Babysitting is one of those things that seems to be expected of Grandads for some reason.  I don’t mind too much, as Puppychild isn’t a bad poker player for five, and we had a good session last night.  I managed to win €20 which is better than a kick in the arse?

This morning, after doing her homework [the manufacture of explosives and poisons from common household items], she asked to watch television.

By now, you must be aware that advertisements are not my favourite form of broadcasting.  By their nature, they are repetitive and boring.  Some can be just plain irritating, and others have the capacity to provoke instant rage.  The advertisements that were on children’s television this morning where around 10 on the cardiac scale.

For some very strange reason, the majority of the advertisements were for insurance.  Out of each slot of say eight advertisements, four would would be for insurance.  I am a little surprised that the insurance industry should think that five year olds are so interested in their product and can only assume that the campaign is directed at the parents/minders/babysitters, who must be very accident prone and therefore unsuitable for the job?.  The agencies seems to have a particular mental block too, when it comes to insurance.  I have always hated that fucking cheery thing with the toy red phone beeping around the place, but my greatest desire is grab that fucking dog Churchill and douse him in petrol.  Then we’ll see him go woof.  Ohhh yes!

There was even a Christmas ad that kept cropping up.  Yes – Christmas!  The bastards are already advertising for Christmas 2010,  Fucking hell!

The art of advertising is almost dead, but occasionally one good one does crop up.  I found this one on Going like Sixty.  I’m sure he will be furious at won’t mind my borrowing it.

Now that is how it should be done.

Classic!

It all started with Yer Man, the husband coming on the news and sobbing about his wife having an affair.  What?  Why the fuck should I care?  Why the fuck is he literally broadcasting it to the world?  If his missus had a drop of nookie on the side then surely that’s between him, her and the unfortunate who dipped his wick?  It’s nothing to do with you, me or anyone else for that matter.

OK, so she is an MP or a MLA or a MILF or something, but I still don’t see the relevance?

Then he broadcasts to the world that she has mental problems.

For fuck’s sake!  Everyone has problems, but there’s no need to shout about it.  Who the fuck doesn’t have depression these days?  If you are not depressed by now, then there is something seriously wrong with your state of mind.  If you are depressed, talk to your family or friends or your doctor.  Don’t hold a fucking press conference.  If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for the Shannon farmer who first of all saw his farm disappear under three feet of water and now is trying to farm ice-sheets.  Now there is someone with a real problem.

Then it transpires that she diverted some cash to The Happy Humper.  Now that is a little more serious, but it is still in the ha’penny place compared to our lot lending millions to TDs to invest in golf clubs and the like?  And even then, that is an issue for the locals to sort out and has fuck all to do with us Down South.  So why all the meeja interest here?

And I wish they’d stop showing us that nauseating staged kiss.  Are we supposed to feel all cuddly towards them for that? 

The last time I kissed Herself like that was in the courts.

And that was only because we were ordered to do so by the judge.

It has a singular inability to do anything right.  It is car-crash television at its best.  It is compulsive viewing simply because it is so bad.

For those of you who are foreign to these shores, TV3 pumps out an unending stream of the cheapest, tackiest American crap, interspersed with reality shows and rebroadcasts of the worst of ITV. 

They do have one programme that we watch occasionally for the laugh, and that is “Tonight with Vincent Browne”.  This consists of an unending stream of advertisements, with brief interruptions where Vinnie abuses his guests.  It’s not meant to be funny, but it is.

The presenters on TV3 are a breed apart.  The women are obviously employed on the basis of their looks rather than talent [with the exception of Ursula Halligan, who has neither] and all have to undergo a rigorous training in the Tallaghtfornian accent which is an accent that is unique to that television station.

They managed to reach a new peak of crassness yesterday, when they all but broadcast an obituary for our Minister for Hardship and Poverty, Brian Lenihan.  I should point out that he isn’t dead.

I have no great love for our Glorious Government, as you may have realised.  I take great delight in slagging them off, but even I draw the line at writing obituaries when they are still very much alive and kicking.  Not TV3 though.  Not only do they prematurely announce that Lenihan has cancer, but they then proceed to analyse the political scene after he is gone.  If that isn’t enough, they drag on some Cheerful Charlie who proceeds to tell us what a terrible disease pancreatic cancer is and that the prognosis is pretty bad.  He goes into great detail about how pancreatic cancer  is caused by smoking [which it isn’t] and that the best that can be done for Lenihan is pain relief.  Fuck me! Cheerful stuff.  But then anything is permissible in TV3 in the name of a scoop.  

