6 Lessons learned from the last 2 weeks

Just a quick post to indicate that I’m still alive. Regular readers may be disappointed by this. Nothing has particularly irritated me (other than a film below) over the last couple of weeks, so here are some things (films and stuff) that I have liked and one thing that I loathed:

(500) Days Of Summer: This film was a smart and savvy appraisal of being one of those pathetic hopeless romantic types- featuring the gorgeous Zooey Deschanel and “The Kid From 3^rd Rock From The Sun” (more popularly as Joseph Gordon-Levitt), they were believable characters and shared reasonable chemistry- both in a coalescing and combusting sense. Quite brutal in places, it lightened up a bit at the end, but still didn’t result in being overly schmaltzy. Unlike He’s Just Not That Into You; a film which spent 2 hours saying that women are not the exception to the rule (he WAS a player but he’ll change for you etc.) and then ended with the most desperate lady ever seen on film gasping “I am the exception” whilst a man- who had spent the film being completely uninterested in her- was in the act of ravishing her. This made me far angrier than any film should.

The Lovely Bones: Peter Jackson back with that superb directorial eye of his- juxtaposing lavish dreamscapes with visceral scenes and some astoundingly tense moments in a rather horrible story of a girl who is brutally murdered and continues watching the repercussions of her murder- her family’s slow descent into ruin, her killer continuing to go free. Mark Wahlberg subtle turn as the father of the murdered daughter and Stanley Tucci’s equally restrained- and frankly quite terrifying- role as the murderer (who probably could evade suspicion more easily if he didn’t dress like a stereotypical serial killer) are both worth the price of admission- although I should add a special mention goes to Laura for paying for me to see this.

Bioshock 2: The long-awaited (by me at least) sequel to the original Bioshock game came out. I got it a day early- thank you very much zavvi- and went about completing it.

The art design- both character and location- is superb, having been set a decade after it’s predecessor, most of the underwater city in which Bioshock 2 takes place is becoming increasingly derelict and the inhabitants are less human in appearance (having messed with their DNA), and these are generally well thought out. This means that whilst it doesn’t look as realistic as say Modern Warfare 2, it still manages to look quite superb. If you’re into barnacles and Art Deco furnishings.

The story falls a little short of its predecessor, but there is still some mildly interesting philosophical debate to be had, if you’re willing to search hard enough, but nothing that you wouldn’t hear from a drunk student at the union after a few pints. The game is also fairly easy, even on the hardest difficulty. Still, despite these flaws, Bioshock 2 is a game that does a good job of capturing the tone and style of the first, and I’d recommend checking it out if you’re gaming inclined.

I finally got around to listening to The Shins’ “Wincing the night away” the other day, after “Black Wave” came on in a pub and I decided that I needed to own it, the rest of the album is quite wonderful as well.

Finally, in a surprise at number 6: Engineering works on Valentine’s day are awesome, having serendipitously introduced me to a girl who had skived off work in order to try and win her ex-boyfriend back. Thus restoring my faith in people attempting to make life more like a romantic comedy. Even if she failed in winning him back.

Honorable mention goes to "The Devil In Ember" by Mark Gatiss, a book which I have been enjoying for the last couple of days.

6 Lessons Learned From Facebook Fan Pages

The Internet, it truly is a fabulous thing. I use it daily, I imagine you use it daily. In fact I bet you’re on it right now.

Anyway, I came across a superb site- a recommendation from my sister- this week: Stumbleupon.com, basically it is a website which directs you to other websites which people have recommended to it, when you’re bored of that particular site, click the “Stumble!” button and it will put you onto something else. The websites can be anything from webcomics to psychological journals explaining quirks of human behaviour, from flash games to playlists of songs that make you happy. It really is excellent and shows you how good the Internet can be.

Unfortunately the internet can also be a place for rampant idiocy. I, like many people in the 21-35 bracket, harbour something of an addiction to Facebook, spending most of my free time on it- a fact that becomes even more concerning when I consider the abundance of free time that currently I have.

Whilst doing what amounts to very little on facebook, I’ve noticed that with the advent of fan pages there has a new selection of moronic bandwagons for people to jump on. So here are 6 lessons learned from facebook fan pages:

1: The Fan Page: Behind every untrusting girl is a boy who made her that way.

Number of members: c.115,000

The Lesson: The internet is made up of sadists, or people who are pathetic.

Number one on my list of perplexing facebook fan pages is this one. I’m not even certain what the members are professing to be a fan of? Is it applauding the boy who broke the eponymous girl’s heart, because that would mean that there are a lot of emotional sadists on facebook.

Alternatively, it may just be for people who like untrusting women, which suggests it would be a call to arms for like-minded fans of distrustful women to get together to discuss the best way of breaking a woman’s trust.

Dropping the facetious-tinted lenses that I view most facebook fan pages with, this is obviously a page for people who consider themselves untrusting, presumably as a means to get even at whoever betrayed their trust.

Perhaps it is because I’m male, or perhaps it is because I’m British, but something seems intrinsically wrong about advertising the fact that you’re: a) untrusting, and b) the fact that you’ve let a boy hurt you in the past, to your entire network of friends. I can’t help but feel that this group single-handedly puts back the cause of feminism a good half decade.

2: The Fan Page: The sexist legend who put this on his maths paper

Number of members: c. 115,000

The Lesson: 1950s views of women are not only socially acceptable, but also funny.

To be honest, I’ve seen this before and it caused a small amount of mirth, it’s a question from a maths paper featuring a woman- Tracey- quoting an equation, the question then asks the participant to say why Tracey is wrong. The answer given on this particular paper is “She’s a woman”, which, as I said, did raise a smile. However, I did not find it funny enough to warrant starting, or even joining a group supporting the bloke (or woman with no self-esteem) who wrote it.

