I do like the sensitive side of this country! Today’s Media Guardian web site reports that “Pot Noodle’s controversial adverts using the line The slag of all snacks have been banned from appearing on TV after more than 300 viewers complained”. 300 people actually bothered to complain about a television advertisement. I would really love to know whey they felt this was inappropriate. I thought they were some of the funniest commercials that I have seen in a long time and the word was used in a humours, self-deprecating way. How can calling a plastic pot of fast food be that offensive. Such a shame they were pulled. However, I don’t really see the point as most people have seen them anyway. Anyway, here is a gratuitous link to the most offensive words in the English language! Wonder if any of the complainers have a web site where they outline their complaints. I’d love to know. [Ref: Media Guardian]

On this day…

2005: Run London – Here I Come
2004: Madonna
2003: Helsinki Re-Visited

Sometimes, I find the web addictive. I should be doing something else. I want to talk about this but I’ll let Metafilter do the job. Saves me typing on a Saturday (for those who don’t want to click: The World Summit on Sustainable Development, aka “Earth Summit II,” will start soon in Johannesburg, ten years after the Rio Earth Summit. Have things improved at all in the last ten years? [Metafilter].

On this day…

2005: Boston Legal
2004: Flash Floods
2004: Should I Mention The Olympics?
2003: Great Yarmouth
2003: Stag

If you believe the old-timers then the nation is becoming stupid. Perhaps not actually the nation but then a good proportion of the people are less intelligent than their counterparts in previous generations. Every media is dumbing down because we are all too thick to understand long words. Well, thank goodness for yesterday’s Observer (second reference to it in a row). Euan Ferguson argues that this is not the case. We are intelligent again!

On this day…

2007: Better In Just 14 Days
2005: By Ek
2004: Save A Pop Idol
2004: Open House 2004
2004: Back Ache Update
2003: Oh Canada II

Jonathan Fenby wrote an excellent piece in today’s Observer (which thankfully I have found online and can link to) about the state of the British capital? I admit that I hoped Ken would help sort some of the mess this city is in. An integrated public transport system, clean and safer streets etc. I bought into the whole idea of new vision for London. But, as Fenby writes, “The snag is the man who should be providing it shows himself better at getting elected mayor than giving his city a new start.” Perhaps it is too much to hope that one man could change the attitudes of the society in this city. Many people just accept the way it is and perhaps, if most people are OK with the state of London, then this is the way it should be.

I know that I am talking very generally. What should I add to The Observer piece? London transport is over-crowded, dirty and smelly. When it runs it’s acceptable but when it doesn’t run then the whole system falls apart. Last week’s rain brought large chunks of the system to a halt. Rain, for goodness sake, it’s the one thing we know we are going to get here. Yesterday, I was stood on the Northern Line and there “there is no service” announcements must have gone on for ten minutes.

Ah, and I survived the party quite well – although I did feel a little rough this morning. It didn’t finish until gone two in the morning and ended with us watching old episodes of The Tube. Perhaps I should have left earlier.

On this day…

2005: 7 Million Londoners, 1 London
2004: Viva Owen?
2003: Wonderful Weekend