Here’s one of life’s greatest puzzles – How do you increase your market share in the meal solutions category among “Hedonistic Urbanites”? Hmm, it’s a toughie, I think you’ll agree.

Well, those fearless souls at Giovanni Rana are having another crack at solving it.

The more unfortunate amongst you might remember their previous, and frankly risible, ”Citizens for Fresh Pasta Justice” advert featuring Strictly Come Dancing’s resident sack of potatoes/pantomime dame, Ann Widdecombe. Seemingly though Giovanni Rana thought that Ann wasn’t quite inappropriate enough a figure to flog fresh pasta so for their new ad they’ve gone one better: the reverend Tim Lovejoy.

You see, if the internet’s to be believed (and I see no reason why it’s not…) Tim’s quite a divisive fellow. Many people apparently think that he’s no more than an arrogant, rude and self-absorbed man who’s got the face of a schoolboy having his first erection. But, genuinely, genuinely, he’s got more in his kitbag than that. To say he simply exists to make Danny Baker and Chris Evans seem like talented presenters and all-round decent blokes is just cruel. He’s got a lot of… a lot of… erm…

Ooh. Sorry, I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to type there.

Anyway, back to the ad and Tim’s up to his usual laddish tricks. He’s got a *friend* coming for dinner but he’s burnt his roast – did you learn nothing on Sunday morning cookery and lifestyle magazine format TV show “Something for the Weekend”, Tim? - and is knocking on the door of Sofia, his unfeasibly attractive Italian neighbour, desperate for a helping hand. Sofia is only too happy to oblige with some fresh pasta that blessedly takes only 60 seconds to cook – a fact illustrated by the unusually upward counting egg-timer. Yet despite it only taking 1 minute to cook, despite it only requiring a pan of boiling water, despite it being for Tim and his *friend*, Sofia cooks it there and then for Tim, plates it up and lays it on her table.

Fortunately Tim’s *friend* is spared a disgustingly cold plate of soggy pasta because this whole scene is a cunning ruse by Tim to get both a free dinner made by and then the pants off the unfeasibly attractive Italian neighbour.

Ha! Take that, romance!

So. Where to begin?

Tim is so badly miscast for this role – “Hedonistic Urbanite” and “Lad” are not the same thing. And whilst his abilities as a present might be up for debate but there’s no questioning his complete lack of acting talent. Which leads to he and Sofia having as much charisma between them as one of the bolognese tortelloni that’s been cooked for very nearly 2 minutes.

But potentially the worst is yet to come. Because in the wholly unnecessary behind the scenes ‘making of’ video on YouTube, Tim suggests that Giovanni Rana are going to try to do a BT just as BT tried to do a Goldblend. So baton down the hatches, it looks like we’ve got another storm to weather.

Are you grossly overweight but too lazy to go on a diet or, God forbid, do some exercise?

Are your body parts – that, not wishing to patronise you, probably resemble over-inflated balloons – terribly, terribly sore from all that nasty chaffing?

Then have we got the lubricant for you!

Yes, it’s the latest advert from Lanacane:

If only all the horrifying pain and suffering that goes on in this world – you know, and not just being too fat and wearing cheap synthetic fabrics – could be prevented just by greasing yourself up like a chip shop worker’s hair.

Hello you crackers.

Hello you dried up old hags salivating like crazed dogs over scraps of meat.

Hello you deluded fucks washing down your KFC in the pretence that it’s not your fault you’re the size of a whale.

Hello you Diet Coke drinkers.

Yes, this is the new advert for Diet Coke featuring a nervous sounding Eliza Doolittle impersonator – or Duffy as she prefers to be called – and the butt clenchingly awful and equally meaningless “Hello You” tag line - a greeting, you might remember, made popular by the plank of wood with a huge chin in Friends.

The only glimmer of hope I can offer you about this advert is that you’re not alone in hating it. In fact this is the most popular bad ad submission in the history of TV’s Worst Adverts. So far 1.8 million people have begged for it to be included in the annals of TV advertising shitness.

