If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Lance Armstrong is a massive arsehole.

Or a misguided human being.

Or something in between.

He’s definitely done some things that most people would consider to be pretty awful. Aside from cheating, lying about it, not really being very contrite in the Oprah interview etc, he also called his former masseuse a drunken whore for blowing the whistle on him.

Definitely falls into the arsehole category.

But in the interests of stirring shit, I posed the following question on Twitter: What if you tried to set about raising half a billion for cancer and the best way to do it was to cheat at cycling? Would you still do it? (According to its website, Lance’s Livestrong charity has raised $470 million. Of course, like much else of Lance’s life, this may be bullshit, but even if we take it with a massive pinch of salt and say that ‘only’ $100m was raised and handed over, that’s still worth the question.)

The responses were interesting, in that about ten people retweeted the question, some ‘favourited’ it, and others replied in both positive and negative ways. Some thought that the ends would definitely justify the means, while others (particularly one bloke who seems to be into cycling) seemed to think that it was unforgivable, to some degree because of the harm it would do (did) to the sport of cycling. Others seemed to think it was wrong because people were being duped into giving money to a cancer charity on the basis of the inspiration Lance offered as a very successful cancer-sufferer.

Alas, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question, and I really don’t think Lance’s cycling career was an elaborate way of increasing donations to a cancer charity, but if he hadn’t done what he did there would be an enormous reduction in the amount of money donated to fight cancer (despite it being hypothetical I think we can generally agree that no Lance=no Livestrong). So whether one is better than the other is up to you, but I think it harks back quite nicely to this quote from A Few Good Men:

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

Lance is Jack and right now most of the rest of the world is Tom.

Sometimes ‘shitty’ things happen to make ‘good’ things happen. The only real question is: are you comfortable with that?

Meanwhile, let’s all smile ruefully at this strangely equivocal Nike ad:

Here’s his NY Times obituary.

I saw his work many years ago, but I was first aware of who was responsible for it when I read his section of The Copy Book again and again. It was a massive education in just a few pages.

Thanks, Bob.

Invisible driver prank (thanks, J):

What?

Tupac in the police station:

A dot for every person in the US.

Another Amazon takeover (thanks, E).

Real movie posters, Oscar edition.

Crap Brapps (thanks, J).

Girls falling over and stuff:

How Woody Allen writes (thanks, T).

Oscar nominated directors in round table discussion (thanks, R):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAK3aUq25fo

Fresh Prince into Google translate and some other stuff that makes it funny (thanks, J):

Celebrity faces upside down (thanks, G).

Number of US gun deaths since Sandy Hook (thanks, B).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfrGaTV217g

It’s very funny, particularly if you’re not from Manchester.

An interesting follow up to the XXX ad from a few years ago.

Not sure it has a point. Not sure it needs one.

It doesn’t seem to want to embed, so here’s the link.

In the spirit of the 2012 social media democracy The Guardian endorsed in their Three Little Pigs ad, I asked my Twitter chums what they thought of it. Here’s every single response (UPDATE: I will add more as they come in):

‘The UK can’t do Kenny Powers-esque ads for a newspaper that’s about to sack a bunch of staff.’

‘parody wank, smells like Qualcomm’s making TV.’

‘Shame there were no editors available that week.’

‘Hugh Grant is looking old…’

‘Its main crime, above all else, is just being too long.’

‘If you are going to send yourselves up, really send yourself up. See Kenny Powers, MFCEO of K-Swiss for how to do it right.’

‘3 min version waaaaaay too long. By then it feels like somebody explaining a joke.’

‘I may be judging too quickly, but it’s poor by both Guardian & BBH standards.’

‘Quite funny, but felt like I was watching it for a whole weekend.’

‘It grew on me, but basically it was a bit smug and annoying.’

‘Everyone has their fav bit. Hence my argument that it should have been separate ads. One concept, one ad.’

‘Indeed. Personally, I hated it, mainly because we all know how hard-up the Guardian is.’

‘I think it’s a great ad. Very inventive. Superb acting from the guys in the lift at the end.’

‘Last minute is funny, but the “spoof ad” of the first 2 mins has been done to death.’

‘I thought it was quite funny. Particularly as it was coming from The Guardian which is usually so humourless.’

‘Have you seen that horrendous Guardian / Observer weekend 3 minute mega-wank? The shame of it.’

