Dear friends
I write to you now on matter of grave importance. Had you the means or desire to hear these words spoken from my lips you would sense already the solemnity which grips my person, for what I am about to tell you has rocked me to my soul.
On Tuesday last I was strolling gaily (that means happily, I ain’t a battyman) through the fens of Brixton Town, lapping up the sun and enjoying the hit from the rock I’d just devoured. My pristine moment was rudely interrupted by an urgent need to defecate and with no suitable containers handy I was forced to make an unplanned diversion into KFC.
Having relieved myself of my heavy burden – and having taken the time to mop the floor – I exited with haste, but not before glancing instinctively at the array of delectables on offer. It was then that the horror struck.
Right beneath ‘Bargain Bucket’ and just above ‘Variety Bucket’ were the words ‘Family Feast’. It cannot be. Could the Colonel really have the temerity, nay the bald-faced cheek, to endow his family-sized feast with name ‘Family Feast’?
The Colonel had in fact gone further than that. Not only has he called his family feast ‘Family Feast’, he has actually trademarked the name. In other words, I would be in breach of the law if I decided to name my own family-sized meal the ‘Family Feast’ and then advertise it to the public.
But surely this is only a technicality. KFC would not actually deploy a crack squad of menu spies to filter back information about small, family-owned businesses and potential breaches of trademark, would they? Actually, it would appear that that is exactly what they do. And they are not alone.
McDonald’s have been embroiled in a number of legal battles to ensure their treasured brand name is not exploited. In some cases, however, this has resulted in them challenging companies with legitimate claims to trademarked names, such as the case of Norman McDonald, who was forced to change the name of his Kentucky diner from "McDonald's Hamburgers" to "Norman McDonald's Hamburgers", so as to avoid confusing the American public. (I suppose this is easily done).
To be fair, although I do not necessarily support McDonald’s case, I can understand the reasoning, for Norman McDonald, having erected replica golden arches (which he was forced to take down), was clearly trying to cash in on the McDonald’s brand.
What possible reason could there be, however, for attempting to deprive a family business of an item name on their menu? Did KFC really think they were trying to hoodwink the public? Did they think they were making megabucks out of the remarkably unremarkable, ‘Family Feast’?
What’s more incredible is that this is the second time KFC has attempted to remove the name from the menu of an independent food outlet - and failed. Did they not learn anything the first time?
Showing posts with label general rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general rants. Show all posts
Friday, 22 May 2009
Monday, 6 April 2009
Beware the axe wielding Welshman
Writing a blog is a tricky business. I know many writers possess the enviable ability to eject the contents of their brains across the page with faultless eloquence, but for most of us there is more than a little finicking involved.
I’m worse than most. In fact, I’ve just wasted ten minutes of my life trying to decide between ‘finicking’ and ‘nitpicking’. Oh the irony. This anality is exactly the kind of destructive tendency you must avoid if you want to be a journalist. There simply isn’t time to weigh the merits of ‘old’ vs. ‘antiquated’, ‘free’ vs. ‘liberate’, ‘hooters’ vs. ‘norks’.
In case you were wondering, this isn’t the reason why most newspaper articles read like they’ve been written by a child. The short sentences and simple words are for the benefit of you, the reader.
Science has proven that the average person is intellectually equivalent to a cucumber, so hacks are trained to write in a way that would not flummox your typical salad vegetable. I’m exaggerating – slightly – but in all seriousness, copy for most newspapers is written to accommodate a reading age of about five.
Understandably, this takes some of the enjoyment out of writing. That’s why writing a blog is such a pleasure. I’m not interested in what I write being accessible to kids – or retards. I afford you guys a little more respect than that. If I were to launch, whimsically, into a lexiphanic discourse on the perils of unrestrained magniloquence, I’d be happy you were all still on board.
Yet it’s very difficult to keep such a discerning audience entertained. Stories about my collection of antique snorkels leave people in jaw dropped amazement for only so long. In order to achieve sustained levels of interest, I need to pull out the big guns. That’s right: I’m going to have to start cussing mans down.
The plain reality is that people love hearing other people mercilessly ripped to pieces by dark-hearted misanthropes. Charlie Brooker makes a living out of it – and he’s a ruddy genius. The problem is, you have to not give a flying funk about offending people. Unfortunately, I do give a funk. Every reader counts, you see.
In fact, there is a very real chance I’ve already shot myself in the foot by using the word ‘retards’. Some people get really upset about that kind of language. It’s hurtful, apparently. Such hyper-sensitivity is ridiculous to me, but given that I’m in no position to be turning people away I guess I should lay off the mentally challenged.
