Alexsandr Orlov returns!

Our favourite meerkat, Alexandr Orlov, returns in this short ad.  It seems that people are still confusing Compare The Market with Compare The Meerkat!

What I really love about this one is when Alexsandr starts mouthing the words.  It really is quite a catchy little number…

You know, sometimes the simplest verbal exchanges can snowball into full blown screenplays.  And here is one which came from a conversation on FaceBook with my (now) girlfriend.  YES, she is quite bonkers…

Anyone who ever saw the films Journey To The Centre Of The Earth or The Time Machine (the ones made before 1970) will understand where we were going with this.

I don’t know if I’ll ever complete it, but if you want more, let me know.

So, to the story. 

Professors Barrie Ullah and Kait Farbon are in a laboratory somewhere in darkest Victorian London.  A single gas lamp lights the room.  Poorly.

Skeletons of various animals sit on dark wooded benches and glass fronted cabinets filled with jars containing a variety of dead things line the room. 

In the background, something can be heard bubbling.

Kait
*** fumbles around in pocket for loose change, produces 53p, a button and some fluff ***

“I’ll take the lot.  Here.”

Barrie
*** studies fluff with comically over sized magnifying glass ***

“Good lord! This looks like….no, it couldn’t be……could it? Where exactly did you get this fluff?”

“I was given the ‘fluff’ as a parting gift from a strange old woman I met during my travels deep in the caves of Umbilica, I had forgotten until now that it was still in my possession.  My dear old chap, you couldn’t be suggesting what it think….surely not…it’s not possible!”

Barrie
*** strides across the room in an urgent manner, thrusts the fluff under a suitably victorian microscope and bends to view ***

“Incredible, just incredible. I didn’t think it was possible. Here, professor Farbon, see how the fibres are held together in a manner unlike any other fluff seen by human eye.”

*** Kait hovers over the microscope briefly ***

“Great Scott! It’s true! And to think it’s been in my pocket all these years….”

“Well, you know what this means, don’t you?” said Barrie, one hand waving his pipe in a sophisticated, learned manner and the other tracing a finger across an oversized world globe.

“You… you don’t mean…” stammered Kait.

“Yes. We’re going on a typical Victorian adventure to another continent, possibly underneath it, hopelessly equipped for the journey, where we’ll meet a previously undiscovered race of people whom we’ll destroy because we don’t understand their ways, discover strange plant life and find the remains of a dear old friend who disappeared (which will reveal the reason for him keeping his work a secret).”

“We’ll also need to take a pet, so one of us can risk life and limb to rescue it and we’ll take your cousin, you know, the one who’s frightened of everything, screams constantly and faints a lot.”

“Good god man!!…you can’t be serious…but we haven’t had tea!!
I’ll bring the teapot, cat and cousin Jeffrey. Meet you at 12pm under the giant clock, next to the obligatory family somewhere behind the cloud of smoke coming from the overly noisy steam train……And, Barrie….do be careful!”

“Be sure to wear your smartest, finest and indeed, stiffest clothing and bring suitable evening attire. Don’t want to let the side down by turning up at the dinner tent in your day clothes now, do we?
I’ll arrange for a caravan of porters to carry our unfeasibly large trunks through some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet only to find they all scarper when one of them gets spooked by a skull on a stick, leaving you with the awful decision of whether or not to abandon your best scientific equipment. Which you will and later regret when you inconveniently lose your notes and illustrations, leaving you to the face being ridiculed by the scientific community when we get home and tell everyone about our journey.”

*** Later that evening, professor Farbon is working in her candle lit laboratory when she is attacked by an unknown assailant. She wakes sometime later to find her navel has been broken into and several samples of rare fluff missing. ***

This could only be the work of one man. The long presumed dead, Doctor Sputum. Kait had suspected all along that he had survived the sinking of the Creosote in the Baltic sea three years earlier.
But how had he come to learn of the old woman’s gift and of what use would it be to him?
Unless of course he had the map of Umbilica’s forgotten valley of the dinosaurs…

“Mrs Spitherington! Would you kindly get my trunk from the cellar,please. I’m going away immediately!” she called to her housekeeper.

“Very good ma’am” she replied. “I’ll see that all the furniture is covered up with giant white sheets, the windows and front door are boarded up and the garden is left to overgrow for your return.”

*** midnight at the docks and a shadowy figure emerges from the fog and slips silently up the gangplank of a small steamer. But that’s enough about about the secret sex life of sailors.
Our two intrepid heroes are standing dockside as dark, stocky men in stripy tops and baggy trousers gently manoeuvre a box large enough to house an elephant with ‘Fragile’ stamped on it at a crooked angle aboard the steamer, “SS Joe Blob”. A foghorn sounds out. ***

“Well, Barrie, old chap, that’s our cue to board.”

