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Nauseating sentiments

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On one of those kitchen signs…

“PLEASE EXCUSE THE MESS, THE CHILDREN ARE MAKING MEMORIES”

Blergh! Any more?

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Comments

  6. About five years ago, Pret a Manger made their soup containers slightly larger. Rather than add a little flash or label reading ‘New Bigger Size’ or somesuch, the pot read:
    ‘You’ll notice I’m a little bit bigger, which means more goodness for your money… and your tummy!’

    People who say I have no self-restraint don’t know what I bottled up that day.

  7. “Friendly” error messages on the computer. I regularly get a message from my fucking cheely printer which appears to think it’s my mate saying “Seems you’re not using Epson print cartridges?” (when I am). F*** right off.

    Otherwise “Princess on board” and similar stickers make me want vomit all over the steering wheel. I do love the Demotivational Posters series, e.g.

    http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i449/charlieboy14/motivation-office-space-peter-gibbons-motivation-lazy-demotivational-poster-1217927102_zpsyzytes4d.jpg

  8. Those Facebook statuses “Only people who truly love their children will post this! Share if your little man or little princess is the greatest and most wibblywunnerful little snookums in VER WHOLE WIDE WORLD”.

    Eat me.

  10. Ah its all so different from the eighties when the pubs we would frequent would have some cute customer-friendly signs behind the bar (next to the KP nuts bikini girl and the monster jar of pickled onions) such as

    Please don’t ask for credit as a punch in the mouth often offends.
    or
    Credit only given to people over 85 with both parents

    These were illustrated by the same artist whose work graced the ‘No bombing, no petting’ sign at swimming pools everywhere.

  14. Imagine an expensive TV ad with determined-sounding electronic music and footage of a top sportsman like, say, Usain Bolt being a bit of a hero on the track but also showing slow motion footage of a caring family man who helps out at schools and soup kitchens, laughing with friends . Last shot is a high definition of his face – a look of contented calm but with a gritty, uncompromising determination in there – words like “Be the Best” , or some such twaddle, appear.

    So far, so bollocks- but it’s Usain Bolt. Fair enough.

    Now imagine that kind of thing but for a car insurance company, profiling some people that work there. Or for a bank. Or for an eBay-type website. There’s a bit of a trend for this at the moment and makes me feel nauseous.

  15. You know those adverts where they show ‘real’ people — housewives, bank employees, dentists, etc.?

    They’re not real, they never are, it’s against union rules. They’re actors.

    • Or it’s plain lies.

      Here in NZ there’s an estate agency ad where the two main characters are depicted as real people but are actors from (mainly) other ads. “Sue has been there for us ever since we bought our first house…” etc. There is no indication that this is a dramatisation of a true story or anything like that. Does anyone here know why that isn’t deemed to be misleading?

    • Ben Elton did a hilarious routine about actors being real people in adverts…from 13.00 (including the Renault family skit which is superb) though the whole thing is brilliant.

  16. Corporate adverts with a picture of a handsome bloke in a North Face jacket looking windswept on top of a hill with some text he’s supposedly written himself explaining how he is passionate about yoghurt.

  17. Deteriorata: National Lampoon

    You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here.
    Deteriorata. Deteriorata.

    Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
    And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
    Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
    Rotate your tires.
    Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
    And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
    Know what to kiss, and when.
    Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
    Wherever possible, put people on hold.
    Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
    and despite the changing fortunes of time,
    There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

    Remember The Pueblo.
    Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
    Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
    Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
    Especially with those persons closest to you –
    That lemon on your left, for instance.
    Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
    Would scarcely get your feet wet.
    Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
    Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
    And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
    Hire people with hooks.
    For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
    Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
    That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
    And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
    It could only be worse in Milwaukee.

    You are a fluke of the universe.
    You have no right to be here.
    And whether you can hear it or not,
    The universe is laughing behind your back.

    Therefore, make peace with your god,
    Whatever you perceive him to be – hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
    With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
    The world continues to deteriorate.
    Give up!

  19. I have this in my downstairs, um, convenience:
    “Please Excuse the Smell, I’ve Been Making Memories”
    There is an (empty) tin of glade or some such alongside to annoy those offened by the smell o0f good honest.
    Hours of fun.

  23. One disappointing aspect of social media like Facebook is that you discover that friends and other people you respect seem to set great store by this piffle. Even reasonable, intelligent people can be wrong, I have to tell myself, while seeing “wisdom” as dispensed by Spirit Science, The Holistic Health Hooeymeisters and some turkey who calls himself David Avocado Wolfe appearing all over their FB pages.

    (If anyone here is a major fan of the aforementioned parties, may I simply say each to their own)

    • I’m going to use this as an excuse to post something that I always like to share, given the opportunity.

      Many moons ago, Mrs Little and I were making final arrangements for our wedding. A very good friend of Mrs Little had been tapped to do one of the readings, and we’d asked her to suggest something she might like to read. This was a high risk move, because Mrs Little’s mates are basically a bunch of hard drinking Northern lawyers, accountants and bankers, none of whom are particularly interested in art, literature or poetry.

      This is what said friend (who is a completely awesome person, I should stress here) came back with. It’s called “The Invitation” and it’s by (chortle) “Oriah, Mountain Dreamer”. I honestly think it’s the single worst thing I’ve ever read in my entire life. It also sounds really bloody sinister:

      “The Invitation

      It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

      It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

      It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

      I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

      I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

      It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

      I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

      I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

      It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

      It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

      It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

      I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.”

      I had to break the news that under no fecking circumstances would this atrocity be performed at our wedding. The reading ended up being the lyric from Love Minus Zero, because I love the 1960s and profoundly wish I’d been born at the perfect right age to really experience that magnificent, unrepeatable decade first hand.

      • There are a number of things that trouble me about this piece, particularly in the context of a wedding ceremony:

        It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. Reality check needed here: “I’m in a dead-end job that I hate” don’t cut it. “I make bestiality porn for the Belorussian Mafia” probably don’t either.

        It doesn’t interest me to know where you live. This is going to make things rather difficult, don’t you think?

        I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. Everyone shrinks in the centre of a fire. Worse still, they’re usually not alive long enough to feel the benefit of the weight loss.

        Also, it’s a bit much for someone coming out with this lot to be thinking that you are going to have children with them, rather than simply Usain Bolting the fuck outta there.

      • On the other hand I saw this read out to a bunch of staff County and Crown Court managers from big cities all round the country, pretty much all of whom had started in the most junior of admin roles, often straight from school. Many of them absolutely loved it.

  25. From one of my Facebook ‘friends’ today :

    ‘On this road called Life you have to take the good with the bad, smile when you’re sad, love what you’ve got, and remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget, learn from your mistakes. People change. Things go wrong. But just remember, the ride goes on’.

    I should have known from ‘On this road called Life’…

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