I can’t decide who I would kill first if I was sat next to this pair on a flight: Stewart, Walters or myself.

Here’s a snippet of their oh-so-natural conversation as the “genuinely friends in real lfe” – who were in no way crow barred together just for this advert – enjoy a bit of in-flight entertainment: 

Julie Walters: “One fifty from a fiver is… three pounds fifty. Yessssssss.”

Patrick Stewart: “The synapses are firing!”

For the love of God! 

One of them is so pleased with her ability to answer a basic maths question that she behaves like she’s just won University Challenge – all by herself.

The other one is patronising in the most gut churning and unnecessarilly intellectual way possible.

Everytime it comes on I want to scream: “She’s doing something a 5 year old would find easy!”.

Sadly, I can’t find this advert on the Tube but feel that the splendour of Patrick Stewart’s moustache alone makes this previous advert a worthy entry in the TV’s Worst Adverts archives:

Thanks to Trystan for submitting this bad ad.

Well, the DFS Nickleback Rockstar ad really is the advert that keeps on giving.

The horrific dancing, the terrible CGI and a recording of a cat having its claws slowly pulled out – or, as they prefer to call it, Nickleback’s Rockstar – playing in the background, made this one of the most hated adverts on TV in recent months.

And now, thanks to the ASA having had the fingers on its left-hand on the Nation’s wrist and the fingers on its right-hand on that bit of the Nation’s neck just below the Nation’s jaw bone to make sure it had at least one set of fingers on Nation’s pulse, they’ve banned the advert.

Just 6 months after it first appeared on TV.

What’s worse is the ASA didn’t ban the advert due to it being an affront to all things decent but because DFS couldn’t prove that the CGI didn’t make the sofas look “disproportionately big”.

This was enough for 21 people to complain that the advert was misleading. Disappointingly, we’ve not been told just how big those people thought the sofas would be:

“We saw the advert with the little people dancing and thought the sofa would be the size of Table Mountain but it turns out it’s only the size of a sofa.”

Amusingly, one of the reasons that DFS couldn’t prove that the settees were bigger in the advert than in reality is because they’d sold out of all the featured sofas. Oh the irony.

Anyways, I can’t help but feel that banning this advert because of the CGI is a little like jailing Capone for tax evasion. Yes, it’s off the air but there’s not the satisfaction of seeing it convicted for it’s most heinous crimes.

Ho hum.

And spare a thought though, if you will, for the forgotten victims of this advert: the actors who appear in it. Because, nevermind what they did to the sofas, DFS made every one of these poor saps look like a disproportionately large cock.

As any sane person knows everyone alive today can be split into two categories: PC or Mac.

And on the off chance that you’re not sure which you are I’ve knocked together a handy check list.

You’re a Mac if all of the following:

• You work in Graphic Design.
• You wear t-shirts with ironic slogans on them that would make a non-Mac look like a complete knob.
• You’re currently sleeping with 5 people at the same time. At least 3 of them are models – but all of them are perfectly happy with the arrangement.
• You live in the gay quarter of either Manchester or Bristol – even though you’re 80% sure you’re not gay. Well, 65% sure.
• You’re far too cock-achingly cool to be reading TV’s Worst Adverts.

You’re a PC if you’re any of the following:

• Not all of the Mac ones above.

So they decided to get their own back with their series of “I’m a PC” adverts. Yeah, Microsoft were going to give Apple a bitch slap they wouldn’t soon forget:

Except, and I’m sure this will amaze you as much as it amazes me, in making these adverts Microsoft have taken one of Apple’s ideas and made it very, very nerdy and many, many times shitter.

Who would have thunk it?

Of course, one of the main problems with these advert’s pathetic attempt at portraying PC users as some kind breed of uber-Fonzies, lies with the fact that PCs aren’t sexy or cool.

PC’s are – and hold the front page for this one – functional and dull.

And there are few things nerdier than nerds trying to be cool. In fact these Microsoft ads miss the mark so much – one of them even features Bill, for funk’s sake – that they make David Mitchell’s character from the Apple adverts seem like Justin Timberlake.

So come on Microsoft, stop trying to be cool and keep doing what you’re good at: Add a few more functions to Excel so I can get my accounts done!

I think we must have all been very naughty this year because look who Christmas has brought us again:

Lovely on the inside.

Ugly on the outside.

Prepare to have your mind corrupted in ways you’ve never before thought possible – yes, it’s the banned Apple iPhone advert:

Apparently, the above ad was misleading for “exaggerating the speed of the iPhone 3G”.

Shocking.

In their defence Apple said:

“No, but what it was, right, we were saying “It’s, like, fast when you compare it to the old way of browsing the Internet on a phone”, yeah?