“Um, no,” replies Barrie, “That was Mrs Biddyford’s steamed sprout pudding. Sorry.”

“ALL ABOARD!”

“Ah, that’s us. And not a minute too soon. My eyes are burning!” says Kait, wiping a tear.

“By the way, Kait, what is in that box large enough to house an elephant with ‘Fragile’ stamped on it at a crooked angle?”

“Tea, dear Barrie. Tea.”

“And where’s the cat?”

“I had her put down. Mrs Spitherington wasn’t able to look after it and because I’m not entirely sure that I won’t die heroically in the name of science near the end of the adventure by losing my footing on a narrow path three hundred feet feet up a cliff only for you to grab me but unable to hold on because I’d pull you down with me and no-one would live to tell our incredible tale, it seemed like the kindest thing to do.”

“Oh I see. Good job I brought this duck with me, then.”

The new Samsung UltraTouch phone is a neat bit of kit.  But it looks as if Samsung aren’t entirely convinced that being a neat bit of kit is enough.

Big Boss:  “Nobody’s gonna be interested in yet another touch screen phone.  We need a different approach.  Ideas?”

Ad Man:    “Cute animals sell stuff, don’t they?  It’s worked for Andrex down the years.  We’ll use hamsters and hedgehogs, you know, small furry things.”

Big Boss:  “BINGO!”

And this sickeningly cute advert packed with horribly cute animals is the result.

Adverts.  They’re whole reason for commercial television.  We have the BBC for quality programmes and commercial stations for adverts.  And, occasionally, an advert comes along that, no matter hard you try not to, makes you smile.  You might not like the product or even remember what the advert was for, but you can’t deny their genius.

Here’s a few of my recent favourites:

PG Tips.  Monkey and Johnny (The Stripper)

Since they decided to do away with the chimps, PG ads have been a little flat, to say the least.  Then, when ITV Digital went down the pan, Monkey, who was their mascot, found himself being snapped up and shoved on the telly alongside English comedian, Johnny Vegas.  Mildy amusing to start with, they really seem to have hit their stride with this one which will surely be remembered as one of the all time greats.  There’s not much to choose, by the way, between this and the Morcambe And Wise sketch the advert is based on.

Cravendale Milk.  Footballer, Cow and Pirate (The Last Glass)

Stop-go animation isn’t unheard of in adverts, but rarely has it been as mental as this.  A cyclist, a cow and a pirate sharing a house and a love of milk.

The cry of MILK! MILK! has made this an absolute favourite of mine so much so, it’s now the message alert on my phone!

Compare The Market.

Adverts for websites are usually rubbish.  Condescending twaddle aimed at a generation who think the aeroplane is the height of technology.  Confused.com are currently running an advert in which a young person claims the new-look site ‘rocks’.  It’s a site that compares insurance quotes.  How the hell it’s supposed to ‘rock’ is beyond comprehension.  And as for Moonpig…

Anyway, there is one campaign that stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Presenting, for your pleasure, Aleksandr Orlov.  A meerkat.  Class.

Cadbury Dairy Milk.

Beats the drumming gorilla hands down.  Completely bonkers, this is an instant classic.

Honky Tonk settled down into a life of servitude, groaning and walking like he was wearing callipers (d’you remember them?  Yeah…I had a pair as well…what did we look like) and his master, Doctor Frankenstein, looked after him like he was one of his own.

Doctor Frankenstein, it has to be said, was not the Doctor Frankenstein we all know and love.  He was a completely different Doctor Frankenstein.  Born in Charlton to Stanley and Doris Frankenstein of 19 Fletching Road, he was a leading name in the field of DNA cloning technology.

Photo:  Doctor Bert Frankenstein, aged 47.

A lifelong Bees fan, he was absolutely determined that Greenwich Bees would again one day walk the Earth!

He was ridiculed by many in the dental community, taunted by local llamas  and shunned by social workers who said he wasn’t fit to bring up one of the undead.   Friends deserted him like ants deserting a sinking jam sandwich and he looked to hide away from the daily abuse from passers-by.

He bought Charlton House and Charlton Park, in a Buy-One-Piece-Of-Charlton-Get-Another-Absolutely-Free deal that a local scottish estate agent was  running, built a world class laboratory in the basement and set about fulfilling his dream of a new, improved Greenwich Bees.

Photo:  Charlton House.

Doctor Frankenstein managed to obtain samples of all the Greenwich Bees players DNA from toenail clippings, which he bought from Black Jonathon who had inherited them as the only survivor of the accident.  Jonathon used the money to buy an off-licence, drank the place dry and fell asleep in the National Maritime Museum.

