Dubai Radio Ads

This is not a radio ad, but only marginally less annoying.

This is Cynthia Dreamy Whingy Breathy Voice. Come to extravagant opulence, indulge in timeless elegance and experience sumptuous flavours from the mystical past of a bygone age. Be the person you always knew you could be, share the finest things the world can present to you on a golden platter bedecked in shinies. Otiose effulgence, pastoral impedance and acrostic tintinnabulation await your very fulfilment in a symphony of exotic flavours and oubliette laden senescence. While away the evening and taste asparagus as you've never tasted it before at Pinglies, the new signature destination from the Wawawoo Resort and Spa in Satwa, the new face of Jumeirah One.


Dynamic Simon? Hi, it's Drippy Pete. How are you?
Hey! I'm Great Pete! Good to see you! And, yes! I'm Dynamic Simon Alright!
I was wondering, Simon. What makes you so much more dynamic than me?
Well, Pete! Good Question! I'm Dynamic because I Brush with Sploid!
Brush? With Sploid? What's that?
It's the New Minty Fresh Breath Oral Health Solution From Organon Labs! Here!
What's this?
Your Own Tube of Sploid to Try Free of Charge!
Free of charge?
Yes! Free Samples are Available From Branches of Plaster Pharmacy!
Wow! I can't wait to try it!
You'll Love It, Pete. Or my Name's not Dynamic Simon!
this ad is regulated by the ministry of health and a baby racoon called dennis and contains no promise of future investments going up or down all situations portrayed are purely hypothetical and do not reflect reality perceived or promised. terms and conditions apply


WEEOOOSCREEEE! GNAAAAARRRRR! WOPWOPWOPWOP! WYEOW WYEOW! SHNIIIIISSSSTTTTTTOOOOO! WOOOOOARRRRGH! SNEET! SNEET! SNEET! SNEET!
Did you hear that? That's the sound your back makes when you sit at your laptop every day. Did you know your desk could be killing you? Avoid splayed prostate syndrome and the awful bone crushing side effects of bad posture by sitting on Dr Foster's Orthopedic Cushions. Sweat absorbing, hygienic and available in a range of coruscating colours including Windows 10 wait state blue.


Sorry. I forgot to turn the radio off after the news this morning and ran into the ad break. It was almost over before I realised and switched off.

IzaKaya Dubai: Of Japanese Times Gone Bi

This delicious image was brought to my attention courtesy Mr +Gerald Donovan*, whose laconic 'Was she indeed?' on Twitter opened up the new worlds of alternative meaning caressing this otherwise unremarkable attempt to breathe life into a daft advertising-led 'social media' campaign for the Izakaya Japanese restaurant at the JW Marriott Marquis in Dubai.

Launched, in time-honoured ad-agency style, with a press handout highlighting that most tremulously newsworthy of events, the launch of a Dubai Taxi bumper sticker campaign, the campaign will now delight many people in ways its instigators had - we can only presume - never imagined.

And of course now we enter a whole new - and infinitely more entertaining - world of extrapolation and exploration. From being a side salad to a Dubai taxi, Iza Kaya is now elevated to the status of a little avocado mystery. She was, but is no longer. Its all rather fascinating - what happened to change her? Was it a slow jading of the palate or a bite of life's bitter lime that transformed her? And while she might not be of that shade any more, there's a certain colourful 'frisson' about her now. Would she go back? Or are her emerald charms now set firm only for the less gentle sex?

We are all schoolboys...

*(He's @gerald_d on Twitter, but Google+ likes to intersperse itself and suggest G+ links when you start throwing Twitter's trademark @ signs around.)

Sold Out

Mars (chocolate bar) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What?

Have I sold out? What's going on? Adwords on Fake Plastic Souks? What kind of swine would keep his blog ad free for five years and then sell his soul to Goog?

Me, that's what kind of swine. I've been playing around with Google AdWords quite a bit lately and thought I'd do some experimenting with the other end of the horse.

There's very little money in AdWords for yer average blogger, so I'm not about to give in the day job (in fact, it's the day job that's driven much of this interest) - with my traffic, I might buy a Mars Bar every month out of it if I'm very lucky. But I'm interested in the dynamics of things. And sometimes the only thing to do is pull the tyrant's nose and see what happens.

If you really want to know when I've sold out, it'll be when there are Amazon affiliate links on here to buy my books...

Nightmare Resurgent

(Photo credit: monkeyatlarge)

The plain stretches out around me, boundless and bare. There's a strange mewling sound coming from the box lying a few feet away from me. I'm not sure how I got here, or where I'm going. Every direction leads into endless emptiness, there's nothing beyond that box.

It's like a shoe box. Small and incongruous in that vast emptiness. It's green. I know the only thing for me to do is go to it and open it. My only other option is to turn away from it and walk into the infinity around me. For all I know it might be flat, it might stretch upwards like a crucible around me.

Panic rises in my throat, a quickening that threatens to be emetic until I force my mouth open to breathe the clean air. There is no breeze.

The mewling starts to nag at me. It's like an injured leveret, that animal sound so close to the call of a baby's cry. I walk to the box reluctantly, the squealing is louder. Sickened by inevitability, I bend to open the lid of the box. I recoil in horror from the thing inside, flinging the lid aside reflexively

It's sightless, green-skinned, those awful sounds coming from a small open mouth glistening with streamers of the slime it is threshing about in, semi-formed linbs paddling at the ooze. As the air rushes into the box, it stiffens. The noises become stronger, deeper. In front of my eyes it starts to thrash an urgent rhythm. It unpeels its eyelids painfully, casts around and focuses on me with its shining black orbs. It's growing in front of my horrified eyes, faster than I thought imaginable. It breaks out of the box, pushing itself to stand. it staggers, streamers of gleet anchoring it to the floor. It struggles against them, breaking the slimy bonds as its cries become roars, hair sprouting all over it. The mouth widens, great teeth snarl as me as I try to step back but I can't move. I'm trapped, immobile and helpless. Even if I could move, where would I run?

It's towering over me now, flexing scimitar claws at the end of its rippling arms, its savage animal face bisected by the roaring toothy maw. It lumbers towards me and the roaring forms into speech, indistinct to begin with but as it repeats its refrain it becomes horribly understandable.

"Millenium Estates - A Thoroughbred Lifestyle"*

I will myself awake, but it's no good. I realise this is no nightmare. This is reality.

* Gulf News saw a double page tabloid real estate ad running today with this very tagline. Dare to Dream! Live to Love! We're BACK, babies!