I was upset to read today that Ricky Gervais’ prostate cancer ad has been earmarked for post-watershed transmission. Media Guardian tells us: “In the ad Gervais plays a doctor who sticks his finger up the backside of a patient - a “digital rectal examination” to check for the cancer, which kills 10,000 men in the UK every year. The RACC has told the Prostate Cancer Charity that the advert’s “squish” noise must be removed and has recommended that it be broadcast only after 9pm and before 6am.”

A comedy squish noise - what’s that compared to the swearing, the violence, the graphic scenes now shown on TV even in the middle of the day? As Gervais says in the MG interview, the main reason a lot of people die of cancer is that they don’t get regular checkups. Surely if the advert is going to do anything to change that, it must be shown in primetime hours.

The decision of the RACC is totally diabolical, short-sighted and pretty draconian.

To coincide with the announcement that Google will team up with NASA to aid the space programme, I can exclusively reveal a few other ideas Google are toying with:

• A tasty Google McSearch from McDonalds
• A stunning pair of Levi’s jeans with the Google logo emblazened on the front
• Google and Hedges - multicoloured, cuddly cigarettes fresh from the heart of Western America!
• A fresh tasting Coca Googla, with even more sugar, because they’re so damn cuddly.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, but to tempt you back here’s a list by John Camm of today’s modern rules of advertising, where we apparently live in a world of fictional cliches.

1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch football or drink beer.
2. Women are locked in a constant battle with their weight/body shape/hairstyle.
3. Career success is entirely based on your ability to impress your boss.
4. Mums are often harassed but NEVER depressed/unable to cope.
5. Any act of male stupidity (e.g. walking across a clean floor in muddy boots, putting the dog in the dishwasher, etc.) will be met with a wry smile, not genuine annoyance/anger.
6. Married men will flirt with other, younger women but NEVER act upon it.
7. Anyone with a scientific career will have a bad haircut and dreadful clothes.
8. If you work for the emergency services, you are a better person than the general population.
9. Elderly relatives NEVER suffer from senile dementia.
10. Scandinavians are, without exception, blonde and beautiful.
11. Women have jobs they never do in real life, e.g. dockworker (who looks like a model).
12. Children will not eat fruit or vegetables. Ever.
13. Both men and women find driving deeply pleasurable, never boring or stressful.
14. Men are inherently lazy/slobbish; women are the reverse.
15. Chocolate, however, will cause women to immediately fall into the languor of the opium eater.
16. High Street bank staff are (A) friends of the customers, and (B) of slightly above-average attractiveness (only if female).
17. Modern men own a cat.
18. Hot beverages have miraculous rejuvenating effects.
19. Professional people have strangely trivial preoccupations, e.g. a female barrister who is morbidly obsessed with finding a healthy snack bar.
20. All women (except stay-at-home housewives) have interesting and enjoyable careers.
21. Any over-the-counter medical product will work instantly and 100% effectively.
22. Children know more than adults.
23. Women never merely hop in and out of the shower, instead preferring to act out some sort of soapy Dance of the Seven Veils.
24. School is a happy experience for all children.
25. Tortilla chips are the most exciting experience any group of young people can experience.
26. Playing bingo is THE number one pastime among 18-25 year old British women.

(via BBC)

The BBC echoes my sentiments (actually, that’s probably a little self righteous - I’m sure they’d have said that anyway!) on how the web has created a fantastic outlet for both journalists and citizens in passing on the latest news about disasters.

The bombings in London in July, and hurricane Katrina this month have sent all sorts of citizen journalism through the roof. From up-to-the-minute first-hand photographs of the bombings aftermath, to Wikipedia’s constantly-updated Katrina page, the will of everyday individuals to pass on what they know has quickly created a very respectable source of information.

Storm blogs offer Katrina insight [BBC]

Techie blogger Nugget thinks that Google are walking away from a chance to open up instant messaging in the same way as SMTP opened up the world of email by disallowing users of their Google Talk service access to the world’s Jabber servers.