Then again, whoever started the group wasn’t applauding the joke itself, but “The sexist legend” who wrote it, which sort of implies that he likes people who are sexist, and that he also lacks the intelligence to produce the curt response himself.

He also uses the word “legend” in a stupid place- which for some reason really irritates me. I doubt that the story of “The sexist with a sense of humour” will endure as long as that of say, King Arthur, but then again I’ve done my part to pass it on.

3: The Fan Page: ALARM…Snooze…ALARM…Snooze…ALARM.*Checks Time*…SHIIIIT

Number of members: c. 1,559,000

The Lesson: Some people are not good at waking up

It is one of the fundamental truths of human existence that after a decent night’s sleep, people do not enjoy getting up, and that some people may, on occasion, hit snooze a couple of times and regret it. I don’t understand why it is necessary to become a fan of something so utterly banal. Unless it’s crumpets. Crumpets are awesome.

4: The Fan Page: Kill The Lot: Paedophiles, rapists, abusers of all kinds

Number of members: c. 29,200

The Lesson: Paedophiles, rapists and abusers of all kinds are bad.

Yes, much like the previous point, this group points out the blaringly obvious. Only this group goes much further and suggests that they kill Paedophiles, rapists and abusers of all kinds, presumably “all kinds” includes abuse of human rights, and with one member advocating that the any of the above groups should be shot on site [sic], bypassing the right to a fair trial, I suppose that suggests that some members of the group should also be shot. And not just for their abuse of the English language.

5: The Fan Page: WOW…YUH DON’T LYK ME…>What do you expect me to cry or summink

Number of members: c. 1,774

The Lesson: People are so, so stupid

This group, just going by name, irritates me in so many ways, the lack of punctuation other than ellipses, the lack of spelling, the apparently aggressive demeanour of whoever created it, defending their right to be a moron in as loud and as objectionable a way as possible. I read this title and I am immediately reminded of a 14 year old chav who I once saw on the bus, who was near enough chewing the ear off anyone who looked at her, this brought her further attention.

6: The Fan Page: 6 Lessons (and other miscellaneous ramblings by Jonathan Crouch)

Number of members: c. 80

The Lesson: The internet is awesome and has a great deal of fun and readable content. It also fosters shameful amounts of self-indulgence and shameless self-promotion.

And in a surprise entry at Number 6 is my very own facebook fan page, I suggest that you join it if you haven’t already, and invite all of your friends to it.

The majority of the fan pages I have joined have been local bands or DJs who I am friends with, and the fan pages of facebook are perfect for helping them keep in touch with their fan base (the fact that having a group of people being you can refer to as your fan base is wonderful in itself) and publicising their events to people who may be inclined to see them. For evidence for fostering of self-indulgence and shameless self-promotion, look no further than the previous 1,000 or so words.

6 Lessons 2.0

HELLO! And welcome to the J.J Abrams-esque reboot of 6 Lessons, now with 32% more CAPITALS.

Now that I have your attention, any eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a distinct lack of posts for a good 2 or 3 months. This was largely because I started an article entitled “6 Lessons learned from 80s rock music”, but found that, in reality there were so few lessons to learn from 80s rock music (unless you count different ways of snorting cocaine off a groupie’s body) that it became something of a sticky wicket -an appropriate analogy, considering the fact that most lyrics from the 1980s seemed to be about Tommy Lee’s wicket and the manner in which he got it sticky.
Anyway the whole experience of researching (see what I do for you?) the exploits of Lee and company left me feeling somewhat disgusted with the capabilities of drummers of rock bands, and humanity as a whole. I committed myself to solitude, embarking on a mental detox made up of 18 hours a day looking at videos of kittens on youtube, and watching reruns of The Good Life. Also I couldn’t be arsed.
But it’s a new year, so I figured I’d end the silence and start writing the blog again, with some small changes- I’m going to keep the “6 Lessons” moniker, but drop the 6 Lessons formula. Except for when I feel like doing it. Hell, I may even do 5 Lessons when I feel like it. This isn’t a democracy.
Anyway, whilst away, I have done some little non-list based rants for a new London-based online magazine This Weekend (What was 2009 for?, page 22) I finally landed my dream job (or at least the dream job of my 16-year-old self) at HMV- seasonal temp. Which meant I got to deal personally with lots of the idiots who got Susan Boyle to number 1. In a fashion so cordial the 16-year-old me would be ashamed, but screw him, he’s an idiot.

I witnessed an interesting sight the other day. A gentleman standing in front of a group of thirty women, wearing nothing but a butler’s collar and a pair of boxers, wheeling about a tea trolley. The women then pressed a button decide whether they would like to date him or not. No, this wasn’t Virgin Atlantic’s new attempt at sexing up air travel (although kudos to them for trying to make terrorist targets sexy again with the new ad doing the rounds), this was prime time television- ITV’s “Take Me Out” (Saturday, 7:30pm on ITV1)- a new dating programme to fill the void left behind by Blind Date.
Yes, it’s ITV’s. The premise is simple, a man comes on, talks a bit about himself, does some needless bit of showboating, and women decide if they’d like to date him or not. It sounds like an empowering new front of the feminist movement. Hosted by that guy from Max and Paddy.
However it quickly turns into thirty women clamouring for the attention of one awful, attention-seeking prick, and then another. Over and over again.
Over the duration of a show you can really see characters evolving amongst the women. There’s desperate (one slightly overweight fairly short girl who stays in on two-thirds of blokes), quite desperate (one woman sporting a long list of daddy issues, who gives the impression she’d jump on with a trouser based bulge) and very desperate (one incredibly tall woman who it appears wouldn’t say no to anyone).
Ultimately the decision is left to the man, who, having learned nothing about the girls’ personalities, decides (presumably by looks alone) who he is going to take on a date from the women left wanting to date him. A clip of their date is shown the subsequent week, and from what I’ve seen, it typically reveals that the man is a self-obsessed narcissist and that the woman is desperate. They sit in a tastelessly lit restaurant (although it appears to be a studio, no doubt adjacent to the studio that the show is recorded in) and the woman shuffles uncomfortably for a bit, whilst the bloke talks about himself some more. These clips are cut with the happy couple talking about how passable the date was. No doubt before going their separate ways.
Who says romance is dead?

