agreed terms, so what is the problem with coughing up what is owed?
One problem is that it is taking me longer to chase them than it did to write the darn things in the first place, but I am going to keep going even if I end up taking them down the small claims route.
It is a shame as it takes away both the pleasure of having something published and any feeling of support for that publication, but such is life. There are a lot of shysters out there.
Filed under business life, random rants, serious stuff, writing
at last, arise Sir Bruce!
It’s long overdue, but at last Bruce Forsyth has got his knighthood, so the disappointment that I didn’t get mine (one in the family ought to be enough) is offset by the joy the Bruce has his, long overdue, reward for goodness knows how many years of entertaining us.
Filed under serious stuff
when tv adverts were fun – something for the ladies?
Australian lager adverts in the UK have always shown an element of dry wit. This one is the old favourite “something for the ladies?” overloading of the ute (pick up truck) from Castlemaine XXXX. Enjoy:
Filed under fun stuff
the power of the media – e.coli and all that
So there I am, networking away after giving an evening presentation, when realisation of the time creeps up on me. I need to get moving. I’ve missed out on the sponsor’s excellent looking buffet, but plan to grab a sandwich at Paddington – it’s a long time since 12 and my hurried lunch.
Farewells said I head out into Kingsway and cross the street heading for Holborn Station and the Central Line. As I funnel into the stream of others squeezing into the entrance I take the free Evening Standard and shuffle through the turnstiles and down the escalator.
A westbound train is just pulling so I dive on, lean up against the partition and open my paper. The news is bad: Mutant e.coli sweeping Europe and the US. Deadly bugs passed on via salad items seem to be the cause and we have 7 victims over here in the UK now. Nasty stuff, and I feel for the folks in Hamburg, the epicentre of the outbreak the paper tells me, as it is somewhere I have visited many times on business and have always been warmly welcomed.
A change of train at Oxford Circus and I get a seat this time. I read more about the outbreak and its implications. All very unpleasant.
Paddington comes up and I make my way through the tunnel and up onto the concourse. I have 10 minutes before the train is due out, so head for the food concessions to find, you guessed it, row upon row of tired looking concoctions (well it is just after 9pm) all embellished with limp salad.
Even if the chance of any of it being likely to be carrying a nasty bug is infinitesimal, ThatConsultantBloke goes home to bed hungry, unable to face any of it, the power of the media having put him off thoroughly.
when TV adverts were fun – whitbread abdul the bulbul emir
This is just one of a series, but features a young Stephen Fry as Ivan, an equally young Blackadder colleague Tim McInnerny as the minstrel and Tony Cosmo as Abdul.
The words used in the song in the ad are obviously geared around the product, but use the tune and general theme of the original as written by Frank Crumit in 1941 (ish) using Percy French’s 1877 poem,
A number of references to the song and the ad call it Abdul la BulBul Emir (and have assorted spellings of Emir). This possibly comes from a mis-hearing of the proper title Abdullah BulBul Emir. I had alway known it as Abdul the BulBul Emir from having first heard some rather rude versions over the years prior to seeing the Whitbreadversion, but, anyway, here is the clip:
The Voice of the Bloke at the Back 