almost witty

I would have thought that in these post Alan-Partidge, post-irony, post Web 2.0, post dotcom boom days that no-one would dare to advertise a business opportunity for a well-known professional social networking site with this god-awful graphic:

I mean, just count the number of ways in which this advert is *so* wrong:

• The facial gesture
• The hand gesture - a second-hand car salesman knows not to do this
• The Bluetooth-esque attachment, clearly meant to signify wealth and success. What it says, of course, is “I am a huge twat of an idiot and deserve to be turned into a Cyberman when the revolution of steel beckons”
• The really bad Photoshopping
• The obvious use of stock photo clipart, and one cheesy actor

I feel very sorry for whichever Photoshop monkey put this together. It’s just sooo terrible. And endemic of all that’s wrong with the web industry. It’s not a quick-grab money-raking opportunity. Well, unless you’re very lucky.

Would you drive across Alabama in a white pickup truck with ‘Man Love Rules OK’ emblazoned in pink? Whilst following another car that had ‘Hillary for President’ emblazoned? With another car that had ‘Country and Western sucks, ok?’ on the side?

Not many of us would do that, but the team on Top Gear (a British show that used to be about motor cars but is now more about three blokes larking around with vehicles … think of it as the Brit equivalent of The Man Show replacing boobs with cars) decided to do just that as part of their drive from Miami to New Orleans. Unsurprisingly, when they had to fill up in a petrol station, they ran into some trouble…

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The news comes in that Jim’ll Fix It is returning to UK Gold, in a brand-new programme that looks back at old children’s requests and revisits their fix-its.

However, it’s called Jim’ll Fix It: Now and Then. Which is one hell of a missed chance. If I were a UK Gold creative, I’d have been championing for it to be called:

Jim’ll Fix It: Now Then, Now Then

C’mon, can’t you see the possibilities of that ?!

Draw up any list of alleged Hollywood heart-throbs, and I honestly can’t see why anyone would fancy most of them. Tom Cruise? Too chiselled. Brad Pitt? Too blonde. Richard Gere? HE’S GOT GREY HAIR AND NO CHARM!

However, one exception is George Clooney. Not only does he seem to be a genuinely charming nice gentlemen (but then I’ve never met him - and maybe he just has an exceptionally good PR agency working for him) willing to stick up for the “common man”, but he looks genuinely good AND relaxed in a suit. Especially with an open-collared shirt.

When I don a suit, however, I tend to feel like I look like a squashed gorilla into a suit. It doesn’t help, of course, that I’ve made some suit-buying choices over the years which I thought were a good idea, but exposed to the raw summer sunshine was a terrible idea. My old-time-school friends have now taken to calling me Mr. Del Monte and asking whether my summer beige linen jacket will ever see the light of day again.

However, I seem to have turned a corner. I was on the hunt for a good interview shirt the other day, and actually decided to get my neck measured instead of hazarding a guess. The resulting shirt gave me the right open-collar look that, to my mind, aped George Clooney. This I exclaimed to Miss R who, to her credit, did not immediately disavail me of the notion.

Unfortunately, I now have a second round. Which means I need to find another shirt - or at least, catch lightning in the same bottle twice. This, I fear, might be easier.

(and yes, an entire blog post about buying a shirt. I apologise.)

and this is what Miss R and I have ended up doing. Honest.

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