You know, we were saying “The iPhone 3G is metaphorically this fast compared to someone shouting a load of zeros and ones down the phone at you, yeah, and you having to interpret them using an etch-a-sketch that your operating with your teeth”, right?”

I was having to paraphrase there a bit but you get the gist.

Anyways, even when taking into account the fact that if you have an iPhone 3G you’re so pleased with yourself that you don’t care if it’s not as fast as the advert implies and if you don’t have an iPhone 3G you could give a monkeys even if it does connect to the “interwebsitenet”, the ASA saw fit to ban it.

So, shame on you, Apple.

Shame on you.

The challenge faced by advertisers of High Definition TV’s on what are, quite frankly, pathetic, non-HD, Luddite teles is this generations “advertising colour TV on black and white sets”.

But a TV that can “make snooker even more enjoyable”, amazingly, isn’t much of a selling point these days.

No, HD is all about being able to see stuff you couldn’t see before.

You know, like being able to see James Bond doing some kind of pastiche of that bit at the end of Empire Strikes Back:

And in a World exclusive TV’s Worst Adverts can reveal the dialogue from the next instalment of these Sony adverts:

Goldfinger: “M never told you what happened to your father.”
James Bond: “She told me enough. She told me you killed him.”
Goldfinger: “No. I am your father”

Yeah, it turns out that Goldfinger is actually James Bond’s father. Who knew? Who knew?

Shockingly at the end of the advert Goldfinger actually does cut James Bond’s nuts off – to which Bond dryly retorts: “Bollocks!”.

Not really.

In reality, I don’t know what the hell this advert is really supposed to be showing us apart from the very obvious “green screening” of Daniel Craig – this generations “you can see the strings!”.

I get the feeling that this advert’s message is as simple as “Watching a Sony HD TV will make you as cool as James Bond”. In much the same way that the Barclay Card advert says “Spending money on your Barclay Card will make you as cool as James Bond” and the Ford Ka advert says “Driving a new Ford Ka will make you as cool as James Bond”.

And, although this message might seem exceptionally shallow, I think that we all agree that the coolest part of the latest James Bond film was when he drove his Ford Ka to Curry’s and bought a new Sony HD TV with his Barclay Card.

So, on the whole, magical stuff.

Toshiba Upscaling TV Advert

Here’s the new advert for Toshiba’s Upscaling TV’s – which “enhances standard definition content to near high definition quality” apparently.

I quite like this advert but can’t help but feel it’s what the Matrix would have been like if it was directed by Gus Van Sant.

The original version of the Cadbury’s Drumming Gorilla went down as many people’s favourite advert of 2007.

It was quirky and funny, completely different to every other advert, and seemed to do the trick for Dairy Milk sales.

But even so, sales still aren’t good enough, and now Cadbury need a cost-efficient way to tap back into some of the public’s gorilla-shaped goodwill.

Why not relaunch the drumming gorilla advert with a different song?

Because it’s everything the first one wasn’t.

It’s tired and predictable (“Oh, I see. It’s a Gorilla playing the drums to a ironically-shit-but-not-that-shit 80′s classic. Brilliant!”) and the way the film changes speed to make the Gorilla drum in time with music is toe curling bad.

But for me, this new version fails because – much like the Cadbury’s Trucks follow-up – it creates nowhere near as much joy as the Phil Collins version. Which, after all, is the whole point of the advert.

And if I had to quantify just how much joy the Bonnie Tyler version creates, I’d have to say, ooh, about a quarter of a cup – not a drop more.

Missing it’s mark but a good 1 and a quarter cupfuls.

What do you all think? Does this new version work for you?

Gary Rhodes is on a mission.

A mission to see if taking the bucketful of dirty cash from Flora makes up for sobbing himself to sleep every night since selling his spiky haired soul to a margarine company?

No, not really, Silly.

He’s on a mission to see which is better: Flora Buttery or a euphemistically named “leading spreadable from a butter brand” (or Lurpak Lighter Spreadable as the small print simultaneously tells us).

And there’s only one way to find out which is better… FIGHT!

Oh no, that’s a different programme.

It turns out the only way to actually find out which *is* better is to travel round the shopping centres of this once great country in a bright yellow VW Camper Van with a giant, half-eaten crumpet on the roof.

A feat that is so undignified that he may as well have strapped himself to the bonnet naked from the waist down, covered his buttocks with lashing of Flora Buttery and screamed “FLORA BUTTERY MAKES YOUR BUNS TASTIER” at passers-by as he’s slowly driven round the Coventry ring road.

Ironically kissing good bye to his last ounce of self-respect with his own ring, as he goes.