A 6 Lessons Review: Halo 3: ODST

So I’ve been thinking for a while that I should use this blog for something other than ill-informed rants about The Daily Mail (although at least I can accept that they are ill informed rants). It’d be nice to attempt to give something back to the world other than sheer negativity. The Daily Mail does it with skincare products and early 90s BBC dramas, I can do it with advice on purchases of games or films or music.

I’ve been dragging my feet on kicking this reviewing milarkey off as I haven’t really had anything worth reviewing- the 1990s has yet to reach the town in which I live, we’ve recently heard about this great new band called The Pet Shop boys- however, today a copy of the new Halo game dropped through my letterbox (courtesy of a very good friend who found himself with 2 copies after a slow delivery from amazon and an impulsive trip to game), I spent the day playing through it and figure I can probably write something informative about it.

Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve started thinking about everything in terms of sixes, so I’m going to try and cut it down to 6 major points. So yeah, see you at the other end…

1: Halo 3: ODST

For anyone who has lived in a cave for the last 8 years, Halo is a game developed by Bungie for the Xbox and Xbox360 (and the PC if you’re that way inclined). It has had 3 instalments so far (plus a strategy game that doesn’t count because its not a first person shooter), all of which have followed Master Chief, an awesome genetically modified super-soldier capable of jumping a couple of metres in the air, running face-first into battle and basically committing some of the biggest acts of badassery known to the gaming public. It has never failed to be a huge critical and commercial success.

ODST, the fourth (or third-and-a-half, I guess) instalment of the Halo series has taken a rather large departure from this run-around-an-alien-planet-and-spray-bullets-mindlessly approach. The entire game is set on Earth, in New Mombassa, shortly after the covenant (alien) forces have attacked, and you play a member of the Orbital Shock Drop Troopers- the Halo equivalent of the Paras. Gone are the shields that render you near-invulnerable, gone is the ability to leap sheds in a single bound, gone is the battle rifle. Now it’s all about the pistol.

2: A Geek’s dream

The first thing I noticed in the opening FMV was the voice acting. Halo stalwarts Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk are all on hand to voice the main characters in the game. Anyone who has seen Joss Whedon’s Firefly (and it should be everyone, it’s a superb series which was cut down before it truly had a chance to blossom) will recognise these stars as members of the crew from there, and in ODST they’re essentially playing the same roles.

The voice acting is good, although it’s a bit odd to see a computer-generated version of Nathan Fillion (the only actor to have his likeness used in the game) enacting movements very similar to mincing. After getting over the initial shock of seeing an actor- who had still managed to look tough whilst wearing an old fashioned bonnet- waving his hands about like Graham Norton, I was able to actually get on with the game and enjoy it.

As the story developed, I actually found myself caring for all of the members of the team- and even the other random troops who had been dropped in, something which I hadn’t done in any of the previous Halo games, because I was too busy charging into battle, firing two guns simultaneously whilst throwing grenades and punches like Rambo and Bruce Lee respectively. And whilst I wasn’t as affected by the plight of my team as much as say, the first Modern Warfare game, it was still nice to see.

3: ODST: Like Halo 3, only different

When ODST was first announced, I was a little dubious of Bungie tackling stealthy aspects of game play. I liked Call of Duty for the fact I had to engage my brain to play it, I liked Halo because it made me feel like Sly Stallone. Mixing the two just wouldn’t work.

On the surface, ODST appears to be a lot like its predecessors; there’s a similar HUD and you’re still fighting the same enemies with the same weapons. But the gameplay couldn’t be more different, it’s more intelligent, and there is a far greater sense of achievement when you manage to get through an area without alerting any groups of aliens than just killing every one of them.

It’s like walking into your living room to find a complete stranger wearing your recently deceased uncle’s skin. Only he’s far more articulate than your uncle and is far kinder regarding Christmases and birthdays, he even offers to help with the dishes after you’ve had Sunday lunch. Basically it’s weird, but in a good way.

4: I’m all alone, there’s no-one here beside me…

The general mood of the game is also very different to the previous Halo games. In Halo 1, 2 and 3, aside from you playing a near invincible super soldier, you nearly always have assistance from a few NPCs (who if nothing else, are fodder for the alien’s guns).

In half of the sections of ODST, you play a rookie trooper (intelligently named “Rookie”) who is left on his own in a city teeming with alien invaders, attempting to regroup with the other members of his squad.

I had been told that the game was far better to play through on your own (Halo is always fun to do on co-op, so I was planning on playing through with a friend) and I can see why, the sense of solitude is incredible in places, I genuinely felt alone. Having someone else on my team probably would have prevented this.

These feelings of isolation are helped by some rather superb musical scoring. Usually after you’ve just played through a section as one of the other characters-who typically had at least one additional NPC with them- you’re thrust back into the place on your own, and treated to a swell of strings which helps add to the feelings of loneliness.

The parts of the game where you’re not playing as the rookie are still enjoyable- it’s still fun to fly around in a banshee, or drive around in a warthog or tank with explosions and gunfights going on all around you- and they serve to accentuate how lonesome the rookie is.

5: The ending

The game finishes with a drive along a highway in a tank and then defending a building from a few waves of jetpack toting apes. It is, despite sounding promising on paper, a slightly anti-climactic end to the game, and (unsurprisingly) leaves a bit of room for a sequel. But ODST takes place during the events of Halo 2, so it simply wouldn’t work if they were to win this intergalactic war. Also, the game is short. I completed it (albeit only on Normal) in a single sitting. I will no doubt go through it on co-operative on harder difficulties, but its still fairly short.

