29 June 2010

Limited Time Offer: England World Cup Stuff In Scotland?

Sometimes I don't get around to posting things when I first see them or think of them, and this is such an instance.  A lovely special edition pack of Carlsberg lager at a bargain price of £4 for 8 (275ml) bottles proudly stating their sponsorship of the England team.  The strange thing is I saw this in a Scottish Tesco store - must have been a mis-delivery...  I am interested whether this rock bottom price is across all Tesco stores or if it just in Scotland as the are going to find it hard to shift the packs!
However, in delaying writing about this there was a slightly missed opportunity, out by about one week.
The promotional offer ends on the 20th June, if only they had of extended it by an extra week and it would have been as psychic as the damn German octopus...!

20 June 2010

500 Posts Over 5 Years ... Happy Birthday To PhillG.com!

Wow!  I've been doing this for five years now, spanning three different careers!  500 different posts, many of which I don't even remember (such as the fact I'm a Googlewhack!) until I re-read them...  There are course many posts that will go down in infamy, like me deciding after 9 months to close down PhillG.com and open a new blog reflecting the "real" PhillG.  Thanks to all the different readers and the 205 comments made over the years.  Why do I keep doing this?  Simply to inform and enlighten.  There are literally hundreds of people across the world who are guided by my reviews of World Premieres during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for deciding whether or not to see the show when it reaches them, or even the performers keeping in touch with fans pre-bookface!  People can also find out how to fix a showers, why swans abandon their eggs and of course, when the European & UK Premiere of Toy Story 3 was (last night and it was excellent!).  Keep on reading and I'll keep on bloggin'...

13 June 2010

Acceptable Institutional Racism Through Retail


Assuming we are all aware of the racist 'Anyone But England' t-shirts it seems a bit of a surprise that I can offer you an example of acceptable institutional racism through retail but then again I'm all about defying expectations!  Just so we are clear, the A.B.E. t-shirts are racist in Scotland, whereas in England they are seemed as a bit of a joke; no doubt why they have their own Scotland Not Playing (S.N.P.) t-shirts.  But substitute England for any other race (who are a minority in Scotland) and it would be arrestable racism.  So back to the acceptable version.  Wandering around Cameron Toll of all places I saw this poster encouraging people to get behind any team other than England but for a very good reason - the winner of the competition gets a holiday to the country who wins the World Cup and their hook is 'Anywhere but England'!  Very clever and ingenious whilst avoiding real racism.  Yes it gently plays upon the "we don't want our (friendly) rivals to win" but it does so for purely personal gain rather than bigoted beliefs.  Also, the 'anywhere but England' line isn't 100% true either, I'm pretty sure England is second bottom on the list of places you could go on holiday from Scotland, with North Korea last.  Kudos to Cameron Toll for an effective and amusing competition.

12 June 2010

ITV1 HD Miss Opening England Goal & Only Scotland Has HD Now!

Wow, I knew ITV was a channel in trouble but accidentally pressing the "go to advert" button the second the England throw-in was going to be taken and missing Steven Gerrard's delightful goal is a huge own-goal!  Apparently this didn't happen on regular ITV, just restricted to their much-hyped ITV1 HD channel. What makes it worse is that as they have restored the feed it is standard-definition, not HD (look in the top right, there is no HD logo).  You can also confirm this by flicking between the normal ITV channel and HD versions and you'll notice no picture difference and no time delay (the HD version is usually behind the normal version).   So you can't watch the England game in HD on ITV, unless of course you live in Scotland where we have STV and their HD feed has been un-interrupted so the Scots are the only people watching England in HD right now!  You can't right things this funny...  Anyway, someone's head should roll for this especially as it comes after ITV messed up the deciding goal against Liverpool in the dying minutes of extra time in the FA Cup game against Everton.
UPDATED:  It seems they have restored some camera feeds for the mid-point of the half (as the ITV HD logo returned) but the whole game is still not in full HD in England, only in Scotland!  Furthermore the second half is being broadcast only in standard definition.

8 June 2010

Sex Sells... Unfortunately I Just Point Out Advert Copy-Cats!

I had a lovely time at the Taste festival in Edinburgh and wandered around savouring all the culinary delights (and good jazz band).  That is until I see an arty picture of a (possibly) naked woman with the line "Sex Sells..." underneath and I rush away from human contact to take a picture of it like some for of soft-core pervert.  Of course, a little explanation later that I was passing USC the day before and saw the exact same advert in their shop window partially justified my trigger-happy camera action.  The next day I passed USC again (as if I was drawn to it...!) and snapped the same image so you can judge for yourself.  Is it lazy advertising or has an agency re-used or copied other work?  Either way it's quite surprising that hip fashion shop USC and cool bar Cargo both have less racy adverts than M&S!

5 June 2010

4.3.2.1. And British Cinema Plumbs Depths Below Alice Creed

So the worst three "films" I have seen this year are all British (well, English).  That's a very sad commentary on the state of UK cinema give the resurgence during the early 21st Century.  Trash of the Titans at least earned a score worthy of distracting me when I have nothing else to do (perhaps sitting on a long haul flight and can't sleep, although the last time that was the case, Quantum of Solace quickly sent me to sleep with its incessant talking and minimal action).  Then came a film I scratched my car to go and see, The Disappearance of Alice Creed.  For sometime I hoped the "director" would disappear from his apparent day job and maybe do something useful to the world instead.  The film was written and acted as if being performed by group of A Level students who aren't even top of their class in a mid-city school not known for its art courses.  Something would have to be pretty bad to beat the "5 out of 10 - don't watch it even if it is free" score of Alice Creed.
And then came Noel Clarke and 4.3.2.1. a film which would be considered offensive and childish if it was actually made by GCSE girls with attitude problems.  I assume the title really refers to the number of weeks they spent on different aspects of the film, such as the combined number of weeks spent in acting classes by the cast (4 weeks), the time spent watching other films to copy their original directing tools (3 weeks as the subtitles in Rent Lola Rent can be complicated if you are not used to good films), writing the "dialogue" (2 weeks and that included a 10 day holiday), and they amount of time this film should have been in production (rounded up to the nearest full week, 1).
This is the first 4 out of 10 film in a while (since last year's festival actually and the apparently brilliant Dario Argento's appalling Giallo) which translates as zero stars and means walk out (or don't let someone drag you in in the first place).  I cannot overstate just how poor this film is for a "mainstream" release.  There is absolutely nothing good about it and if you consider modern covers of good songs as a redeemable aspect of a film then I'm afraid you are as mis-guided as Noel Clarke.  The only saving grace is that is it is still some levels above the worst film of all time (also British), The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael.  A message to Noel Clarke:  You like borrowing ideas and full stops?  Let me remind you of the telegram in Blackadder Goes Forth and ask you to "please STOP"