You have to hand it to TV3.  For a station that strives to be the cheapest on the airwaves, they have excelled themselves once more.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering – the TV3 news is not in widescreen.  The only thing they broadcast in widescreen format is the advertisements.

But seeing as 90% of their output is advertisements, that’s OK.

I was browsing this morning, and of course one of the main stories was the Guinness fire.  Here was a national tragedy that was narrowly averted.  Forget your recession, your kiddy-fiddling priests and your NAMA – if the brewery had gone up it would have been the end of the country.

Firemen adding a white head onto the black stuff.

Then I spotted another item that cheered me immensely.

Simon Cowell is gutted at losing the Number One spot in the charts.

I don’t give a flying fuck who’s in the charts, to be honest, but anything that makes that wanker miserable is going to cheer me up.  I am sick to the teeth of him and his fucking X-Factor.

I have never watched the programme.  I would far rather have my testicles slowly removed with rusty shears than watch that unadulterated crap.  It is the epitome of all that is wrong with modern society.  All it is is a bunch of talentless oiks all belittling themselves in order to become famous for a day.  Pathetic.  Even worse are the people who watch it.  They are whipped up into a frenzy of passion for their tosser of their choice and then are gullible enough to spend a fortune on the voting.

I have had the misfortune to see extracts from the programme, and I have yet to see any performer [apart from Yer One with the eyebrows] who is any different from half a million other talentless wannabes.  And of course there was Jedward!  Holy fuck!!  I have more talent in my little toes than that pair, and my little toes are utterly talentless.

I would love to think that Cowell will quit the show in despair.  It’s unlikely though, considering the fortune that is being made out of the saps that watch it.

In the meantime, I shall celebrate Cowell’s misery with a few pints tonight.

Pullit had the sense to buy in a large number of kegs in the Guinness’ pre-fire sale.

It is time for the annual consumer-fest that is the Late Late Toy Show.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to live in far off lands, The Late Late Toy Show is an annual institution here, where the latest toys, gadgets and gizmos are put on display on television.  For two hours, we are treated to an embarrassing display of consumerism at its worst.

I did some babysitting the other day.  I call it babysitting, but Puppychild is five now so she is hardly a baby, but you know what I mean.  As a result, the television was put on at her insistence.  I don’t approve of plonking kids in front of televisions, but Puppychild always ignores it anyway.  Maybe she wanted it on to entertain me?  Anyhow, there I was with the television on, so I couldn’t help but witness some of the advertisements that are pumped at the kids of today.

One thing that struck me about the toys on offer, and that is their uniformity.

They are all around €50.

They all require batteries.

Most require remote controls.

They all have a mechanical lifespan of about a month and an attention lifespan of a day.

They all required the intelligence of a gnat to operate.

In other words, the kids are going to end up getting more pleasure out of the packaging than they are out of the toy.

The advertisements are all slanted in a particular way too.  They are not so much aimed at the children as aimed at generating a group frenzy, so that peer pressure comes into play and God help the parents when that happens.

I have never seen so much unadulterated overpriced crap in all my years.

So the Late Late Crap Show is going to consist of two hours of overpriced, overhyped, worthless, ephemeral rubbish.  Jedward are on too, which kind of proves my point?

And what was Puppychild doing while all this was on?

She was very happily playing on the floor with my collection of Dinky cars, that are nearly sixty years old. She had ascribed a different personality to each car and was having a whale of a time, and her imagination was running at full throttle.  There wasn’t a silicon chip, a battery or a remote control to be seen.

When she eventually tired of her game on the floor, she tidied up and did some jig-saws.

I rest my case, M’Lud.

I taught her well.

Earlier in the week, there was a news item about some twats who were trying to remove a tree from the back garden of a house in California.  The only thing they succeeded in doing was to very neatly slice the house in two.

Poor Sharon was given the task of introducing the item on the News.  She could barely contain her laughter.

So, Sharon – this is for you.

Did I ever tell you you have a very sexy laugh?

Yes, I am aware that Christmas is on the distant horizon, but I would like to point out that it is but one day, and hardly warrants nine weeks of advertising.

It is just one day.  That’s all.  Twenty four hours.  There is absolutely no need to get your knickers in a twist over it.

