Commercial Breaks

We have been so conditioned to commercial breaks on television every 15 minutes (in Spain) that sometime they come and go without our even noticing them. Or, in my case, as a convenient break to make coffee or ransack the fridge or cupboard for a snack. Still, the publicity sector should be congratulated for constantly inventing new concepts, renewing or updating old ones, injecting fresh visual attraction and clever slogans.

For instance, if the ad advertises a new denture, apart from the always boasted good points of facility and comfort, it says the fixture has 'no taste'. Not meaning it's esthetically ugly naturally, but literally without taste. Suggesting thus it did before - taste of what I wonder? The shampoos, more than the usual mighty qualities of squeaky clean, add volume (how?) soften and strengthen (just a little bit contradictory), now they seem to be able to stop hair falling as well.

Milk used to be just milk, healthy and life sustaining. Now there are many varieties: whole, semi or totally skimmed of what used to be reckoned as the essential qualities that made it so healthy. They say now it's healthier still without the original healthy substances (again I don't understand the contradiction), With extra calcium, vitamin ... (Didn't they know the correct amount to be put in there before?)

The detergents for cleaning floors are now fortified with 'concentrated bio-alcohol, and mayonnaise with 'Vitamin E antioxidant', whatever they are. The variety added to everything is so overwhelming, and with names that give you no idea whatever to their identity, one tends to stop listening or reading labels any more. Wonder sometimes whether those ingredients advertised are meant to confuse you, so that you buy tons of them with the added goodies without even knowing what they are or what they actually do? It's just too much like work to go into lengthy and boring studies of bi-chemicals.

With the modern society obsessed with healthy eating, being stick-slim and eternally beautiful, alimentation and cosmetic with added magical ingredients sell like hot cakes, as they used to say. Now I can't even remember whether it's milk, the pizza, a yoghurt or a face cream that contains 'Omega-3 against trogliceridos and added cardio-healthy XM 2' or some such.

Supposedly the authorities in public health and advertising control have full knowledge of all that, and have passed them as, at least, harmless ... I hope.

Tags:commercials,advertising

Current Mood: Blah

Doctor's Question

Juan had a full medical check up. When he returned 3 weeks later after the exhaustive lab tests were complete, his doctor said he was doing "fairly well" for his age.

Juan was obviously a little concerned about that comment and so asked his doctor "Do you think I'll live to be 90, doctor?" The doctor replied,

'Well, do you smoke or drink beer?'

'Oh no,' Juan replied, 'I've never done that either.'

Then the doctor asked, 'Do you eat hamburgers, steak or barbecued ribs?'

'No, I've heard that red meat is very unhealthy.'

'Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, lying on the beach or playing golf?' asked the doctor.

'No I don't.' Juan replied.

Then the doctor asked, 'Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or mess about with women?'

"No," said Juan, "I've done none of those things."

The doctor looked at Juan and said, "Then why would you want to live to be 90?"

Tags:Doctor'sQuestion

Current Mood: Amused

Winston Churchill's Breakfast

There was a most unusual item up for auction: a menu. Yes, an airline menu, that of the breakfast of Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain, which he took on his last official travel to the United States, in June 1954. The experts reckoned it could fetch €1,700.

The trip was made in a plane of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation). When his breakfast menu was brought, as it didn't please him, he turned the card over and wrote down at the back what he would like to be served, in 2 trays. '1st tray: Poached eggs, toasts, butter, marmalade, coffee with milk, a jug of cold milk, cold chicken or meat. 2nd tray: Grapefruit, bowl of sugar, a glass of orange juice (with ice), Whisky, Soda.' After this list, he added: 'Wash your hands, a cigar.'

The auction house told the 'Daily Telegraph': "The paper shows what abundance of food he required and how he washed down everything with Whisky, and after all that, smoked a cigar. It's so wonderful to eat so well at the age of 80."

Lots of things have changed since. The BOAC disappeared in 1974, when merged with BEA (British European Airways) to form the present day British Airways. Although still exists, I don't know whether in the Churchill planes one can smoke a cigar after breakfast. Perhaps yes. I doubt any airlines could impede the man who, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, was capable of confronting the King trying to prohibit him taking alcohol for religious reasons. It's the advantage of being the prime minister travelling in private planes, or at least they did till having a 'correct' public image became so important that none of the politicians today want the media to report them and so interfere with their popularity in elections.

There's a sage saying: 'Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a beggar.' Somehow I imagine Churchill would have imposed his own ideas on that too.

Tags:breakfast,Churchill

Current Mood: Amused

Viagra By Any Other Name

In pharmacology all drugs have 2 names, a trade name and a generic name.The FDA have been looking for a generic name for Viagra. After a careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin. Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix and, of course, Ibepokin. Pfizer Corp. announced that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one. Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of 'cocktails', 'highballs' and just a good old-fashioned 'stiff drink'. Pepsi will market the new concoction by name of: Mount & Do. Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections, and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.  Tags:Viagra,DrugNames

Current Mood: Amused