Still, these are minor qualms, Halo ODST was only meant to bridge the release gap between Halo 3 and the upcoming Halo Reach game (another prequel) due in 2010, and it does that nicely.

6: Multiplayer

I imagine you’re thinking that the previous paragraph sounds like a fairly conclusive paragraph for a review, but I’ve glossed over what is likely to be the strongest part of ODST for replay value: the multiplayer.

Bundled along with ODST is an additional disc that allows you to play the Halo 3 multiplayer. The same Halo 3 multiplayer that hasn’t left the top 10 most played online games on xbox live since it was released 2 years ago, that’s a success rate in line with Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do”. In fact, it’s been number one for the majority of those weeks. It’s a varied selection of games both involving deathmatch and objective games, and its good, scrappy fun.

As well as this, there is the firefight mode, which is a completely new thing for ODST, much like Nazi Zombies in Call of Duty: World at War, or The Horde in Gears of War 2, it involves killing wave after wave of enemies until they kill you. I have yet to play it with 4 players, but playing with 2 players, it was an enjoyable addition to an otherwise fairly packed game.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that ODST comes with an invitation to play the multiplayer beta for Halo Reach when they release it. This will no doubt be a worthwhile addition when it becomes available.

So now for the proper summary bit: Halo 3: ODST is a pleasant addition to the Halo series, I feel that focusing on a character who isn’t a genetically enhanced supersoldier gives the game a beneficial element of stealth, and the general feel of the game is better than its prequels. Or sequels.

Halo ODST changes enough things to make it more interesting than the other ones, whilst keeping enough aspects of it in place to maintain the feel of a Halo game. The narrative is more interesting than previous instalments, seeing the story through a variety of character’s eyes. It feels more like a Tarantino film in its style than most games, and this works to its favour. It allows sections that are heavily action led, and stealth sections, which, as you can probably tell, I really enjoyed.

Sadly though, by the end of this game, this unique style (at least as far as Halo is concerned) is jettisoned in favour of an action ending, when I was hoping for something more.

There are other flaws in the game too, whilst its length makes it easy enough to play through in one sitting (although admittedly it does help if you’re jobless and bored), I would have liked it to have been a bit longer. Also the graphics, after playing Call of Duty, leave a little to be desired. The controls aren’t as intuitive as Call of Duty- I’ve never liked having the beatdown button assigned to a face button (but refuse to do anything about it as it would make me a horrendous geek), and for a game involving elements of stealth, the lack of a sprint button can be quite frustrating. I got caught casually strolling to stationary cars I was planning on using for cover a couple of times.

The online multiplayer doesn’t have enough new things to tempt me to throw out my Halo 3 disk any time soon, but anyone who hasn’t already played a genuinely embarrassing amount of time on Halo 3 online would probably appreciate being able to play online.

These are all fairly small things, which I would like to have seen fixed in the new game. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the game and look forward to playing through it again.

Using the new 6 Lessons rating system, I’d give Halo 3: ODST

5/6. Or 83.3%.

6 Lessons learned from advertising (recent edition)

One of my final year modules for my degree was “Behavioural aspects of Marketing”. This was, without doubt, my favourite module in my entire degree. It provided an interesting insight into the minds of consumers- and more often than not a rather more disturbing insight into the minds of advertisers- and basically revolved around using psychology to make people buy your stuff.
Usually, you can see the thought processes of the marketers at work in adverts, you can see how they use attractive models- whom you wish to associate with- eating a KFC or other equally unattractive meal, and it makes you want to buy it. In theory.
However, some of the adverts seem to be making a fairly concerted effort to dissuade you from purchasing their product, by clearly aiming their advert at the wrong audience, or just by being so odd or useless that you sort of forget what the advert is actually for. There are some absolute classics from the past (The Flintstone’s flogging cigarettes anyone?) but I’m going to attempt to write only about adverts you’re likely to see in an ad break this evening. I'm also going to try and avoid going into great (and often rather boring) psychological detail.
6 Lessons learned from advertising (recent edition)…


1: The Lesson: People can’t tell the difference between an actual sporting hero and a terrible 128-bit rendering of them

Learned From: Gillette Fusion



There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with this advert. I think Gillette’s strength of branding- and frequent use of Tiger Woods, Thierry Henry and Roger Federer- is good enough to overcome this utterly bizarre change of direction.
The previous Gillette adverts featuring the sports equivalent of the super friends (assuming that the super friends was based around Superman and company mildly inconveniencing people until they ditched their old razors) were not bad. They showed a particularly mercenary side of Woods, Henry and Federer as, in the pay of the Gillette corporation, they used their not inconsiderable collective sporting talents to force one poor bloke into ditching his razor- completely ignoring the risks of hitting balls at a guy with a razor sharp, er, razor to his face. But, after their initial success getting this man to adopt the Fusion (having confronted him in a public restroom), something odd happened.
Perhaps it was a member of the Wilkinson Sword faction enacting some devious plan (straight out of a terrible comic book from the mid-60s), but all of a sudden Tiger Woods and Roger Federer were both replaced with what appears to be Playstation 2 generated doppelgangers. And there seems to be a bitter rivalry in the place of the co-operative (albeit slightly malicious) spirit of the former advert.
As I said at the beginning, there is nothing wrong with this advert; it’s just that it makes absolutely no sense considering the previous advert. And in the English version (it’s the American ad featured above) they aren’t even shown jumping out of the television, so there is no clear reason why two of the best loved sporting heroes of this generation are suddenly rendered in awful 128-bit shadows of their former selves.


2: The Lesson: Clearasil: May cause confidence, also rape.

