Zeusblog

First Batman in Hampstead Garden Suburb, now the Penguin (well two actually) at Wembley. 

I went to the Carling Cup Final at Wembley last Sunday and found myself sitting next to these two guys. What you can’t see in the picture was the rest of their outfits under their Villa shirts - they had big penguin bums and orange flipper feet - very funny. When I asked “Why the Pingu outfits?”, they just replied “Why not?” and laughed.

Apart from the score it was a great day out (particularly those beautiful, glorious 8 minutes when we were 1-0 up), and the new Wembley stadium (my first visit) is so much better than the old one, which other than the twin towers was really awful.

Now I’m not generally very well disposed towards Man Utd, but I have to take my Villa hat off to the Man Utd fans. Most (and I mean 95%) of them were not wearing the red colours that they are famous for, but were wearing green and yellow as a protest against the Glazers, their American owners who strapped the club in debt to buy it. Yellow and green were the club colours of Newton Heath, the original club formed in 1878 that became Man Utd. It’s the fans way of saying that you may have bought Man Utd Plc, but it’s still is and always has been our club. When they celebrated winning the cup (by the skin of their teeth) their end was a sea of swirling green and yellow scarves. Their line is “Love United. Hate Glazers.” My response would be “Hate United. Love the Protest.” Football clubs really are so much more than just a business and a balance sheet, so I hope it works for them.

There was an article in the Guardian last Saturday, reviewing the Gillette TV ad where a mechanic looks at a razor. You can read it here. All very amusing - why we don’t need a blue strip to turn white to tell us when we need to change our razor, because a blunt and clogged blade will lacerate your skin to ribbons waaay before the strip changes colour - but then the writer went too far, suggesting that the reason there are so many beards about these days is because razor blades are too expensive.

So I’d just like to make it clear that the reason I’ve joined the beardies is not because I can’t afford the blades (although my wife does describe my beard as “looking a bit homeless” when it gets too long), but is because I am too lazy to shave. I just wanted to make that very clear.

Chalky

I was in Hampstead Garden Suburb this weekend, and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this… (click the picture to see it bigger)

Batman! On the balcony!

I saw him on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon and he didn’t move a muscle either time. Either he’s keeping guard over the Hampstead Heath Extension, or the Joker lives there, has captured Batman and is displaying his frozen form as some kind of evil trophy. I prefer the first option and now feel much safer when walking my dog or running there.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens on the AndyMurrayOMeter this weekend. It will certainly be more interesting than the tennis, that’s for sure. As I write this, it stands at him being 88% British. You’d assume that if he wins the Australian Open in Melbourne, his Britishness score will rise, but I’m not sure. We do like a plucky loser, so it would be more British for him to fail (remember Tiger Tim?). But then again, if he loses, we can all disown him as a sulky Scot…

Feeling very pleased with myself for finding the g-spot, I got to wondering which other problems the iPhone could solve for me. I tapped the maps app and searched for the answer.

Whatever your problem, the answer, as you can see below, lies on Long Lane between Addiscombe and Beckenham, just south of Penge. Which makes a lot of sense to anyone who works in advertising, because whenever we talk about market research we say, “Let’s see what the housewives in Penge think”

You may have seen the stories recently of photographers being hassled by police for taking pictures of St.Pauls Cathedral or of other public buildings. Well I’ve recently become interested in photography and have taken to wandering the streets with a camera in my pocket like some kind of overgrown art student. I haven’t been arrested yet, but was asked by a policewoman as to the purpose of a photo I was taking (of a car that had had its roof cut off by firemen - nothing gory, just the car) so I’m thinking of getting one of those little badges that say “I’m a photographer not a terrorist”. The group that makes them is having a demo in Trafalgar Square on 23rd January and I’m contemplating joining in. I think it will be interesting to see (photography joke coming up…) how many of this flashmob will use available light.

http://PhotographerNotaTerrorist.org/2009/12/mass-photo-gathering/

Later on in the month there’s another interesting demonstration. At 10:23am on January 30th, more than 300 homeopathy sceptics nationwide will be taking part in a mass ‘homeopathic overdose’ in branches of Boots. The point they’re making is that the homeopathic pills that Boots give credibility to by stocking are both ineffective and harmless. There’s lots more on the silliness that is homeopathy at http://www.1023.org.uk/

Wow! This is what it must have been like in the sixties - c’mon everyone, let’s all take photos and sugar pills and stick it to the man!

There’s been a lot of speculation recently as to whether the g-spot actually exists. And although it sounds like the sort of research drunken scientists would dream about getting funding for, some scientists did (forgive the pun) look into this subject, and they concluded that it doesn’t. Lots of women (and their partners) said it did.

So who’s right? I decided there was only one way to find out. That’s right - with my iPhone.

I looked up g-spot on maps, and it does exist! As you can see, it’s just off the Strand, opposite Charing Cross Station. 

When I was at school, we had an english teacher, Mr. Patrick, who is memorable to me for three things.

1. “Bah! Cut the cackle!” was how he got us to be quiet.

2. He used to set us the task of copying out  a page of text. If we made a mistake, we had to start again from the beginning. This was a very frustrating task for us, as the more you wrote correctly, the more tense you would become about making mistakes, and so the more likely you were to make one. It was great for him though, allowing him to sit and read instead of having to try and get through to us troublesome schoolboys.

3. He used the Readers Digest “It pays to increase your word power” tests in class. These were 20 words, each with three possible definitions. It was a great way to improve your vocabulary.

Another great way to improve your vocabulary is to read anything by Will Self. I used to get annoyed by his use of obscure words, but now find the need to have a dictionary alongside amusing. This morning I was reading his book ‘Liver’ on the tube. Obviously I had no dictionary to hand, so I noted down some words that I needed to look up when I got into the office. At the risk of ridicule (I am a copywriter, so I should know loads of words) I’m listing them below. All nine were on just two pages of ‘Liver’. See how many you know. 

i. Moloch
ii. Gehenna
iii. jejeune
iv. dropsical
v. chthonic
vi. porphyritic
vii. necrotic
viii. lubricious
ix. frowsty

Answers tomorrow.

So they’ve redesigned the pedestrian crossing at Oxford Circus.

Apparently, it’s based on street crossings in Japan. According to a Westminster Councillor “Taking our inspiration from the Far East makes perfect sense as the Japanese have perfected the art of managing large numbers of people through good design and engineering.” 

And that’s not all…

“This new crossing, which will transform Oxford Circus and ensure visitors who emerge from the Tube are impressed by what greets them, is part of a whole series of improvements taking place to ensure the West End looks truly world class in time for 2012.”

Our office is round the corner, so I went to see it.

Hmmm. Looks like some different coloured tarmac to me.

But the really puzzling thing is how some tarmac and a few extra traffic lights cost £5million.

£5million. Yes, that’s what I wrote. £5million - that’s what they said it cost.

I think I’m in the wrong business…

Last night, the Duke of Edinburgh’s design prize was awarded to Andrew Ritchie, the man who invented the Brompton folding bike. He thoroughly deserves his prize, and I think Phil should have got the missus to knight him too. Unlike James Dyson who made a big fuss about British ingenuity and then moved his manufacturing abroad, Andrew Ritchie manufactures these splendid little bikes here in London. Good for him!

You can read the news story here