Other people you must be wary of insulting for fear of assassination by crazed fanatics. I speak, of course, of the Welsh. Those people just do not have a sense of humour about themselves. I can get away with saying that because I’m actually a little bit Welsh myself. It’s not something I like to advertise but it has saved me from being beheaded on more than one occasion.
Take out the Welsh and the retards and you’re not left with many options – even accounting for the huge crossover. I suppose the Eskimos are due for a fucking hammering. They’ve been getting off easy for years. So have the Swedish for that matter. I’ll have a think about it. It might be that I can just pick on celebrities everyone hates, like that pillock Ashley Cole.
I’m worse than most. In fact, I’ve just wasted ten minutes of my life trying to decide between ‘finicking’ and ‘nitpicking’. Oh the irony. This anality is exactly the kind of destructive tendency you must avoid if you want to be a journalist. There simply isn’t time to weigh the merits of ‘old’ vs. ‘antiquated’, ‘free’ vs. ‘liberate’, ‘hooters’ vs. ‘norks’.
In case you were wondering, this isn’t the reason why most newspaper articles read like they’ve been written by a child. The short sentences and simple words are for the benefit of you, the reader.
Science has proven that the average person is intellectually equivalent to a cucumber, so hacks are trained to write in a way that would not flummox your typical salad vegetable. I’m exaggerating – slightly – but in all seriousness, copy for most newspapers is written to accommodate a reading age of about five.
Understandably, this takes some of the enjoyment out of writing. That’s why writing a blog is such a pleasure. I’m not interested in what I write being accessible to kids – or retards. I afford you guys a little more respect than that. If I were to launch, whimsically, into a lexiphanic discourse on the perils of unrestrained magniloquence, I’d be happy you were all still on board.
Yet it’s very difficult to keep such a discerning audience entertained. Stories about my collection of antique snorkels leave people in jaw dropped amazement for only so long. In order to achieve sustained levels of interest, I need to pull out the big guns. That’s right: I’m going to have to start cussing mans down.
The plain reality is that people love hearing other people mercilessly ripped to pieces by dark-hearted misanthropes. Charlie Brooker makes a living out of it – and he’s a ruddy genius. The problem is, you have to not give a flying funk about offending people. Unfortunately, I do give a funk. Every reader counts, you see.
In fact, there is a very real chance I’ve already shot myself in the foot by using the word ‘retards’. Some people get really upset about that kind of language. It’s hurtful, apparently. Such hyper-sensitivity is ridiculous to me, but given that I’m in no position to be turning people away I guess I should lay off the mentally challenged.
Other people you must be wary of insulting for fear of assassination by crazed fanatics. I speak, of course, of the Welsh. Those people just do not have a sense of humour about themselves. I can get away with saying that because I’m actually a little bit Welsh myself. It’s not something I like to advertise but it has saved me from being beheaded on more than one occasion.
Take out the Welsh and the retards and you’re not left with many options – even accounting for the huge crossover. I suppose the Eskimos are due for a fucking hammering. They’ve been getting off easy for years. So have the Swedish for that matter. I’ll have a think about it. It might be that I can just pick on celebrities everyone hates, like that pillock Ashley Cole.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Branded losers but looking for a strong finish
I haven’t written anything for a while. Bad, I know, but I’ve been really busy.
Who am I kidding… you can see right through me. I’m like a pair of Russell Brand’s hermetically-sealed trousers – without the disconcerting bulge and encrusted melange of DNA. (Well, at least not today).
The reality is that I’ve been slack. Very slack. Slack in way that’s nothing like Mr Brand’s pants and rather more like his promiscuous behaviour.
Not that I think he’s improper. He does what most men, perhaps even most women, would like to do but can’t – either because of a distinct lack of game or because of a spineless acquiescence to cultural sensibilities.
Papers are filled with stories about Brand’s sexual ‘deviancy’ because it allows us to turn the table and claim he’s the one with the problem. Yet, from a loosely Darwinian perspective, Brand is a winner. More than that. He is winner of epic proportions.
Indeed if it wasn’t for contraceptive (and no doubt abortive) technology, Brand would have spawned an army of sesquipedalian cockneys large enough to conquer Western Europe.
Sesquipedalian. I love that word. It has a beautiful symmetry to it because it is an example of exactly what it describes. Whoever created it had a marvellous sense of humour.
Anyway, where was I? I was talking about Russell Brand, wasn’t I? Actually, I wasn’t really meaning to talk about Russell Brand - I just went off on a bit of a tangent. I was actually meaning to talk about football, because it’s been a while since I had a rant and since that time much has changed with the old Arsenal.
Last time I wrote about football I was in a bit of a depression about the spiralling misfortunes of the Gunners. It appeared then that Villa might establish an insurmountable lead in the race for fourth spot and that Arsenal might actually end up without a Champions League spot for the first time in over a decade, with dire implications for the club’s finances.