Amongst the many items of Diet Coke advert related bad news is the fact it’s here for you to watch again:

Now maybe I’m not the best person to comment on Diet Coke adverts because a) I haven’t been through the menopause b) I’m not morbidly obese c) on the 2 occasions that I’ve actually drunk Diet Coke it’s made me be sick through my nose bu,t you know what, I’m going to do it anyway.

This advert makes my skin crawl.

Duffy’s nasally fake-retro voice is nausiating at best but in this advert she manages to whine her way through “I’ve Got to be Me” like a pug being suffocated and sodomised at the same time. She, in essence, sounds like a dog playing out the death scene of Michael Hutchence. What I’m trying to say is that Duffy is the dog version of Michael Hutchence death – you know, in this advert at least.

Why is she riding a bike? Why is she riding it through a super market? Why is she singing a Sammy Davis Jr song with all the personality of a used tea bag?

These are all valid questions, I’ll grant you that, but they pale in significance when put next to the question on all of our lips:

“Why do you sound like a dog with a belt round it’s neck hanging from the back of a hotel room door who’s possibly been dabbling in some bizarre sexual game that’s gone tragically wrong whilst on tour in Australia? Why? Oh why? Oh why?”

Still it could have been worse – they could have asked Joss Stone to do it.

I realise that this is a bit of an old one but I thought as I’ve added the new Visa advert with Bill Shannon simply becuse it’s a carbon copy it would be unfair not to include this effort from Fiat.

And if anything this advert for the Fiat Grande Punto is an ever bigger offender against all things worthy – a.k.a. taking a work of art and using it to make some quick and drity cash – then the Visa one is. Fiat even go so far as to use the same bloody music!

Anway don’t listen to me, judge for yourself:

Fiat Grande Punto Trampoline

Roel Wouters - zZz is playing: Grip

Via the wonderful Adturds.

Another advert, another shameless rip-off: 

Well, although it might not quite be a rip-off – the Visa version does at least feature Bill Shannon – it is a perfect copy of the music video for Rjd2′s “Work It Out”:

Lazy, Visa. Lazy.

If there’s one thing I hate right now it’s being bullied about my “green credentials”. Hate it.

What makes me hate it even more is just how unjust it seems to bully me. Because even though (“Can I shock you?”) I’m not a scientist and I haven’t done any personal research into whether global warming actually exists, I’m not over into “fucking up Earth”. Plus as some reasonable sane looking people seem to think that global warming does exist and as I’m a “better safe than sorry” kind of bloke I’m trying to do my bit and be more mindful of my carbon footprint.

For example, I’ve put out that tyre fire which was raging at the bottom of my garden for a while. And I genuinely can’t remember the last time I ate an orangutan – be it deep fried or boiled. 

As I say, I’m just “doing my bit”.

So here’s an example of the completely unjust green bullying that sends me absolutely enviro-mental (“I’ll get my coat”). I was genuinely asked this question by a guy working on the checkout at my local Waitrose supermarket (I know, get me, shopping at Waitrose!):

“Do you want a “Bag for Life” or do you want one that destroys the planet?”

Hmm, let me see. Do I want a “Bag for Life” or one that destroys the planet? Before I decide, could you tell me, do you have any bags that steal sweets from children or push grannies in front of buses as well? No? Shame, because that’s the level of bastardry I normally look for when selecting my carrier bag.

Well, I’ll have to settle for one that simply destroys the planet then, please.

Things are even worse on TV particularly in the adverts. If it’s not cars inspired by nature then it’s energy companies recycling stuff that probably makes no difference to the rain forest.

And now thanks to Apple’s advert for their new MacBook we’re even being bullied just for reading the dearly beloved TV’s Worst Adverts blog.

That’s right because unless you’re surfing the web using a new Apple MacBook or some device that you’ve cobbled together that’s powered by your own farts then you’re not being as “green” as you could be.

Research shows that non-MacBook computers and laptops use so much energy that everytime you download a porn film, a tree in the Amazon rain forest dies. I alone have deforested an area the size of Wales in just the last month.

And if that’s not bad enough, when the time comes and you condemn your computer to rot in a hole just outside Milton Keynes for eternity – or at the very least, to be shipped to Nigeria – then you’ll be releasing environmentally harmful toxins like Mercury.

