01.10.2007 - 1:21 p.m.

i seem to be updating about once a mumf at the moment, not because i have bugger all to say but i don't seem to have the inclination to judiciously note down every humourous thought that drifts thru my head and transfer the minderings into the dairy, quite often i'll think of stuff which IS actually pretty funny, but 'cos it ain't writted down, the same thought is never still present when i present myself to a keyboard (sigh)

however what's left is a bit more persistant, and although the link may be a bit tenuous, the next bit's about lesbians in transit.

The lesbians in question may not be actually practical lady-lovers but leave the viewer wondering as to what they get up to off camera, or actually, that might just be me. These girls appear in the M&S clothing advert on the train to venice where they take great delight in changing outfits three times a day and running up and down carriages in their underwear before donning sleep-masks for bedtime (presumably so they don't know which of their travelling companions is pleasuring them that night) I'm pretty sure that this holiday behaviour is not uncommon for actual lesbians with money to spend on european tours, but i don't know what M&S are trying to say with the advert apart from girls on holiday (with girls in trains) wear M&S clothes.

The other hated M&S advert that has me reaching (retching) for the mute button is the food ones, where you have the bird (who's name escapes me at the moment) breathlessly describing overpriced food, maybe they think that a breathless bird huskily describing food two millimetres away from the microphone will have lesbians subconciously flooding into their stores ("I don't know why i'm here but i really really want to buy a muffin in chocolate sauce for eight quid....

...and some underwear and a sleep mask")

More from the Sentinel of rationality, this one's entitled 'American Taliban - this time we've got nukes AND we're crazy enough to use them (yee-haaw)'

Uber-scary

More news from the (say the next bit like the title 'Pigs in Space' from the Muppet show) - World of Businessssss

Pretty much all the products hawked from our extended family of companies are batch controlled, that is, they have batch numbers to identify the where and when it was made. All except one division that is, but that's not the half of it. The factory where they make the stuff (in germany, naturally) makes the stuff with batch numbers, but then it's shipped without reference to batch numbers and it's up to the subsidiary warehouses to receive the stuff and work out the batch numbers afterwards from what's printed on the boxes. Every time the subsidiary offices have been audited in the last couple of years this issue is brought up, the german response is always one of the following :

a) it is not a problem for us, it is therefore your problem
b) it is not our problem
c) it's your problem
d) we've spent all our resources on the name change, we can't possibly allocate anything to this issue you keep raising, which by the way
e) is not our problem

and it's true, we have had a new, group name, that's more dashing and dynamic and implies that we are a group leading the field in whatever field we now lead in, and it's also true that the 're-branding' probably cost an absolute fortune in time, money and expensive consultants, the message the board are giving out seems clear to me

Fur Coat and no Knickers

funnily enough, this is the same message being given out by many of the companies i've worked for or know now. What's also completely unamusing is that we've had a spending freeze in place for years because the market is so competitive Germany were panicking that they may not make six-figure bonuses this year, now they've announced a new name and "record return for this year" although we're not likely to see any of this record return because it would be a sin to let money leave germany.

bastards