However, in the intervening weeks a remarkable turnaround has occurred. Some rich Arsenal form has coincided with some poor Villa form and a gap that could have stretched to eight points if Villa had held on to a 2-0 lead at home to Stoke is now 3 – in Arsenal’s favour!
There is still enough time to throw it away again but at present things are looking pretty rosy, especially with an FA Cup semi-final and a Champions League quarter-final to look forward to. Feasibly Arsenal could still end the season with two prestigious trophies and Champions League football for next season (though we would have this anyway if we were to win the CL).
The confidence and dynamism has started to flow back, even without the still injured Fabregas, Adebayor, Rosicky and the re-injured Walcott and Eduardo. The revival is so dramatic, and, indeed, so timely, that we may well curse the fact that our run of goalless draws put us just too far behind to catch up. We’re certainly not beyond catching Chelsea to nick third.
Come on lads, you can do it!
Who am I kidding… you can see right through me. I’m like a pair of Russell Brand’s hermetically-sealed trousers – without the disconcerting bulge and encrusted melange of DNA. (Well, at least not today).
The reality is that I’ve been slack. Very slack. Slack in way that’s nothing like Mr Brand’s pants and rather more like his promiscuous behaviour.
Not that I think he’s improper. He does what most men, perhaps even most women, would like to do but can’t – either because of a distinct lack of game or because of a spineless acquiescence to cultural sensibilities.
Papers are filled with stories about Brand’s sexual ‘deviancy’ because it allows us to turn the table and claim he’s the one with the problem. Yet, from a loosely Darwinian perspective, Brand is a winner. More than that. He is winner of epic proportions.
Indeed if it wasn’t for contraceptive (and no doubt abortive) technology, Brand would have spawned an army of sesquipedalian cockneys large enough to conquer Western Europe.
Sesquipedalian. I love that word. It has a beautiful symmetry to it because it is an example of exactly what it describes. Whoever created it had a marvellous sense of humour.
Anyway, where was I? I was talking about Russell Brand, wasn’t I? Actually, I wasn’t really meaning to talk about Russell Brand - I just went off on a bit of a tangent. I was actually meaning to talk about football, because it’s been a while since I had a rant and since that time much has changed with the old Arsenal.
Last time I wrote about football I was in a bit of a depression about the spiralling misfortunes of the Gunners. It appeared then that Villa might establish an insurmountable lead in the race for fourth spot and that Arsenal might actually end up without a Champions League spot for the first time in over a decade, with dire implications for the club’s finances.
However, in the intervening weeks a remarkable turnaround has occurred. Some rich Arsenal form has coincided with some poor Villa form and a gap that could have stretched to eight points if Villa had held on to a 2-0 lead at home to Stoke is now 3 – in Arsenal’s favour!
There is still enough time to throw it away again but at present things are looking pretty rosy, especially with an FA Cup semi-final and a Champions League quarter-final to look forward to. Feasibly Arsenal could still end the season with two prestigious trophies and Champions League football for next season (though we would have this anyway if we were to win the CL).
The confidence and dynamism has started to flow back, even without the still injured Fabregas, Adebayor, Rosicky and the re-injured Walcott and Eduardo. The revival is so dramatic, and, indeed, so timely, that we may well curse the fact that our run of goalless draws put us just too far behind to catch up. We’re certainly not beyond catching Chelsea to nick third.
Come on lads, you can do it!
Friday, 6 March 2009
Kebabs are bad for you - apparently
Scientists have revealed some startling new information. It’s being claimed as one of the breakthroughs of the decade, if not the century. Whisper it quietly, but it appears the good-old donner kebab might actually be doing us harm:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/05/kebab-takeaways-food-safety
I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but a study carried out by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has found that 4.7% of salads and sauces served at kebab takeaways contain “unsatisfactory” levels of bacteria, and that 0.4% contain “unacceptable or potentially hazardous” levels, meaning the mouth-watering delights were, contrary to appearance, unfit for human consumption!
I’m sure donner-philes across the nation are finding this news almost as difficult to digest as yesterday’s dinner. Can the humble kebab, a staple of al fresco dining from Grimsby to Croydon, really be a threat to public health?
Of course it is you bone heads! How many hours and thousands of pounds have been wasted in “discovering” what my mottled toilet bowl could attest after one of my ill-advised but thankfully rare moonlit drop-ins to the local germ emporium?
I don’t think it will come as a shock to anyone who has ever been inside a kebab shop that they are, more often than not, a picture book of poor hygiene.
