The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

However, as much as the strips were hysterical [and the letters page was sheer bloody genius] the bit’s I loved were their fake ads.

I won’t go into detail about them as there’s simply too many to mention – however if you have the chance to do a quick search, you should check them out because they’re bloody brilliant.

Anyway, years later when we started cynic, I approached some of the VIZ guys because I basically wanted to have them as part-time copywriters – however whilst that didn’t work out, we got friendly with quite a few of them and they helped us write our original website copy as well as our creds.

The reason I’m bringing this all up is because I’ve just come across an ad that on first glance, could easily of come from Viz in its heyday, except it’s not a joke – it’s bloody serious.

Yep the classic ‘before and after‘ shot … however in typical VIZ style, they bare no resemblance to eachother whatsoever.

OK, so I guess that is the point … but come on, this is ridiculous.

The ad is actually for a stretch mark treatment and once I worked out it was for real, I genuinely thought they’d got the pictures the wrong way round – but regardless of that, it’s abit bloody unfair, let alone unrealistic, to compare a picture of a woman heavily pregnant with how she ended up looking after giving birth.

[Plus we don’t actually get told when that AFTER photo was taken – it might be years later!!!]

It’s the equivalent of showing a picture of Arnie when he was aged 3 and then when he was in his Mr Universe phase and claiming some bloody nutri-shake for the effect.

To add insult to injury, at the bottom of the ad in very small print, there was the statement that there was no scientific proof that none-operational techniques could get rid of stretch marks.

So not only are the bastards going for the biggest exaggerated BEFORE AND AFTER since VIz’s Camilla Parker Bowles ‘Horse To Queen’ pisstake, but then they have the audacity to basically admit that everything in the ad is potentially false.

Seriously, someone at The Sun or The Sport should sign them up – or maybe even Viz – because these guys are hysterical though they’ve obviously got money to burn if they’re happy to spend a big wad on just taking the piss.

What next? Slimfast claiming Kate Moss used to be Bernard Manning?

Of course I bought the cheapest one I could find but it had to be a SONY Ericsson because it would let me port over all my contacts easily.

I now am walking around with this …

I went up to the register to pay only to be told by the man behind the till that I was at the wrong counter.

“Oh, sorry …” I replied, “… could you tell me where I go to pay then please?”

He looked at me with a weary stare before saying, “… the other side of this counter”.

Because there was no way he could of meant the till that was two feet to my right, I actually looked to see if there was a pay kiosk on the other side of the store, but no – the silly sod literally meant I had to take a small step to the right to be at the correct till.

I would like to say I questioned the sanity of this decision but I was so shocked – especially when I saw the guy move to the side and then act like he’d never seen me before – that I quietly stepped across, handed over my cash and left wondering what I’d just experienced.

I appreciate Topshop and Topman probably have different P&L’s, but this is ridiculous.

I’m sure their store scanning devise could automatically separate items purchased by division and even if they can’t, a simple button on the till would allow staff to make that call.

Hell, what does it say about the kind of staff Topman/shop employ if they feel if necessary to have a totally different till for them to make that judgement???

I know there’s a lot of clothes that seem unisex, but even I – with the fashion sense of a 14 year old boy from 1984 – could work it out so I’m sure they could too.

I have a nasty feeling a ‘brand consultant’ came up with this idea to drive ‘brand individuality’ [hahaha] – however it doesn’t matter how individual your brand is if you piss off all your customers is it?

Almost as fucked as those shops that have an escalator going down into the store but only stairs coming up.

“Come in … come in …” they cry in their seductive tone, only to kick you out without a second thought as soon as they’ve got what they wanted.

Abit like teenage boys really, ha!

To make it even worse, I’m stuck in the only airport in the World without a fucking mobile phone shop so I can’t even buy a cheap piece of shit to call a bunch of people back.

I don’t know how you did it Bazza, but I’m still not going back to your bloody iPhone!

Anyway today’s midweek positivity question is about heroes.

I’ve written in the past about some of mine [here and here] so today I want to know who has/does inspire you and why?

To help you, here’s one of mine talking about one of his …