Learned From: Clearasil



Ok, admittedly this sounds like an extreme and irrational conclusion to make- largely because it is. But I'll stick with it anyway. In this advert, having used his daily cleansing solution, this teenager has come over all ‘confident’ and ‘capable of talking to women’. It’s sickening to see.
In order to show off his newfound confidence and his lack of spots he approaches a girl putting on lipstick before going into the cinema and asks if he can borrow some. Being a generous and kind hearted soul, she obliges, albeit whilst wearing a quizzical expression.
But as she hands the lipstick to him he lunges towards her, in an attempt to place his lips upon hers. Now I’m not a fancy big city lawyer (nor am I above quoting the Simpsons), but I’m fairly certain that there is a law against forcing yourself upon someone without their prior consent. I was genuinely hoping to see him dragged off her by cinema security and delivered to a police station.
Then, as the scene cuts to a judge, he is sentenced to a couple of years in juvenile detention. And then 2 months into his 2-year sentence, covered in spots having been cut off from his precious supply of Clearasil he is shivved by a 12-year old arsonist for taking the last of the Apricot Munch Bunch. Fade to black. Admittedly this probably wouldn’t have sold any more Clearasil, but at least it would have been gritty and realistic.
Hell, disregarding the sexual assault, it’s not even a very good line.


3: The Lesson: The internet is a good place to find romance.

Learned From: eHarmony, Match.com

Good news! eHarmony, the website responsible for setting up 2% of marriages in America is coming to the UK! eHarmony is a business (I find that it sounds much more romantic if you put it that way) responsible for matching people together using some sort of complicated algorithm which compares their interests and beliefs and stuff like that.
Admittedly, if I were the sort of person who would be tempted by some sort of online dating service- which I’m really definitely not- I would probably appreciate the use of “science” (or at least someone’s ability to match up favourite films or books) to find me a match.
In fact, I am actually quite tempted to sign up on there. Posing as a staunch anti-Semite whose favourite film is Bambi, and who passionately loves Belle and Sebastian. Also enjoys weekends away on his 42-ft yaught, during which he throws kittens in bags overboard. Loves dogs. Go on eHarmony, find a woman with flexible enough morals for this fictitious man.
Also worth a mention is match.com, with their brilliant(ly lazy) approach to tv advertisements. Every few weeks they flip between having too many men, and having too many women. To be fair, this probably is the case; after all, if there are more fish in the sea and less anglers attempting to catch them, you have a better chance of hooking a really hot fish even if your rod is useless. So there will be more people going out attempting to be fishermen, so the fact that they're suffering from stock problems (I find it more romantic if you think of people as 'stock') shouldn't really come as a surprise.
Crumbling metaphors aside, I just think this is a fairly lame approach to marketing, surely match.com wants to be showing off the vibrancy of its clientele? Focusing on how wonderful they are, rather than just repeating an identical advert every 4-6 weeks and drawing attention to the fact that they’re not particularly discerning when it comes to screening. I wonder if they’d happily accept my neo-nazi-kitten-drowning profile.
Perhaps in both of these cases I’m just being rather petty because I’m fundamentally opposed to dating websites. I actually enjoy getting to know someone though conversation, and if every minutia of someone’s interests and beliefs is clearly spelled out in their profile, then that experience is lost. Nevertheless, it seems to be an increasing trend in America, where 1 in 8 marriages are between people who met online (and 4 in 8 marriages result in divorce), so the UK will no doubt be close behind. But yeah, I'd still prefer to date someone the traditional way...


4: The Lesson: ED is the most uncomfortable thing on television

Learned From: 40over40.com



Whilst on the subject of uncomfortable social situations involving love, let’s talk about erectile dysfunction in over 40s. Sure, it may be a prevalent problem, but if you’re wishing to show someone being a formerly-impotent-person-who-suddenly-has-a-new-lease-of-life, surely it would be better to have someone more, well, attractive.
If 40over40 had come to me to design this advert, I would have got George Clooney in (sure he can impregnate a woman just by exhaling within 30 feet of her, but that doesn’t matter. He's an actor. He can act impotent), doing some sort of car chase- driving into a tunnel, diving into some water, perhaps kissing in front of a fountain. Basically I'd fill it full of rich, disgusting imagery. Perhaps have Julia Roberts in there somewhere in a bikini. I'd more or less just be condensing the 3 ‘Oceans’ films into a 30 second spot.
As it is, there is still some sort of imagery- only in this event it involves some unattractive 40-something bloke shuffling around uncomfortably with his wife in a manner akin to dancing, whilst bolero plays in the background.
Actually thinking about it, I think this advert is brilliant. So many people are going to be permanently turned off by it, sales of whatever they’re selling will rocket.


5: The Lesson: Actually…

Learned From: Bird’s eye salmon fingers



First of all I’d like to doff my cap to Birdseye for trying to make fish fingers sexy. Secondly I would like to severely chastise Birdseye for trying to make fish fingers sexy.
I first saw this advert a couple of weeks ago, whilst my parents were in the room. Its 30-second duration was so heavilly laced with innuendo that I found it very difficult not to burst out with laughter at how plain horrible it was. About fish fingers.
It was frequently touched upon in the marketing units of my degree that humour is a good way to convince people to buy things. Typically with things like chocolate bars, or alcohol (where strict guidelines mean that they can’t actually sell the beer on its own merit as encourages alcoholism, so they have to focus on the brand) this works well.
I’d say this doesn’t work so well with fish fingers, to be honest I was mainly disturbed by the fact that they were a) animate and b) possessing some sort of libido. This advert caused me to yearn for the days when Captain Birdseye would roam around his little boat, looking like John Peel after a few years at sea. Then he'd give frozen goods to children, without being hideously unpleasant.


6: The Lesson: It sounds scientific, it looks scientific, so it must be scientific.

