How Cool Is That...?

The Vatican has its own YouTube channel, with video clips of the Holy Father, and links to relevant documents. Mantilla-twitch to Fr. Ray.

More Light Relief...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Barclaycard had a series of adverts starring Rowan Atkinson as a totally inept spy. The ads were so popular that the film, Johnny English was made on the back of them. Certainly this selection had me laughing until I cried, and, once again, I find myself unable to decide which one was funniest... 

"Take over for a Bough, would you moment," and "Are we about to be mugged by a gang of delinquent haddock?" were favourite catchphrases for quite some time...

Happiness...

...might not actually be a cigar called Hamlet, but sadness could quite possibly be an empty bottle of Bailey's...

One In The Eye For The Trendy Lefty Liberals...

The Pope is a huge bugbear because he's soooooo dogmatic and dictatorial and, well, censorious! The Liberal lefties who read the Guardian and its ilk much prefer trendy gurus such as the Dalai Lama... unless they actually read what he says...

Twitch of the mantilla to the Creative Minority Report.

More Traipsing Down Memory Lane...

Still no inspiration for entertaining and witty repartee in my blog posts (nothing new there, then!) Nevertheless, a comment from Fr. Owl after my last post, about how adverts used to be creative and funny (sometimes more than the programmes) got me reminiscing about a few of my favourites.

Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins had a great set of ads for Cinzano... and four of the best are shown here. I am unable to decide which is the funniest; I find myself torn between the Japanese businessmen and the airplane recliner seat... on reflection, I'll plump for the airliner ad, as it's so very like the sort of mishap I might encounter...

Lacking Inspiration...

I have been suffering from a distinct paucity of inspiration for the blog.

I am fed up to the back teeth with everything and anything to do with the iminent Inauguration of the US President, and would be quite happy, should it be possible to do so in a purely Christian manner, to see him and his new administration at the bottom of the Potomac. Sadly, I suspect that this is not a particularly charitable train of thought, and so have decided that I must eschew all radio contact with the outside world (I don't watch TV) until Wednesday.

Apart from the media hype and hysteria about Mr. Obama, the rest of the news is depressing in the extreme (please don't misunderstand me, the media hype and hysteria is also depressing, but at least the presenters sound slightly more cheerful.) I have found a little solace in cat pictures, marzipan, chocolate and German sausage, but I feel I have exhausted the blogging possibilities associated with these topics, at least for the time being.

It would seem that I'm not the only blogger to have been suffering from writers' block. Phil (he of the Ponte Sisto) was stumped for a topic on which to expound, and he decided to overcome the impediment by writing about a day in his life. He claimed that it was very uneventful and boring. Not so... In fact, his description of how he went to a photo booth in order to obtain a passport photo had me giggling, as it made me recall the Hamlet ads of my misbegotten youth...

Having worked out how to deselect the “fun” options – my face, superimposed on a bunny rabbit, or Madonna sat on my knee – I inserted the correct change and pressed the green button. It spoke! The machine spoke to me: “Please ensure that you are sitting comfortably and position your face in the orange circle”. I was a little too tall and attempted to lower the seat, but with no success. Having decided that the seat was stuck, I slouched down until my face fitted within the circle and my eyes were in line with the image on screen. It was only after the picture was taken, that I realized the camera was looking up my nose (due to the necessary slouching)

I thought that a reminder of the advert in question might prove to be a welcome diversion...

Normal blogging service will be resumed shortly...