There is one thing I like about Christmas, and that is that it nearly coincides with the Winter Solstice [no accident, I may add].  Come that day, and the evenings start getting lighter.  It’s a small milestone in the year, so please get things into proportion.  It is not the only day in the year when people spend money.  It is not the only time I buy anything.

To those of you who are advertising sitting room suites and promising delivery in time for Christmas, I would like to point out that if I buy furniture, I expect delivery within days, not months.  If you have to brag that you will have delivery in time for Christmas, then you obviously have delivery problems and your company should be avoided like the plague.

To those of you who advertise your rubbish as being necessary for the “perfect day” – fuck off.  I cannot imagine any day being ruined because I don’t have an air freshener or the latest CD by some fifth rate performer, so just please drop that expression.  The mere mention of “the perfect day” irritates me, and I promise that any company who uses it within earshot will be firebombed.  Be warned.

I know times are hard in the retail business.  I know you are desperate.  But if you thing you are going to lay your grubby little hands on my pension by shouting at me you are going the wrong way about it.  On the contrary, if your advertisement annoys me [and all advertisements annoy me] then I shall go out of my way to avoid your tacky little product.

So here is the bargain….

You save yourselves a fortune in advertising costs, and I will try not to burn your premises down.

OK?

Grandad

What a load of bollox.

Marriage is having to watch television programmes when you’d rather have peace and quiet.

Herself decided she wanted to watch that ghastly fanny-fest that calls itself The Rose of Tralee.

I toyed with the idea of going down to the pub, but I’m a bit short on the readies at the moment, so I was stuck.

I tried not to watch, but you know how it is with car crashes?  Yes.  You just have to take a peek.

Fuck me but some of them were woeful.  And when they weren’t being woeful they were being as predictable as sin.  They all rattled on about how it was their first trip to Ireland [I swear a couple of the Irish girls came up with that line too, which surprised me] and what a wonderful place Ireland is [HAH! They should try living here].  Their grannies all came from Roscommon [it’s probably the one, very prolific granny?].  They all do Irish dancing and they all think their escort is ‘great’.  One of them had the common sense to try to strangle Ray D’Arcy with a Boa Constrictor which was quite inventive, but the ads came on and we missed the interesting bit.

How do the judges judge them?  God knows.

I have my own method.

Would I?

So far I have a shortlist of 0.

Maybe I should lower my standards a bit?

may the question should be ‘Would I’?’

And would they not insist on watching The Rose of Tralee year after year?

There is an advertisement that is being pumped out on a regular basis on television and probably in the cinemas as well, showing fellas drinking Guinness.

You would think I’d be happy with that, but I am not.  I am amazed, disappointed and frankly disgusted.

Here is a still from the beginning of the advertisement -

What is wrong with that, you ask?

I would ask you to take a closer look at the pints those yokels are holding -

Would you look at that state of that pint?

And to add insult to injury, the ignorant fucker goes and drinks it.  As it is.  On camera.

That is NO WAY TO DRINK GUINNESS.

There isn’t a single five year old who would touch a pint in that state and call himself an Irish lad.

The pint should be allowed settle so that there is a crisp line between the black and the white.  Drinking a pint that is only half settled is the kind of thing only a pig-ignorant fucking tourist would do.  I can only hope that Yer Man in the film was quietly put out of his misery and laid to rest in the local landfill, for his own sake.

Now if this were some video shot by some Walter from Connecticut and stuck up on YouTube, I could possibly overlook it.

If this were an extract from a film, I would dismiss it as a display of utter ignorance on the part of a director.

But this effort is produced by Guinness.  Yes – Guinness.  They are the very people who should be showing the great unwashed how to Down the Nectar, instead of which they are pumping out this shite which is going to confuse foreigners even more.

Poor old Arthur J must be rolling in his grave.

When you advertise that you are selling stuff at 50% off or 80% off or whatever, will you please be honest.

You are not doing it because the goods are fantastic.

You are not doing it because you like us.

Tell the truth.

You are doing it out of desperation because the creditors are bashing down your doors.

You are doing it because the kitty has dried up and you need some readies to at least pay some of the wages.

Next time you advertise a sale, don’t try and pretend that you are some kind of fucking Santa Clause.

Be honest.

Admit you have to dispose of any old shite to bring in a few bob to stave off the receivers.

We will appreciate your honesty.

We might even take pity and buy some of your old tat.

Honesty is always the best policy.