Words Dept.: category

Apologies for not getting back to you. I’m here now, it’s OK. I’ve been thinking a lot about newspapers recently. About how I never buy one anymore except when I’m going on a long train journey, about the supposed closure of the Observer (which isn’t now happening), about what I can’t help thinking is gross [...]

Britain’s cleverest man. Polymath. National treasure. All descriptions applied at various times to Mr Stephen Fry. To celebrate the first episode tonight of Fry’s new BBC2 series Last Chance To See, I’ve gone to the trouble of assembling some of this intellectual giant’s most illuminating quotes. There’s something here, I feel, for us all to [...]

Since the start of this week, I have been unemployed embarking on an exciting new freelance career, which means I’ve found myself watching daytime television. The programmes are dreadful but the adverts, which appeal to housewives, the retired and the out of work, are kind of fascinating for what they reveal about the UK’s socio-economic [...]

There’s something a tiny bit contemptuous about Asda’s response to the recent story that its £70 flat-pack bike is only slightly less dangerous than an un-earthed electric chair standing in a puddle downwind from Niagara Falls on a moderately blustery day. Mark Brown, director of the Association of Cycle Traders, noticed that in the TV [...]

There’s something inescapably awful about the latest Conservative election broadcast, which essentially consists of David Cameron saying the words “Cameron Direct” a lot while prancing about, pointing a lot and occasionally sitting on a train. I’ve checked and it’s not a parody but I’ve still watched it about six times on YouTube since it was [...]

I suppose it’s about time I confessed to the fact that I am contributing to a new blog. It’s called AdTurds and, as the name suggests, is simply about television adverts that me and (regular Words Dept. commenter) Robin think are shit. Web geeks will notice the hilarious AdWords pun, on top of the fact [...]

Crain’s this week has a nice story about “council and quango chiefs” spending “hundreds of thousands of pounds” of public money travelling by first class train. The editor’s comment bemoans the first-class gravy train and free gin and tonic for fat cats. It’s a nice story that’s bound to cause a justified outbreak of tutting among the Manchester accountants [...]

As I’ve nothing better to do and 2008 has now definitely finished, I thought I’d provide you with my list of my favourite things from the year just gone. Happy New Year, by the way. Film I thought Wall-E was surprisingly deep for a kids film and was also technically flawless. But There Will Be [...]

Ofcom has ruled that an advert about the congestion charge shown on ITV earlier this month directed viewers to a website that “contained material that was almost exclusively in support of the congestion charge” and, as such, broke the Television Advertising Code rules on political impartiality. You might think this is quite a serious indictment. [...]

By far the most hideous aspect of this year’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here is the various idents for Iceland that appear around each ad break. They feature a range of party food that looks so disgusting it could easily become the subject of a Bushtucker Trial. Firstly, what the hell is [...]