‘Agreed length is an issue for me, and it lost my interest around 2:06.’

‘Makes me want to buy the Sunday Times.’

‘Bit overblown. The prog rock of advertising.’

‘If i was a guardian reader I’d love it. I’m not and I don’t.’

‘I am + I still think it’s shit. In fact it feels like it was made by people who don’t really like Guardian readers .. Plus stretching any gag over 3 minutes is tricky. Trickier when the gag is so poor. And why is Hugh Grant in it?’

‘Feels like 3 or 4 ads concatenated to me. Couple at table is good. Unlikely to convert non-believers.’

‘Strategy and t.o.v more suited to one of the red tops. It’s a bit #cringe‘

‘Like a norovirus victim squatting over my face for 180 seconds. #stealingbackmyweekend Is Grant morphing into Richard.’ Madeley?

So there you have it. More comments, please.

For what it’s worth, I think the lift gag works. Otherwise it seems a bit slack, long and familiar.

This was done years back, laying the fake trailer to rest (or so I thought):

The best mash-up of all time (thanks, T):

Another fine Amazon takeover (thanks, S).

Have fun looking round Manhattan (thanks, S).

Film photos and their locations.

Compressorhead Ace Of Spades (thanks, V):

Polanski on leaving the audience wanting more:

Every pop culture reference from Tarantino movies in chronological order (thanks, K).

It’s a gold shirt, motherfucker (thanks, J).

Edith with googly eyes (thanks, J).

Sweet Brown autotuned (thanks, A):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7UgAprdpM

‘Kick the little face… in the place,’ (thanks, M):

Lord of the Strings: the influence of Tolkien on heavy metal.

Darth Vader is hard of hearing:

Muhammed Ali on Candid Camera (thanks, V):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X5iWTj1ySKo#!

Revving motorbikes vs pedestrians (thanks, J):

Howard Stern interviews Tarantino (find a spare 75 minutes and listen to it all. Really excellent stuff):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVo8WfALdaY&feature=player_embedded

Qualcomm’s insane CES keynote (thanks, S).

Celebrities read mean Tweets (thanks, S):

News reaches me from Australia that McDonald’s is changing its name to Macca’s (its Australian nickname) to celebrate Australia Day.

If you have a look at the link you’ll see that they’re changing everything from the the outside signage to the little badges the staff wear.

I admire the idea, but I admire even more the fact this it’s actually happened.

getting a corporation the size of McDonald’s to mess with its branding is like trying to fix up a friendly between Israel and Palestine. The machinery, the process, the levels of approval… I can only imagine.

It now enters my Fucking Difficult Hall Of Fame, alongside Nike Plus (how the hell did anyone get Apple and Nike to join forces?), The changed Heinz labels and the Simpsons rebrand of 7-11.

Hats off.

You might recall that I have trouble posting images on here, so check the link.

I’m particularly impressed by the art direction, which makes these impossible to avoid reading.

And such a simple idea that I’ve never seen before (cue several comments with links to Spanish ads from 1995 that are similar).

I remember when this ad was originally on air:

It was on quite a lot (particularly during the football, if memory serves) and it stood out for reasons that might now seem obvious. Since then it has cropped up in conversations and newspaper headlines so many times you almost forget how odd it is and where it came from.

It’s now back in the news because David Cameron has actually named an entire style of government after it. Yes, that’s right: the Prime Minister of Great Britain has named his governmental methodology after a slogan for some DIY varnish from twenty years ago.

Interesting.

I’ve long admired the tendency of that line to crop up time and time again, many years after its inception. After all, to have written something which becomes part of the vernacular is what we should all aim for: every time anyone says that phrase it’s a like a little free ad for Ronseal.

The only other line that has come close to it in recent years is ‘You either love it or you hate it’ from Marmite. This might have even surpassed the Ronseal line because people have been referring to others as a ‘Marmite person’ (‘you either love them or hate them’) for ages. ‘Marmite’ now means ‘loved by some; hated by others’. That’s a whole new word, or at least a whole new meaning of an old word.

I guess the tricky thing is that it’s impossible to predict what will be used beyond its 30 seconds of TV time. A friend of mine once created a TV ad which featured a silly action with the expressed intention of trying to make kids copy it in the playground. I think the ad disappeared without achieving its goal, but my friend had the right idea: don’t just sit on the side of culture – become it.