All Google has done is create yet another closed-loop system. They’ve made it just a little bit more of a burden for people to reliably have IM connectivity to all their friends. They’ve made it a little bit harder for people to communicate. They’ve made it a lot harder for the overall state of instant messaging to progress.

His comparisons, or not as the case may be, with the state of email 10 or 15 years ago, make a lot of sense. All I hope is that Google sees sense and incorporates it in the future, perhaps when they take the ‘beta’ seal off of it.

Have a read if you’re interested.

On Google Talk, I apparently talk a lot (cheers to Oishii)

Looks like ex-Libertines frontman and token idiot Pete Doherty has shamed himself once more. According to an NME exclusive, he headbutted Razorlight lead singer Johnny Borrell in an ‘unprovoked attack’ backstage at the Leeds festival. As much as I detest Razorlight, he doesn’t deserve that. (Much.)

That detest is slowly wearing off though, seeing as Johnny apparently “put Doherty on the floor and left the dressing room”. Somebody needed to, and if it must be a long-haired croaky-voiced pop star, then I might just be able to cut him some slack.

When will Doherty realise that he’s just a, er, how do you put it.. IDIOT? I don’t understand how somebody who openly takes class A drugs, smashes people’s faces in on a regular basis for no apparent reason, and is generally a top class moron, can still manage to hang onto any ‘fans’ whatsoever.

Oh, and he can’t sing. At all.

Kind of shows the state of the human race, in fact.

Here’s a rather interesting article for you. USA Today techie columnist Andrew Kantor takes a half-jestful look at how laws such as theft and copyright will stand up when faced against technology.

People are finding it harder and harder to find where the line is drawn for things like reproducing photographs - especially when it’s something that if mirrored in the offline world would be legal.

With technology, it’s easy to break the law… (via Make Blog)

Can anyone living in the city verify that the New Yorkers really are this bad at parking? Or were the car park attendants just majorly wasted when they marked out the spaces?

I found this example of automobile wizardry while exploring the Empire State on Google Earth, which I’ve referred to many times before on this here part of the Interweb.

I also stumbled upon the Japanese way of bridge building, which to them means turning a small, usually ugly, construction into something surprisingly beautiful. Here’s how to really do roads properly:

Yes, that little park seems to be built into the bridge, with the road travelling underneath. If only everyone was as creative with such small spaces.

Engadget are running another one of their “How would you change..?” thingies, this time on Google Talk. There’s over 100 suggestions already, ranging from the sensible to the downright inane.

Here’s a selection of my personal wishes:

• Something NEW. There’s nothing innovative bar the audio quality, and even that’s been done before. I don’t know what - but that’s why they’re the professionals and I’m not. Amaze me.
• Ignore the pleas of others and KEEP EMOTICONS OUT! Display names too, and all that other rubbish. Being able to glance down my contacts and see people’s actual names is rather refreshing. Call me boring, but I’m fed up of wondering who the hell ‘[{-i love milly 05 -}] mark can i hav my cd bac?‘ is. Emoticons are also getting boring - animated ‘LOL’ images don’t make it funnier.
• Talking to two people at once. With audio if possible, but if not, then simple old group chat would be nice - not many clients don’t allow that these days.
• Now here’s one which would make it very popular. Allow users of Talk to add MSN and AIM etc. contacts to your list. The features are there in the Jabber service. There’s too many IM clients for yet another exclusive one.

Engadget: How would you change Google Talk? (via The Unofficial Google Weblog)

I posted a few days ago about the alleged subway pervert that began molesting himself in front of a young woman on a subway in New York.

The victim, as I said, took a photo of the man and forwarded it to police, also uploading it to the Internet.

Now, the picture has gone one step further - to the cover of New York’s Daily News.

Nice going for a camera phone picture, and pretty much what the freak deserves.

NY Daily News (via Boing Boing)