And amazingly there’s worse news yet for Gary; after doing all the terribly derogatory stuff in the shopping centres it turns out that the survey produced results that would make a cosmetics company hang its head in shame.

48% of the 200 people Gary Rhodes could bring himself to ask chose Flora Buttery. That’s a whopping 96 people.

Only 45% chose Lurpak Lighter Spreadable. That’s a minuscule 90 people.

The small print on screen also has the decency to tell us that 7% had no preference. These 14 heroes of our time are the only glimpse of sanity in this ridiculous “6 people prefer our spread” fiasco of an advert by simply stating that they had no preference as to what they spread on their crumpets before cramming them down their offence hole.

I imagine that Lurpak are devastated by these findings and I really can’t see a way for them to find a way back into the spreadables – or “butterique”, as I like to call it – market after that result.

I. Really. Can’t.

Or as I mean to say: 3% variance on such a small sample actually means “Sweet Fanny Adams”.

Spread that one on your crumpet Flora.

Judge for yourself.

UPDATE

As Robert says in his comment below, the ASA has banned this advert in it’s current form. They’ve concluded that :

We concluded that the claim “More people prefer the taste of Flora Buttery” had not been supported with sufficiently robust evidence and was therefore, likely to mislead.

Most shockingly of all, this whole affair has revealed a more sinister and worrying un-truth: it wasn’t Gary Rhodes who did the survey after all – it was a “third-party research organisation”! And I thought Gary really cared about whether we preferred Flora Buttery or Lurpak but it turns out he was just pretending all along.

Shame on you, Gary Rhodes! Shame on you!

Oh, Christ! The start of another week at work.

I don’t know if I can face it; grinding out the 7.5 for the minimum wage.

You know how it is, tick follows tock follows tick follows tock, oh and there’s an occasional bong.

You wait. That’s what you do.

Waiting for 17:30, knowing that in 29 minutes times you’ll have made it to the pub and ordered a pint of the black stuff.

Yeah, that’s why 17:59 is traditionally known as “Miller Time!”.

No, no, not “Miller Time”, you idiot! What do you think this is, the 90′s?

No, the marketeers have decided that 17:59 is now “Guinness Time”!

Anyway, regardless of what the actual time is where you are, this advert is letting you know that Guinness have been making, er, Guinness for 249 years now.

Which means next year, to mark the 250th anniversary of the first person experiencing the initial repulsion followed by slow acceptance and ultimate enjoyment of drinking Guinness, will be a year like no other in Ireland’s history – a year where they have a 365 day long drinkathon!

Oh no, hang on, that is just like every other year.

Who cares? Let’s party.

What’s particularly interesting about this advert though is that previously little had been known about how the World’s most famous stout drink is made. The mysterious owner of Guinness is rarely seen in public and no-one has ever been seen entering nor leaving the imposing St James’ Gate brewery.

So it’s wonderful that this ad let’s us see exactly how a pint is made. And who would have thunk it, Guinness is made by Oompa Loompas!

I was a little surprised to see the Ooompa Loompas in a TV advert though, particularly after this warning they gave Mike TV:

Oompa Loompa doompadee doo
I’ve got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doompadah dee
If you are wise you’ll listen to me

What do you get from a glut of TV?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of three
Why don’t you try simply reading a book?
Or could you just not bear to look?

You’ll get no
You’ll get no
You’ll get no
You’ll get no
You’ll get no commercials

Oompa Loompa Doompadee Dah
If you’re not greedy you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa
Oompa Loompa doompadee do

Magical stuff though, I think you’ll agree.

Is your name “Lehman”?

Have you and your brother just found yourselves out of a job?

If you’ve answered yes to either of the questions above, then read on, I might be able to help you.

Because, assuming you haven’t just thrown yourself out of your 32nd floor office window, now is the ideal time to retrain as a plumber, electrician, joiner or professional tea drinker.

And thanks to a very well timed advert, it seems that The Skills Centre is the ideal place to do that training. But just in case you missed The Skills Centre’s “inspirational” advert, here’s Simon Breadbin’s recap for you:

“Tony! How are things?

Let’s have an impossibly stilted exchange about what’s happened in the three years since we did our generic ‘work’ at ‘The Site’.

I’ve being doing ‘a course’ and got ‘my certificate’; yes, working AND learning.

Look at my smug van and tidy beard. Hark as I drop not a single aitch whilst whining my way through a script that makes Elton Johns hair look natural.

I’m better than you now Tony; you’re shit, and I’m ace.

Ha ha! Your life is ashes, YOUR LIFE IS ASHES…”

Nice one, Simon!

Judge for yourself.