Doggerel on seeing yet another display ad in a mall

I wish they’d stop calling food
“Nude”.
It’s as if they’ve conflated
Unclad with unadulterated.

Awesome

Astroligist

From a flyer found in my letterbox on Sunday. Spelling, punctuation and layout as in original.

MEDIUM ASTROLIGIST SPIRITUAL
HEALER

IF YOU HAVE NOT FOUND A SOLUTION
TO YOUR PROBLEM COME TALK TO US.

* family - marriage problems etc
* bring back a loved one, find true
love.
* bad habits etc
* to be more inteligent, education
work etc
* if your scared,bored,unknown illness
etc
* to sell a property, business
etc fast
* business improvements
* we can find out which career,
business etc
will be successfull for you
* we can also tell obout your past
and future
* removing bad luck, bad spirits etc

very successfull results
MY WORK IS CONFIDENTIAL

Voltaren: Days of Glory

It was the dreams he missed the most.

He looked up at the rows of old VHS cassettes above his desk, reading the titles lovingly. Voltaren Versus All Of Space. Voltaren: Lord of Power. Voltaren and Zyban. Good times. And yet, as amazing as his television exploits had been, they were nothing when compared to the dreams.

Oh, the stories those children had dreamt for him. His three syllables had resounded through cataclysms of fire and danger far beyond the fantasies of any animator. Even now. The most threadbare carpets, bare tabletops, those dusty zones trampled free from grass in playgrounds, had required only the mention of his name and they were transformed to eerie moonscapes and futuristic cities, arenas for glorious combat.

Voltaren.

“Honey? Are you coming to bed?”

All such a long time ago. His career in medicine had ended all that, and it had treated he and his family well. Times change, and the world finds a new use for you. He accepted that. It was part of life. He heard Mersyndol’s voice again.

“It’s late. You’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Remember? The Half-Marathon?”

“I’m coming, darling.” He replaced the dog-eared paperpack on the shelf, the faded red letters on the spine barely legible: Choose Your Own Voltaren Adventure.

Presto sign, Granville

Visit the ’30s

Nice ad placement on http://www.time.com yesterday:

Cannibal Mascots

Food so good it eats itself

These photos remind me of a whole subgenre of Australian butcher’s shop art, the kind where a bull in a blue and white striped apron is depicted stropping a boning knife with a mercilessly amiable expression on its face. I remember being fascinated as a child by a smallgoods ad showing a pig continuing to frolic cheerfully even as its back was separating into slices of devon, somewhere near where I grew up, probably in Granville.