Months passed and the park and house grew eerily silent.  Many locals wondered if the Doctor had died or moved away in the middle of the night or something.  In fact the Doctor had managed to clone the Bees by injecting the players DNA into llama embryos.  Obviously there’s more to it than that, but what do I know about genetics?

Anyway, the upshot of all this scientific stuff was that he managed to recreate the entire Greenwich Bees squad!!

Incredible scenes!!

He released the Bees into Charlton Park, where he could observe them playing football in their natural habitat and where they could learn to fend for themselves as nature had intended.  As time passed, the Bees grew bigger and stronger.  They learned to hunt for their own food, mainly Spam and Fray Bentos Pies.  They slept during the days in the trees and at nights would come out to play football on the floodlit pitch.  Sometimes the Doctor would referee the games and it seemed that they regarded him as their own father.  He called them by their own names, taught them to swear properly and, most importantly, showed them that being gay didn’t matter.

Photo:  The young Greenwich Bees first team.  Note the change of strip.  This strip was bought by the Doctor who believed that stripes were the work of the devil.

Back Row Left to Right:  Doctor Frankenstein, Raymondi, Little Paul, Brummie Dave, Cockney Ben, Americandy, Jose, Smudger :  Front Row Left to Right:  Geordie Joe, Barrieluv, Katanya, Candy, Scottish James, Guv’nor Matt, Stella Barry.

Now, as this was all going on, Honky Tonk was kept in the house, cleaning, knitting and cooking for the Doctor and his new family of Bees.  He would sometimes stand at the window, watching the Bees play, tears in his brought-back-from-the-dead eyes.  And he grew resentful of the Doctor’s new family and vengeance played upon his not-quite-dead-nor-alive brain.

At around the same time, the players natural instincts for having a beer began to kick in and through some kind of strange memory-coming-back-by-unknown-forces, the Bees started to attempt to break out of the park.  The Doctor had the fences strengthened and, after much arguing with the H&S representative from Greenwich Council, it was also electrified.

Then, one rainy evening, during a particularly heated game, Doctor Frankenstein accidentally trod on Raymondi’s foot.  Raymondi reared up on his hind legs and made a grab for the Doctor, but the Doctor was too quick and he ran off into the jungle.  Raymondi gave chase and cornered the Doctor in the public toilets.  The Doctor’s body was never recovered.

The rest of the Bees broke into the house and smashed up the laboratory.  Then they all sat down and had dinner while they waited for Raymondi’s return.  They discussed what should be done with Honky Tonk.   It was agreed that the Not-Quite-Dead Honky Tonk should be set free, after all, they had their own Honky Tonk (the Doctor had cloned him as well, which was very convenient) and the new Not-Dead-Properly-Alive Honky Tonk would be a much better player.  They switched off the electric fence, flung open the gates of the park and the undead Honky Tonk ran to freedom.  Unfortunately, freedom came in the shape of a speeding number 53 bus and Honky Tonk was killed (again).

Raymondi returned and the Bees wandered out into the big, wide world and kept wandering until they decided it was too cold to wander and called a cab.

Next stop, 174 Greenwich High Street.

The Bees were back!!

Photo:  174 Greenwich High Street, home of Greenwich Bees.

As a lifelong Pet Shop Boys fan, it’s always good to hear cover versions of their tracks (Carter USM’s version of Rent was awesome) but now I’ve discovered a girl band from Sweden called West End Girls

They’re pretty much what Pet Shop Boys would’ve been if they’d been girls.  Their style echoes PSB’s and the music sounds like a cross between PSBs and Sugababes.  In a J-Pop style.

Although they were languishing at the bottom of The Sue Ryder League For The Blind, The Bees were still very popular.  In Yugoslavia, they had a huge cult following and the Bees were constantly being asked to play in money spinning exhibition matches there.

The journey by horse and carriage was a long old trek and this caused much fatigue in the squad, causing them to struggle in the league.  Well, struggle more.  Anyway, this led to the decision to buy a private jet and Katanya and Barrieluv marched off down to Brummie Dave’s Secondhand Mattress, Spoon & Luxury Jet Emporium in Woolwich.  They eventually found one that had wings and after much stamping on Brummie Dave’s feet, a deal was reached where, in exchange for a fifty percent discount, Brummie Dave was given the coveted (not) goalkeeper’s position with the Bees.

On the seventh of July 1970, they took off from Biggin Hill airport, bound for Yugoslavia and a game against, er, a Yugoslavian team.  Yes.

Unfortunately, the pilot for that maiden trip was Black Jonathon and shortly after take-off, somewhere over the English Channel, he drank all the aviation fuel and fell asleep at the controls.

The plane and the squad were never seen or heard from again.