It is not surprising in the slightest that they operate like an oversized bacterial incubator, lovingly nurturing their microscopic clientele on a feast of heat-regulated chilli sauce, “fresh” salad and fine cuts of reconstituted meat of indeterminate origin.
The problem is, people who frequent kebab shops are not the greatest exponents of good judgement at the best of times. Even without added microbes, donner kebab remains a questionable dinner choice.
The vast majority of us only succumb to the temptation when we are hungry late at night and nothing else is open and our rational faculties have been eroded by similarly ill-advised levels of alcohol.
Indeed, we never seem to heed the health warnings relating to alcohol consumption so the chances of us ditching our drunken donner or burger or fried chicken for rye bread and organic hummus is fairly close to zero.
The point of the study is clearly to initiate a clampdown on the peddlers of poor hygiene, which is no doubt a good thing; I’m just not sure it will mean that much to the people it actually affects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/05/kebab-takeaways-food-safety
I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but a study carried out by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has found that 4.7% of salads and sauces served at kebab takeaways contain “unsatisfactory” levels of bacteria, and that 0.4% contain “unacceptable or potentially hazardous” levels, meaning the mouth-watering delights were, contrary to appearance, unfit for human consumption!
I’m sure donner-philes across the nation are finding this news almost as difficult to digest as yesterday’s dinner. Can the humble kebab, a staple of al fresco dining from Grimsby to Croydon, really be a threat to public health?
Of course it is you bone heads! How many hours and thousands of pounds have been wasted in “discovering” what my mottled toilet bowl could attest after one of my ill-advised but thankfully rare moonlit drop-ins to the local germ emporium?
I don’t think it will come as a shock to anyone who has ever been inside a kebab shop that they are, more often than not, a picture book of poor hygiene.
It is not surprising in the slightest that they operate like an oversized bacterial incubator, lovingly nurturing their microscopic clientele on a feast of heat-regulated chilli sauce, “fresh” salad and fine cuts of reconstituted meat of indeterminate origin.
The problem is, people who frequent kebab shops are not the greatest exponents of good judgement at the best of times. Even without added microbes, donner kebab remains a questionable dinner choice.
The vast majority of us only succumb to the temptation when we are hungry late at night and nothing else is open and our rational faculties have been eroded by similarly ill-advised levels of alcohol.
Indeed, we never seem to heed the health warnings relating to alcohol consumption so the chances of us ditching our drunken donner or burger or fried chicken for rye bread and organic hummus is fairly close to zero.
The point of the study is clearly to initiate a clampdown on the peddlers of poor hygiene, which is no doubt a good thing; I’m just not sure it will mean that much to the people it actually affects.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Stupid people
Turning away from the endless and rather tiresome rants about football, I want to pick up on a point raised by my friend and erstwhile class-mate Charlie, in his fantabuluously well scripted blog charlie farlie's boozy thursdays (http://boozythursdays.blogspot.com/).
In his There’s no business like Snow Business entry from February 4th, he talks, among other things, about the crippling negativity that seems to have infected our nation.
On a day in which London’s children – and many of its “adults”, such as me – awoke spellbound, desperate to cling to the one outpost of joy amid the procession of gloom that has swept over this country in recent months, the main news items were all about disgruntled commuters who couldn’t get to work and the damage that would be done to our already ailing economy.
This is to be expected. Plainly, disaster sells. What annoyed me, however, as Charlie points out, is how stupid some people are.
I heard one woman say on the Ten O’clock News: “It’s ridiculous, it’s like we’re living in a third world country.”
No it’s not, you insufferable ignoramus. What’s the point in having expensive contingency plans for something that very rarely happens? It’d be like carrying round a fully-functional bionic limb in your handbag just in case your leg decides to fall off.
Of course it’s frustrating to be thwarted by factors outside of ones control, but surely there are better things to be annoyed about than having to take a day off work.
In his There’s no business like Snow Business entry from February 4th, he talks, among other things, about the crippling negativity that seems to have infected our nation.
On a day in which London’s children – and many of its “adults”, such as me – awoke spellbound, desperate to cling to the one outpost of joy amid the procession of gloom that has swept over this country in recent months, the main news items were all about disgruntled commuters who couldn’t get to work and the damage that would be done to our already ailing economy.
This is to be expected. Plainly, disaster sells. What annoyed me, however, as Charlie points out, is how stupid some people are.
I heard one woman say on the Ten O’clock News: “It’s ridiculous, it’s like we’re living in a third world country.”
No it’s not, you insufferable ignoramus. What’s the point in having expensive contingency plans for something that very rarely happens? It’d be like carrying round a fully-functional bionic limb in your handbag just in case your leg decides to fall off.
Of course it’s frustrating to be thwarted by factors outside of ones control, but surely there are better things to be annoyed about than having to take a day off work.
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