Learned From: Any cosmetic product







Cosmetics adverts are possibly the most transparent of all advertisements when it comes to using psychology to make people buy things. They use celebrities on the grounds that people want to emulate them and have hair just like Davina, or a face just like Andie MacDowell’s when they’re 50 (although its probably easier to look prettier when you’re 50 if you’re a famously attractive person who used to earn millions of dollars for her film roles). Then they use make up science to substantiate their claims.
This is possibly the best known of all of the sneaky tricks that businesses use to sell products, they use long words which the average layman won’t understand (pentapeptides anyone?), then they show diagrams of blue dots melting into the hair follicles and making them stand up, or showing little white orbs filling up gaping crevices in an elderly woman’s face.
Then they bring in studies that have shown (usually quite inconclusively if you read the small white text, using a very small sample group) that 82% of people agree that their wrinkles ‘appear’ to have been reduced. This rather ambiguous language allows them to get away with boasts which otherwise wouldn’t be allowed through the Advertising Standards Authority.
All of this gives a façade of the product being good (according to science, no less), despite the fact that typically it’s not hugely different from the regular Tesco shampoo or conditioner. Except, of course, for the price tag.
Still, I can’t complain too much about cosmetics products. Were it not for Pantene, there wouldn’t be this advert:

6 Lessons learned from Tim Minchin

This (much like my last post) is probably going up fairly late (although I do have a legitimate reason this week other than a lack of ideas- but hopefully it wasn’t too blaringly obvious).

Anyway, the excuse this week is that I spent the weekend (including my usual Saturday evening writing/lamenting my lack of social life time-slot) in Norwich, going out, clubbing on Saturday night and seeing Tim Minchin on Sunday evening (usually when I go through the arduous task of attempting to edit my posts), the gig was amazing, and I contemplated doing some sort of review of it, but figured that rigidly adhering to the 6 Lessons format was more important (and more interesting for the 6 billion people who didn’t attend the specific Tim Minchin gig I went to last night).

I’ve also found through my miscellaneous ramblings that I find it fairly difficult to write about something inherently funny without inadvertently pilfering their jokes and ruining them with a lack of comic delivery and timing- its far easier to take a cheap shot at The Daily Mail.

So whilst I would love to regale you with how amazing Tim Minchin was last night (very), perhaps steal some of his jokes, and subsequently rob them of their humour, I will instead be using him as some sort of framing device. Or something a lot like that... 6 Lessons learned from Tim Minchin (complete with videos!)…

1: The Lesson: Socially responsible anthems don’t have to be completely didactic

Learned From: “Canvas Bags”

I’ve never had a particularly comfortable relationship with socially responsible songs (I must have had a bad experience- aside from having to listen to Bob Geldof- in my youth when “Do They Know Its Christmas?” came on one Christmas in the mid-90s), I always find them to have an astonishingly patronising tone, and in order to keep the general message of the song intact trade offs have to be made which causes the song to suffer somewhat.

When I saw Greenday play headline the Reading festival in 2004, they played a lot of material from their (then) upcoming album, American Idiot. In between this they were frequently saying how they were going to vote Bush out of the white house upon their return to America, everyone cheered and 8 weeks later, when the elections were over and American Idiot had been released to commercial and critical success, George W. Bush was still president.

And the album, whilst not saving any children in Africa, was meant to be conveying some sort of message (War is wrong? Suicide is bad? The destructive ‘Punk’ approach vs the ‘Hippie’ love approach?), and although I was glad to see that the world valued more than just simple three minute long pop songs, as far as I concerned, whilst the album was an interesting exercise in making an album based entirely on a theme- which had already been done 30 years before by The Who and Pink Floyd- it lacked any of what made Greenday truly brilliant (namely their simple three minute pop songs).

Tim Minchin originally became widely known for fronting a campaign for canvas bags, with his song, er, “Canvas Bags” but far from being a typical socially responsible replete with preaching tone, it managed to be amusing whilst conveying the message. I now own a canvas bag.

2: The Lesson: How to take criticism in a calm and mature way

Learned From: Song for Phil Daoust

3 years ago, Phil Daoust wrote a really rather scathing 1-star review of Minchin’s set at the Edinburgh festival. This included some fairly personal slights about some reasonably significant aspects of Minchin’s set. Understandably he was hurt by this, and has penned a hilarious song (for Phil Daoust) about forgiveness.

I hope when (and for that matter I hope it’s when rather than if) I have anything notorious enough to be graded with a 5 star rating system- or even a percentage system, I’m not picky- that if I were to get a poor review, I would be able to take criticism in the same way that Minchin does…

3: The Lesson: Its possible to be critical of the perception of what love is, but still be quite romantic

Learned From: “If I didn’t have you”, “You grew on me”,

A couple of months ago I wrote about romantic comedies, and it’s quite possible that I came across more than a little critical of them. Despite really liking them. It’s quite difficult to live in a world where there is a plethora of awful, predictable and far-too-watchable romantic comedies suggest with certainty that there will be some sort of positive resolution. Particularly when half of those marriages would end in divorce. I bet it’s the ones with Hugh Grant in, I reckon when he’s not pleasantly befuddled he’s no longer attractive.

Tim Minchin has a number of songs that are critical of the notion of love at first sight and how it is typically more valued by Hollywood producers than “the creepy uppy kind of love” he discusses in “You grew on me”.

Anyway, I came up with a theory why people are so desperate to believe that this specific brand of love exists. And it’s only slightly misanthropic. People are lazy and pathetic. They want to be able to gain the benefits of being in a relationship (which according to scientific studies, include living longer and being more likely to get employed as well as all of the obvious stuff) without the effort or risk involved in the typical rigmarole associated with clumsily stumbling into a relationship. But perhaps that’s just me.

Obviously it’s a good thing as far as Hollywood’s concerned; they only have an hour and a half to two hours max in which to build up the appearance of a meaningful relationship. It’s just easier to have a couple of lingering shots of smouldering gazes whilst Damien Rice plays in the background.

