Got Milk?

I like milk - its usually my drink of choice with meals and I prefer it to yoghurt on my breakfast cereal.

One thing that really annoys me about milk though is the campaign of billboard posters with various B list celebrities drinking milk and ending up with milk moustaches. The campaign has been going on for long time and is just accepted as normal but when you actually stop and think about it, its a really strange concept. How come none of these people learned to drink properly and why don't they wipe their faces.

I'm not sure why the milk board think that seeing someone with milk on their face will encourage us to buy their product but I think someone should point out its kinda disgusting. At best, getting milk on your face is an unfortunete and unwanted side affect of drinking milk. Its not its most desireable quality by a long way.

Imagine they used the same concept with other products, using their unwanted side effects as the hook for an advert. For example an advert for Campbell's tomato soup with a grinning child with big orange stains all over his face, or a bottle of red wine with a pretty woman smiling and showing off her wine blackened teeth or think what you could do with Heinz baked beans!!

I wonder how much the milk board pays for these people to be in their adverts? And I wonder what the stars say to their agents when they find out they've been booked for the gig - there are not many people who can manage to have milk on their face and still look good. I mean is anyone looking at these guys and going "hey, they've got milk on their face, I need to get me some of that."

In preperation of this post I did a google search for some of the UK adverts, only to discover that the milk moustache is not just a UK advertising strategy. Here the campaign is known by its slogan "the right stuff" but in the US by the slogan "Got milk". In both the concept is the same, a celebrity face covered in milk, the difference between the two is the calabre of the people advertising the milk - here while we currently have Gordon Ramsey and Pixie Lott, the americans have got Batman, Glen Close and Andre Agassi's mum. Check the link and see if you think anyone doesn't look like a plonker.

Other countries are tackling it in different ways, some more successful than others - Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Angola.

Weirdest advert I saw is this one from Singapore. When I first saw the image I thought we'd found an even odder way to advertise milk than the milkface concept but having done a bit of research its actually a photo company called milk and not drink that is being advertised. (Still pretty weird though.)

Anyway, the whole milkface thing has just annoyed me today as I saw another of the billboards as I was walking along the road. I haven't even really got a suggestion for an alternative, its just annoyed me. Not sure what I'd prefer, I quite enjoy the bonkers adverts with the cow, cyclist and pirate by Cravendale and their simple poster series, they are a heck of a weird set but quite good fun.

From my quick google search online it seems there is quite a depth of adverts from around the world to draw upon. Would make an interesting little article/ docu for someone.

Pigeon Man

As promised many months ago, here is the footage of the pigeon hunter in action.

Be warned that while this may be an edited down version, it is still just a video of a man standing for a long, long time in a park, in the rain, trying to catch a pigeon. Its strangely hypnotic though.

[For those wondering what this is all about click here for the earlier story]

What's in an "L"?

Doh - Its not me honest guv.


We've all succumbed to the ego search. (Typing your own name into google to see what comes up) I'm pretty lucky, I seem to be the only person who spells their combined name the way that I do, so nearly all the results that come up are actually me.

Someone actually pointed this out to me the other day, its not something I've really thought about before - I've just always taken for granted that no one I have met spells even their first name the way I do, let along their full name. If I do one day meet someone with the exact same name, I think I'll feel like they are trying to assume my identity and I'm not sure I'll like it. Its the same when you meet someone born on the same day - you feel like saying "What do you mean its your birthday? That my birthday."

Anyway, once upon a time I noticed that there is someone out there whose name is close to mine, the MP Alistair Burt. Despite my extra "L" I did feel slightly uneasy, like I was looking into an alternate universe where I'd grown up to be a little Tory man. I quickly closed the site and tried to put it out my mind. I was reminded about it today though.

I am currently putting together the finishing touches to a new project due to be launched next week, which plays with the idea of MP's expenses and I was suddenly reminded of my Westminster Doppelganger and decided to google him again - just to make sure that he wasn't doing our shared name harm.

Imagine my horror when I found that he had made it to head line news in the Telegraph as yet another one of the MP's mixed up in the "all within the rules" mischief. I think I might have to write him a letter asking him to apologise for smearing the name Allistair Burt and I'm sure that Alastair Burt would agree.

Pigeons

Stop the Pigeon

Caught the Pigeon

Ok just had two very odd experiences - read the above two posts on Southside Happenings

but its a giant horse???

I've avoided posting anything about this so far - because I kept expecting someone to admit it was just a big joke. But apprently its not, they really are building a giant horse in the South of England - you could not make that up if you tried.

I'm not really sure what the point of it is, or what message it is trying to convey. They are going for a super realistic style which would suggest that it is meant as slightly Po-faced but all the infor I've read about it suggests that they are completly genunine about it and the giant horse is irony free. I enjoy that the media has dubbed it the angel of the south! I maybe wrong - but it is quite clearly a horse not an angel - unless they are going to stick wings on it and make it into Pegusus. Maybe there is a greek connection and the whole thing will be full of soldiers?

I think they should just accept that the whole notion is absurd and if they do decide to build it then they should stick an even more giant jockey on its back.

Or stick on hundreds of normal size jockeys - cause lets face it - jockeys are quite funny.

Bad luck continues

Something in my flat is dripping into the flat downstairs. I've taken up the floor in the kitchen and moved the washing machine and dishwasher and I've ripped apart my bathroom but sadly I'm yet to find whats causing it.

So add that to the rest of my bad luck:

Server goes wrong - need to redo site
Computer broke - hard drive ruined

Rooflight of flat broke - needs repaired
Ankle broke - well doc says I've got a fracture

I can't wait for August to finish.