A day of national mourning was announced and every member of the squad was given a state funeral.  Which was nice.

Photo:  Black Jonathon’s extended family turned out for the funeral.  They all got drunk at the wake and fell asleep under a stall in Greenwich Market.

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Photo:  Due to Raymondi’s large gay following, it was requested that his coffin be escorted by the cast of The Wizard Of Oz - The Musical!,  dressed as sailors.

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Photo:  Katanya’s Funeral was a rather private affair.

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Photo:  A miserable, victorian style funeral was felt most appropriate for Barrieluv.

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Photo:  Americandy’s younger fans were worst affected.  The boy closest to the camera went on to assassinate John Lennon, believing him to be a zombie version of Americandy.

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Photo:  Geordie Joe was buried under the centre circle at St. James’s Park in front of a sell-out crowd.

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Photo:  Honky Tonk was to be buried in a giant, gold pyramid which was constructed using the money he had made from selling pegs.  Sadly, local peasants stole his mummified corpse and sold it to a local doctor.   A Doctor Frankenstein, no less…

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Photo:  Brummie Dave never played a game for the Bees.  Consequently, his grave was  simple and his funeral attended by two mice, a hedgehog and a passing earthworm.

Funny thing was, on the day of the funerals, Black Jonathon turned up alive and well, in Vietnam, asleep in the payload bay of a B-52 bomber.

And the next day, a kilt was found washed up on the beach at Folkestone.

London.  The sixties.  Home of cool.

And home of The Bees.  Newly promoted to the First Division in 1963, The Bees were the darlings of English football.

Photo:  Greenwich Bees, Division Two Runners-Up 1962-1963 with the Division Two trophy, stolen from Deptford Hornets.

Liverpool had The Beatles, America had Kennedy and London had The Greenwich Bees, the hippest, grooviest, most swingingest cats in town.  And none more swinginger than the American centre back who joined the side during the Second World War, American Andy.

Or, Americandy,  as he was now better known.  He almost single handedly turned round the fortunes of The Bees, both on and off the field.  His raw talent for writing disco music, before it was invented, somehow helped The Bees to rise from the Rupert Bear League Division Three to the dizzying heights of the FA League Division One

Americandy was also the face of Katanya’s Pussy, the most exclusive fashion boutique in Greenwich Market, a joint venture between Katanya and the once gay hairdresser-turned-designer, Raymond.

In what was the world’s first team shirt sponsorship deal, Katanya’s Pussy appeared on the front of the Greenwich Bees team shirt.  After famously getting Americandy to model their range of psychedelic callipers, Katanya’s Pussy became a British fashion icon and could be seen on all the top catwalks.

Suddenly, callipers were everywhere as more and more celebrities, pop stars and sports stars of the day became regulars at Katanya’s Pussy.

When Elvis secretly visited London in 1964, Danny Kaye recommended that he pay a visit and in the dead of night,  Katanya’s Pussy opened up for The King.  He liked what he saw and bought a pair of rhinestone studded callipers in the hope that as well as looking good, they may go some way to curing his famous wobbly leg.

Arguments raged between Polio sufferers (Polioids), people who wore callipers exclusively as a fashion statement (Non-Polioids) and those who flew to Polio clinics in India to be injected with the Polio virus (Nu-Polioids).  Doctors appeared on the BBC to denounce the trend, Christine Keeler wore a sheer black pair on her first night with John Profumo and questions were raised in Parliament as to whether or not the Prime Minister should get some far out callipers in an attempt to get in touch with Britain’s youth.

The calliper swagger became a familiar sight on the nation’s streets and at the head of the crowd was that man, Americandy.

Greenwich Bees became one of the richest clubs in the world, thanks to the huge number of  replica shirts sold through the club store and on the sixties internet.  Their financial success enabled them to tear down the old post-war plasticine stadium and replace it with the film set of Spartacus.  The Krays became regular vsitors, adding a touch of east end underworld glamour, until that fateful day when Ronnie and Reggie gunned down Jack ‘The Biscuit’ in the Morden Arms pub.  It was also rumoured that Ray Davies out of The Kinks attended most home games and wrote probably his most famous song, Waterloo Sunset, during one half time interval as he sat in the stands.

But Katanya and Raymond’s insistence on Greenwich Bees wearing callipers during games, greatly impeded their ability to play and no amount of on-pitch style could stop Greenwich Bees slipping down the divisions.  By 1969, they were playing in the Sue Ryder League For The Blind and still losing.

Callipers fell out of style when, at Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix wore a minimalist, non-stick cookware kilt produced by the reclusive film maker and Deptford Hornet’s owner, Scottish Nick, and on September 11th 1969, Katanya’s Pussy closed up for good.

The Bees, like the sixties and Sharon Tate, were dead.