All spoken like a true cynic, still, it appears that despite Minchin’s similarly critical views of the portrayal of love in films and Mills and Boon novels (if indeed, they can be called that), he’s been in a relationship with the same woman since he was 17. That’s half his life. Which strikes me as pretty romantic really.

4: The Lesson: The distribution of talent in this world isn’t fair

Learned From: Any Tim Minchin song

Not a whole lot to say about this really, as you can probably tell from the videos featured so far (and if you haven’t been watching them as you’ve gone along, and I’ve gone on and on, shame on you, go back and do it now), Tim Minchin is a brilliant pianist, a superb singer, and he can write brilliant, funny and nonetheless, thoroughly intelligent lyrics. It’s just not fair.

Watch the solo in this song, and just the general diversity of his voice.

5: The Lesson: Its hard to get noticed on the Internet

Learned From: “The Youtube Lament”

Something I’ve noticed from the few weeks I’ve been maintaining this blog and generally trying to gain some sort of presence on the Internet is that it’s difficult. The most success I’ve had so far is this article on romantic comedies (done off the back of that first post a couple of months ago), which has managed to gain over 1200 hits.

On the other hand, this video of a kitten, with bad grammar and a blocky face has been on youtube (where there are many videos of kittens for it to compete with) for two days, and has already amassed a view count of 2,000.

But look at its little legs. Aww.

6: The Lesson: The notion of an omnipotent god is a little silly

Learned From: “Storm”

I recently made the leap from agnostic to full blown atheist (and to show true commitment to this decision I changed it on facebook and everything). Agnosticism is a wonderful, comforting position for people to take in the grand religion debate. It is non-committal (my favourite argument was to say that humans couldn’t possibly even begin to contemplate the sheer scale and awesomeness of a god as good as religious types are keen to tell me about), and means that tirades at parties (both religious and anti-religious) are less likely to be directed at you (unless you're the only agnostic at a party full of ravenous atheists).

This was a position I was content to take for many years, until I listened to “Storm”, which details a dinner party where Tim Minchin locks horns with a hippy girl about her support of alternative therapies and eventually goes off on an extended rant taking in many aspects of religion and spirituality.

This led me to give more consideration to my long term, comfortable position, I’ve always found science great, without it we wouldn’t have cures for deadly diseases, we wouldn’t have the ability to experience and immerse ourselves in the staggering beauty and the cultures of the other side of the world, without science, I wouldn’t have electricity to run my xbox on.

Despite this appreciation (and occasionally, even an understanding) of science and all it’d done for me, I was content not to ponder the existence- or lack thereof- of god, homeopathy or Santa.

However, hidden within the comical stanzas and couplets of “Storm” are a number of incisive and, most importantly, rational arguments against not only specific facets of the alternative lifestyle- such as psychics- but also the nature of faith and the terrible fact that these fictitious characters, fabricated beasts and dubious activities ultimately distract us from the beauty of existence itself (and Jungles and fish and grass and Velociraptors, even though they technically no longer exist). It was hard not to take note of such humorously composed and eloquently voiced arguments and not agree.

I’m aware of the irony that being indoctrinated into this set of beliefs by words and nice chord progressions bears a startling resemblance to joining a cult. In fact, whilst sat in the theatre last night, with a thousand people laughing in the simultaneously and singing along together, there were some very definite comparisons that could be drawn between a religious service and the gig.

This wasn’t lost on Minchin himself, who laments the loss of coming together to share music and sing together in a more secular society, and proceeded to lead the audience in singing a song about loving Jesus. It did feel like joining a cult. And now I’m indoctrinating you.

6 Lessons learned from The X Factor (and similar shows)

So its finally happened. I have hit rock bottom. This Saturday night, in lieu of going out and socialising- financial constraints put that idea out the window- I stayed in and was subjected (I will insist to the end that I had absolutely no choice in the matter) to The X Factor. Then the Xtra factor.

And the worst part is, this isn’t even an isolated incident, it appears that my mother is already undergoing a hefty dose of senility, which means that she procures enjoyment from the X Factor’s flashing lights, the contestant’s flat tones and (somehow) Dermot O’Leary. If this continues, I may have to prematurely put her in a home. Not to for the sake of her sanity, but for the sake of mine.
And whilst on the subject of cruelly and callously taking advantage of the mentally ill in order to elicit a cheap laugh; 6 Lessons Learned from The X Factor (and similar shows)…


1: The Lesson: It doesn’t really matter how talented you are

Learned From: Chico

In a surprisingly large number of cases it seems that there is little connection between the talent of the singer and the round they eventually reach. Yes, in the early rounds the terrible singers generally go out, and the good singers mostly stay in.
However this isn’t always the case, more often than not the judges will put through someone who butchers the original melody of the song with excessive use of vibrato (which I suspect they imagine makes them sound like Christina Aguilera rather than a cat being run over by a variety of different sized vehicles) and this seems a trend that is likely to get worse with the new format featuring the public (who will clap anything approaching warbling) in the early stages.
It’s not just the Aguilera wannabes that get through to later rounds despite sounding terrible. If you’re capable of posing like Mick Jagger in the final of a musical statues competition with Michelangelo’s David, that should at least see you to a level of some success before the nation snaps to its senses.
Except for in the case of Chico, who even had time to release a number one single before people realised he couldn’t sing. Proving that the record buying public of the UK need a collective lobotomy. But more on that later.


2: The Lesson: There is a strong positive correlation between the number of relatives killed by cancer and singing ability. But this adversity also causes reverb.

