More bogus science words used to flog beauty products

From a L'Oreal advert for a wrinkle-firming product: "now with Pro-retinol A and fibro-plastyl".

Or as Cathy summed it up: "Polyfilla for your face!"

I really hate the way people use sciencey-sounding words to market stuff. I did love Newsbiscuit's reportage about L'Oreal's Nobel Prize win though!

Scouts in Bondage

I wonder what kinds of search entries will bring people here with a blog post title like that…

Anyway, I’ve been reading this book recently. Well, I say reading, because it’s mainly just pictures of covers from books from yesteryear with laughable titles. Or, as the blurb on the book says, “Titles which may cause vulgar minds to misapprehend their content.”

I think my favourite book is 'Invisible Dick', where you not only get a comedy cover, but also a chapter list to laugh at, especially “Chapter 2: The Vanishing Helmet.” But there are some other gems, like ‘How to Recognise Leprosy’, and ‘The Corpse Came Too!’

Besides the fact that since many of these books were published certain words have attained a different meaning, it’s also notable how many were published by Christian book-houses. We can perhaps forgive ‘The Day Amanda Came’ or ‘Willie’s Ordeal’, but surely there has always been some humour in a title like ‘Christie’s Old Organ’. And as for ‘The Captain’s Bunk – an Adventure Story for Boys’, all that can be said is ‘hmmmmm!’

Anyway, I thoroughly recommend you get yourself a copy if you need a good giggle, as it has reduced several of my friends to paroxysms of laughter. It’s also made me consider scouring the bookshelves more closely in junk and charity shops to see if I can spot a few humorous titles to start my own collection…

900 000 Lego studs = VFM and fewer arguments!

I've been overly busy of late, firstly with arrangements for the Fair Do's Fashion Show, then with playing Lego Star Wars II with Cathy.

The first passed off without too many hitches, even if it was hard work. The second one is getting easier, especially since we found and purchased the 'Invincibility' extra. Easily the best 900 000 lego studs I've ever spent!

Cathy will moan about me mentioning this, but now we're invincible my excitable Wookiee co-gamer won't accidentally shoot me in the back (and to be fair Boba Fett won't blow her up with a thermal detonator), which means we argue less while playing.

Now this is just irritating

I gave another junk mailer the Stop Killing Trees treatment yesterday, but how's this for annoying? It was an 'associate' from my credit card company asking me if I'd like to sign up to a scheme which would give me discounts like a third off at restaurants I don't go to and cinema tickets.

The first 3 months were free, but then they'd bill me annually at £69.99 to my credit card. For a third off cinema tickets, I'd need to go 35 times to get my money back. What a waste of space. As I ripped off my details and tore up the form ready to post back it made me wonder what kind of idiot would sign up for something this dumb.

Sarcasmo's back

Posting on Sarcasmo has been intermittent, but a couple of new funnies have been stuck up in the last couple of days. Check it out, especially Prince Caspian getting the Cylon Treatment!

Plaintive communists

The Liberal Desperates are still bombarding us with election mail. The latest was a hand-addressed 'letter' begging for our votes. I think we've had the equivalent of a tree pushed through our door from them in the past few weeks.

But we also had a leaflet from the Welsh Communist Party, with the most plaintive appeal for support yet. It read:

You're probably not a communist...
...but you probably agree with many of the things we stand for.

All together: Awwwww. They then listed a load of things, which, actually, yes, I do agree with (unreconstructed socialist that I am). So now it's a toss up between voting Communist and voting for wombles. I think the wombles might win out...

Milestone

Is it too self-congratulatory to mark my 400th blogpost with a blog post about it being my 400th blog post?

Oh, well, too late now.

My personal junk mail campaign

Another junk mail miscreant has been given the "Stop Killing Trees" treatment. My buddy Matt (of Life is Mootiful fame) has promised to print me some stickers.

The culprit this time is Citi Financial. I hope they like their credit card pre-approval form ripped up and sent back to them... I was particularly annoyed by the 16 page booklet they sent with the application form, which had four blank pages in the the back of it. Surely they could have printed a 12 page booklet instead?

If you'd like to join the campaign, I'm thinking of setting up a website.

What have you become?

I did a 'relationships' talk with the youth tonight. As I prepped for it, Cath asked me "What have you become?"

On that note, is it a bad sign when your fellow leader spends most of your talk holding her head in her hands?

that week went quick...

2 more things through the door yesterday from our friends the Liberal Desperates.

I also got a junk mail credit card application. I carefully tore out my name from the form, ripped it up and put the bits in the reply envelope. I wrote 'Stop Killing Trees!!' on the back and then posted it.

It's the only way we'll stop junk mail, I think.