Tag Archives: nostalgia

Va Va Voom… And Other Words Beginning With V

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And now for a repost from June 2010….

Vuvuzela – now here’s a word I will practice before saying in public. It is a word to be rolled around the tongue and swiftly blown. And not to be said with your mouth full.
As a child I was prone to verbal mishaps, mostly my mistakes were gently corrected, laughed at or ignored. Denim became deminimum and aluminium became aluminiminimummmn. I tried never to mention Birmingham and would often find myself steering the conversation towards Manchester. Like many children I had a problem with the Grand Prix, and of course with that well known car manufacturing firm…
It was a special occasion, friends and relatives were coming for Sunday tea; Mum had opened a fresh can of spam and had baked a Victoria sponge. She’d also done a salad and some other boring stuff featuring pineapple chunks and half a grapefruit. As we sat around the dining table my Aunt began to tell us about her brand new car, marvelling over its luxurious leather interior and its faux wooden dashboard. I could see it through the window parked on our driveway – new, red, and very shiny. I was most impressed. Loudly and enthusiastically I asked, ‘Dad, when are you going to get a big vulva like Auntie Pam’s?’
Such a shame that my Uncle had just popped a pickled onion into his mouth, but at least his choking provided a welcome distraction….

 

Fuzzy, Big, and Swinging

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Yesterday I had a glance at my old blog and was distraught to discover that many of the YouTubes I had embedded into my posts were no longer available to view. Some of the adverts were no longer available due to breach of copyright….Ppfftttt! My poor old blog!! It now makes even less sense than it did before.

Anyhow, I came across this old post from 2009…. the video had gone but the comments were intriguing…. comments such as: With a bulge like that it can only be an advert for Hannigan’s Truss Boutique from Kevin Musgrove. I decided that it was imperative to trawl through YouTube to find a replacement copy of the video. This is the best I could find…. it’s even fuzzier than ever…. now he looks like he’s wearing no pants at all…but we still have the daring use of a light fitting to admire…

Lucky You…..

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….or not so lucky.

I did used to enjoy writing those old advert posts, but over the past few years I have been consumed by calligraphy, and, to be fair, I haven’t seen many adverts that I’ve felt inspired by. Is it my jaded old brain or the new swathe of boring adverts that are to blame? Bit of both I reckon. Also I have a tendency to be scrolling through my iPad whilst the adverts are on so maybe I should pay more attention?

Anyhow, here is an old advert post from 2011.

Due to the sluggish financial market the Halifax staff have little to do. They are under strict instruction to only authorise two mortgages this year and can only lend to people who don’t need loans. The financial advisers have all been made redundant and now the entire business is propped up by the canteen staff who have diversified by setting up a radio station in the basement of an NCP car park in Buttocks Booth just off Lumbertubs Lane. They broadcast daily, via telegraphic transfer, to five mountain goats on a farm in Southwold, Suffolk.
Scottish widow Sandy and Co-operative Carol provide the morning entertainment with a breakfast show. They are a tight team; they have a mutual interest in investing extra digits in their hedge funds and have bonded over unit banking. Alas, they are so enamoured by one another that they have failed to notice the potential threat of a hostile takeover bid from tea boy, Derek. He has coveted their breakfast slots from afar and, in an effort to remove the women from the helm he has sabotaged Sandy’s liquid assets. He completes the arm’s length transaction by passing Sandy her mug. The mug handle breaks causing hot tea to spill across the mixing desk. Carol and Sandy are unfazed by life’s little dramas. They have each other and therefore the accelerated depreciation is negligible. They smile sweetly and, still laughing, still singing from the same spreadsheet, they tell Derek that life is better with a beaver.

And to finish on a topical note a little gilded insult from Lulu’s suggestion on a previous post,

gilded-insult-gold-leaf-calligraphy-uk

Trump?

NEXT TIME: Under the weight of all the books, the chair breaks, leading Ms Scarlet to enrol on a chair restoration course where she meets a man in a bobble hat who offers her a hobnob and a cup of tea from his tartan themed thermos flask….

Respectable

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The evenings of my youth smelt of Jazz aftershave and tasted of Jack Daniels poured over chinkles of ice. Nothing much mattered except good lipstick, mascara, big hair and reciprocated urges. Thursdays officially marked the beginning of the weekend, when my friend Gina and I would see if we could club solidly for three nights in a row. I always think of Gina as my sophisticated side-kick – she really could suck the crème from an egg without smearing her lipstick. She always looked stunning in Miss Selfridge black lycra mini dresses and six-inch stilettos, whereas I preferred tight belted baggy trousers from Top Shop and ballerina pumps; she liked to pose, and I liked to dance. We were a good team, she could immediately attract and I would do the chatting. We never used to eat before going out, perhaps we’d share extra strong mints and a squirt of Goldspot spray in the back of the cab before we arrived at the club, but we’d usually be too hyped to eat food.

Anyhow, one night Gina had been force-fed a curry before coming out and she said that her stomach felt a bit grumbly but reckoned she’d feel better after a drink… so she drank… half a bottle of Piper Heidsieck Champagne, four glasses of house white, and two Crème de menthes [looks like washing up liquid, but pretty with a pink cocktail umbrella]. We left the club at about 2am and there were no cabs left, but I never minded walking home, I liked to burn off the buzz. Half way home and Gina began to complain that she needed the loo really badly. She was desperate. Busting. So although it meant taking a short-cut through a really dodgy estate, I said we could probably use the loos on the platform at the railway station. By the time we got there I also wanted to go, and being faster on foot than she, I dashed into the only working cubicle. Big mistake. When I came out something terrible had happened. On platform 2 of the railway station there was a perfectly round cow-pat. Still steaming. Very odd because we were in town. And Gina must have been knocked over by the cow because she was crouching on the floor staggering to get up….
Oh happy days. No CCTV back then. Only the station manager to contend with.

First published on The Scarlet Blue Archive, 13th August 2009