She looked like the back end of a bus!

"Alright team, it's time we had a new campaign. How can we promote the brand and really engage the public? Right now we're just not getting our core message across."
"I've an idea, Mr. France"
"Call me Eric"
"Ok, Eric, this might sound odd, but hear me out. How about we get an attractive lady, in her smalls like. Now, here's the good bit, she's holding some metal cables."


"Brilliant. Starbucks?"


But! As if the ad wasn't funny enough, check out the unfortunately placed bus maintenance small print:






Must have caused some fun down at the garage.



[Edit: The writing reads, 'Emergency engine stop under flap']

Sleeping with the enemy

It would have made more sense to do this back in the time when people actually read this blog, but what the heck. In the picture is a pile of NMEs (and a few Melody Maker), pretty much weekly from 1994 - 2000. The picture was taken in my room at my parent's house over the weekend. For several years they've been asking what I'm going to do with them, and I've tended to mumble something vague in reply. It's decision time now though. They can't remain there, and there's not a chance that they will be allowed to make the journey to my new house.


So, any ideas? I'd love to hear them. Options at the moment include: converting them into blocks and burning them , selling them for peanuts on ebay or suchlike, or if I find myself with a huge amount of free time, perhaps grouping them into bundles e.g., 'Oasis', 'Blur', or the other heavyweights from that period of classic British music, 'Campag Velocet', and flogging them for slightly more peanuts to hardcore fans.

Best suggestion wins!

The winner will receive....a massive, disintegrating pile of NMEs! ;o)

Sugar, ah honey honey

Comedy graffiti of the week....judging by the subject matter, this almost sounds like it could have been written a couple of hundred years ago. I mean, the object of Sam's affection sounds positively Dickensian. Perhaps he had Pickwickian Syndrome?

Wanna be startin' something

You see that blob on the girder*? No? Try harder. It's a black redstart! The photo was taken by yours truly, in the centre of Manchester. Calm down birders, it was taken a few weeks ago. It's another lifer, to follow the dipper. Black redstarts may not be as fun to watch as dippers (and I feel a lot more self-conscious - and possibly endangered - stood in a Manchester back street staring at derelict buildings than by a river) but it's a more exciting spot as - in Britain at least - they're considerably more scarce. Interesting black redstart fact: because they live in derelict buildings, they do particularly well in wartime and periods of recession. Looks like they've departed for the year now.


* Girder en route to Glasgow for use in Irn Bru production