And that, my friend, is a crime against the World’s air that’s even more dispicable than the one being commited by Apple’s Chinese “iPod City” factory.

You heartless cunts.

Right, enough ranting – I’m off to make myself I nice cup of tea. A task, I’ll have you know, that uses so much electricity it’s tantamount to raping a panda bear.

Ta ta.

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from the whole dirty little “Gary Rhodes & Floar Buttery” affair, it’s that Gary Rhodes will do some very degrading things for money – except speak to 200 members of the public about whether they prefer Flora or Lurpak, obviously.

And if there’s one thing that we’ve had confirmed, it’s that advertisers are prepared to lie to us about the most coma-inducingly mundane things just to get a few extra sales. They’ll lie about whether people like one yellow fat more than another. About whether a cook with spikey hair is actually on a mission. About whether “crisps” in a “bag” are “amazing”.

Think I’m being a little hard on those good old advertisers?

Well I’m pretty certain that anyone who genuinely believes that the very fact crisps are now sold in a bag is “amazing!” or that Peter Jones sits in an open-plan office and fixes his own IT problems is either a liar or, let’s be honest, an idiot.

Note to reader: Advertisers are liars and we are the idiots.

In fairness to the advertising industry, it’s not as if they’re all Jeffery Archers and they haven’t faked the moon landings. But they are liars nonetheless.

Normally all this lying takes place behind the very polished veneer of “this shit will make your lives better“.  

But Peugeot decided to give us a tantalising glimpse behind the curtan.  In the advert for the 407 – Made by Perfectionists – they show us just how much they lie.

They remove a fly from the head light. The heartlessly bastards even delete a token of eternal love carved into a tree. And worst of all, we see the horrifying process involved in turning the driver of the 407 into the most boring man in Britain:

The one they don’t show us is what the 407 looks like before the Peugeot computer nerd got his hands on it. So, I’m pleased to tell you I have the first photo of the new 407:

Peugeot 407 – Made by Liars.

What’s this? Bob Dylan letting an advertiser use “Blowing in the Wind” in an advert?

Judas!

Judas!

Still on the plus side at least it’s for the totally ethical Co-Operative and it’s not as if he’s selling his integrity for Victoria’s Secret or some planet destroying SUV.

Right? Right?

Thanks to TimmyHavoc for submitting this bad ad.

Just when you thought the banks couldn’t get any cuntier along comes the new Natwest advert:

But they’re not there to sell, oh no, they’re there to give you free, impartial financial guidance:

We pissed your money up the wall for the last decade so now you can’t have pudding any more.

Sorry.

Oh, one more thing: we’re going to have to sleep with your wife or we’re cancelling your overdraft.

Credit crunch on that, Fatso.

Fuckers.

Judge for yourself.

Here’s an older Vision Express advert (but still from their “What Do I Want To See” series):

What really cheeses (that’s right, I said “cheeses”) me off about these adverts is the implication that the opinions of people who *uses their eyes as part of their job* (you know, a photographer, a pilot, a peeping Tom, that sort of thing) are in some more important than those of us Stevie Wonder types groping our way through the blackness that is lives.

“I’d like to see an eye exam that can test my eyes 100 different ways” babbles Mark Whitney.

Why 100?

Why not 1,000,000 ways. Surely that eye exam has got to be a thousand times betterer than your pathetic little 100 ways.

What relevance has that number actually got to the quality your vision?

Absolutely none, that’s what.

Anyways, now I’m in the mood for ranting, here’s what I’d like from an eye exam:

1. I’d like to see an eye test where the optician doesn’t snort on my face when he’s stood inappropriately close to my face shining a light in my eyes.
2. I’d like to see an eye test where the optician hasn’t drunk a bath tub full of coffee before standing in appropriately close to my face.
3. I’d like to see an eye test that doesn’t last 30 minutes on top of the 15 that I’ve been waiting even though I’ve made an appointment for a weekday.

So, Vision Express when do I get to do my advert?

Anyone else want to share what they’d like to see from an eye test?