Learned From: Roughly 3 or 4 contestants a week

It’s a fact of life that people love a tragic songbird. This is more or less the only possible reason to account for the popularity of Amy Winehouse. She could die at any time.
But so unquenchable is the thirst of Joe Public for tragic songbirds that Cowell and company deems it necessary to turn anyone who has undergone any struggle into a heart-rending story of some poor unfortunate’s conquering of hardship.
First comes the VT, in which they talk at great length about their deceased brother/mother/dog and how there is some tenuous link to their singing talent. Then they come on and sing. And they’re good. Really good.
Or so it seems, more often then not when they start singing they have huge cavernous voices. This is assisted by hefty amounts of reverb- something the awful contestants don’t typically tend to get. Some uplifting music plays in the background, and the audience is whipped up into a frenzy. And never so much than in the case of one Susan Boyle.


3: The Lesson: Ugly people cannot possibly have any other redeeming talents.

Learned From: Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle made headlines all over the world this year. In the 2009 Britain’s Got Talent, she got the full ‘uplifting music’ treatment, complete with VT showing how sad and miserable her pathetic life was, but mostly how inexpressibly hideous she was.
The audience was initially somewhere between apathetic and hostile, this horrendous looking woman had dared gatecrash their stage- reserved only for the beautiful people. Then she started singing, and the music began and everyone (quite literally in some cases, for this was quite clearly the single most significant televisual event ever to take place) completely lost their shit.
From this point it was like a fairy tale, it turned out that the grotesque ogre had a soul and a beautiful singing voice, Americans came across the channel to patronise her, like in this rather repulsive video of some bint from Good Morning America.

Hollywood wanted to make a film chronicling her depressing life, and charting her meteoric rise to fame. She seemed on the brink of international success. She was going to be bigger than John Lennon being bigger than Jesus. Then she had a breakdown, came second in the show and everyone started asking questions about the efficacy of the psychological tests applicants for talent shows undergo.


4: The Lesson: Deranged people are ok to laugh at if its packaged along with bright lights and VT demonstrating how good they think they are.

Learned From: 90% of contestants in the early rounds

The auditions in the early phases of the competition have some hilariously bad people singing. I’m not for a moment going to suggest that I’m above laughing at them. The Pope wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Even Ghandi would have trouble stifling a giggle.
Still, when I stop sniggering, I find myself feeling like a cog in a terrible machine which chews up, swallows, then violently projectile vomits over a 6 million strong crowd. Ok, not a great metaphor seeing as I’m both a cog and crowd member, but I feel like part of the blatant exploitation of some people who really don’t seem all there.
There was one contestant, a few years ago (I spent ages searching for this on youtube to no avail) that brought in a tape that they’d remixed of a John Lennon song. Then he sang (quite terribly, I might add) alongside it. At no point in this audition did I laugh.
As it went on, and the contestant said that he thought it meant that John Lennon would be able to release some more records, it felt increasingly like I was in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, watching Leatherface’s family insist that he was not a murderer, but a nice boy. It was like watching someone desperately clutching at the final vestiges of hope for a better life, then watching said remnants slip into an overflowing gutter, and missing by mere inches in an attempt to grab them before they are lost to a drain and oblivion. Basically it was really uncomfortable.
Then watching Cowell and whomever they had on the show pick him apart was worse still, this poor delusional guy was having his idea, which he’d clearly put an absurd amount of work into mercilessly torn asunder by some cackling idiots, whilst more cackling idiots watched on from the comfort of their homes.
Many contestants get riled up and lash out, or cry hysterically, but this guy seemed like he would go home on the bus in silence, microwave cook his final ready meal, write a hastily scribbled note to no one in particular making apologies if he causes a powercut, before taking his tape player into the bath.
This admittedly probably didn’t happen, but it still seems a little bit horrible to laugh at the dreams of others being crushed in such a way, particularly when some participants seem fairly unstable.


5: The Lesson: Water is a more effective form of revenge than, say, a fist to the face.

Learned From: Several contestants who we barely learn the name of.

It is indicative of the mental instability of X Factor contestants that the way they want to inflict revenge on the judges for not putting them through is to throw the judges’ water on them. Like this woman attempted to:

I was under the impression that having your dreams crushed in front of a national television audience, in a prime time slot on a Saturday night (and lets not forget youtube!) would probably warrant a little more than a mild inconveniencing, and in a worst case scenario, a dry cleaning bill.
I’m not saying it has to be a full on Kill Bill rip-roaring tale of revenge (although I’m all for that), but surely someone could at least threaten to kill Simon Cowell’s dog. and possibly follow through with it.

Unless they were expecting this to happen:

6: The Lesson: The record buying populace in the UK are idiots

Learned From: The last 4 year’s Christmas number ones

I shall forewarn you, this is the most depressing point on the list (which takes some doing). The fact is that people are largely aware of how exploitative the X Factor and similar shows are. They are aware of the fact that none of the acts apparently have any songwriting talent of their own and solely depend on covers in order to win over an audience who couldn’t possibly take hearing an original song. They are aware of how shamelessly manipulative the programme is. They are aware that phoning in and voting fuels Simon Cowell’s jet, in addition to his ego.
And yet, week in, week out they watch and they vote. And then, after buying their favourite star (or at least the star most favourably portrayed in the final edit) to pole position in the final, they go out and buy the single when its released at Christmas.
And then, having spent all this money and time on this person, they apparently completely forget about them- possibly passing comment when the follow up single reaches number 22 in the charts and little more- before getting hyped up come August the next year (or sooner it Britain’s Got Talent Is On). And it has happened. For the last 4 years. The last song to top the charts at Christmas that wasn’t performed by an X Factor contestant was Band Aid 20’s “Do they know its Christmas”.
Last Christmas, someone took a stand against this trend and attempted to get Jeff Buckley’s (far superior) version of Hallelujah to number one, instead of Alexandra Burke’s version (incidentally, both are covers of Leonard Cohen’s original). Unfortunately the idiots rallied and ensured that Burke’s version became the fastest selling single ever released by a woman in the UK. Meanwhile, Buckley’s came second, with 80,000 sales. Some 496,000 sales behind Burke’s.