Let's Dance For Comic Relief - Robert Webb does Flashdance

If you were ever in any doubt over what Comic Relief is really about, watch this. It is truly amazing and utterly hilarious.

Tee Du Jour - Rotary by Cartel

Cartel are a New York-based t-shirt gang, and they've got some pretty nifty designs. You can't beat a good old telephone on a tee.

Cartel's site is here, but you'll have to go hunt through a few retailers for their latest collection.

Tee Du Jour - Solid Goldaroid

Solid Gold Hubcaps is a great name for anything, let alone a t-shirt company.

They're apparently based in an LA garage, which I would love to be able to claim aside from the fact I live in London and don't have a garage.

SGH also has a wicked dinosaur logo, and I love this because Polaroid cameras as we know them are now dead as they've stopped producing film. Booo!

$18 will net you one of these.

Tee Du Jour - Jackin Club Beats

Spunky are a British company selling tees designed by lots of up-and-comers.

This is a pretty retro effort from a guy called Adam Powell. It's called Jackin Club Beats, but I like it because it has a cassette on it and I miss cassettes.

Have a look for yourself at Spunky

Tee Du Jour - Bang Tidy!

I'm a big fan of Leigh Francis and his various incarnations on Bo Selecta, particularly Keith Lemon.

Lemon has quite a few neat turns of phrase, but my particular favourite is the use of the phrase 'Bang Tidy' to describe a decent bit of skirt.

Get it now for under £15 from CharGrilled

Tee Du Jour - Arcade Stick

Retro GT is a t-shirt site dedicated to video games from the 80s and 90s, which makes me smack bang their target audience.

Their latest offering is this Arcade Stick tee, which also features a healthy dose of Japanese. You like?



Available from Retro GT. It's less than £15 at the moment too, so get involved.

CSI Goodge Street

Tee Du Jour - Mexican Basketball Association

Busted Tees has some pretty good humoured stock, kind of like a funny angel on the opposite shoulder to the evil that is T-Shirt Hell.

As far as I can tell, the comedic relationship between the US and Mexico is pretty similar to that between the English and the Irish. For some reason this t-shirt reminds me of the song World in Motion, with the line 'Express yourself, it's Juan on Juan". Just me then.

Buy it from Busted Tees, click the product or the link below:

Mexican Basketball Association: Juan on Juan

You Have One New Message

I like a good street art mystery, and there are lots to follow up in East London.

The other day I was wandering up Goldsmith's Row towards Broadway Market. I was in observant mood and saw this poster:



Just in case I had suspected it might be anything to do with Banksy (I don't know why I would have, it bore none of his hallmarks), someone had helpfully added a sticker to disabuse me of the notion. Someone else had seen fit to be fiercely critical of both Banksy and whoever was responsible for this.



Further up the road, outside the offy I once frequented, I spotted a sticker:



Does this mean that the 'Many' and 'Sales' are someone else's work? I'm confused. I did, however, spot the name 'EROSIE' on the bottom of the small sticker, and followed it up.



Erosie.net
leads from the very impressive 'under construction' page into a blog, by E.Rosie from Eindhoven in Holland. I've had a scout around and can't find any explanation of the work, but it is referenced so it's clearly the right person.

If anyone knows anything else about this, please let me know as I like to know the story behind these things, mostly so I can bore people about them.

I'm Sure She Knows Dearie

I saw this graffiti on my way home via London Fields the other day and it may me smile. Almost certainly the first time the word 'dearie' has been used in graffiti.

Tee Du Jour - Sex, Drugs & Sausage Rolls

Regal Clothing have done some good stuff recently, and have got the Twitter community involved by asking for a re-tweet in exchange for a 25% off voucher
. They also flogged the Twestival charity tee.



However, this post is about sex, drugs and sausage rolls. I genuinely really like this t-shirt and am likely to be spotted sporting one soon.

Even before any discounts, this is available for the princely sum of 15 of the Queen's Pounds.

Grandma Marilyn

I recently purchased my first iPhone Application. I've got loads of apps, but had restricted myself to free ones.

Anyway I took the plunge and splurged £1.19 on Quad Camera. And it is mint.



You'll have to forgive my frankly amateur efforts at photography, but even my limited skills allow for some pretty funky images. The image above is from a pan across the shutters of a shop near the top of Brick Lane. I like it anyway.

Tee Du Jour - White Skinny Rich

Kowtow clothing is a New Zealand-based venture flogging t-shirts nobly made out of 100% fairtrade organic cotton. If that's what floats your boat.

What floats my boat is a nice green t-shirt with a meaningless but mildly provocative statement. It's $56 but I'm not entirely certain if that's US dollars or New Zealand dollars. So it could be good value or not.

Play the t-shirt currency lottery at Kowtow.

Tee du Jour - The Return

It's been a while, but Tee du Jour is back with a bang. Previously I was concerned that it was going down a puerile and offensive route. Now I know it is.

The tee below is one of many from T-Shirt Hell, who recently promoted themselves across a number of T-Shirt Blogs by claiming they were closing down due to the amount of hate mail they receive. A clever ploy, and no mistake. It flogged 100,000 T-Shirts, after all, but didn't exactly endear them to the fraternity.

This bad boy will set you back $19. From T-Shirt Hell.



Watch out next week for the big return of Sneaks du Jour.

T-Mobile Bus Ad - Look Closely

This is brilliant because it's so subtle.



Stolen from It's Nice That and done by the good people at Saatchi & Saatchi.

Family Guy Christian Bale Spoof

"Hit your mother with that mouth?"

This is superb. Of all the Christian Bale rant spoofs going around at the moment, and there are a few, Family Guy have nailed it. Of course, they've got a bit more cash than the average Joe, but that's not the point.



A temporary return for the Four O'Clock Funny too!

Wash Your Mouth Out!

Every swear word in every episode of the Sopranos, ever.

Listen out for the random 'I love you'.

This is actually quite therapeutic.


the sopranos, uncensored. from victor solomon on Vimeo.

New Confused.com ad - I'm sure they had this in mind all along

I read the other day that Confused.com had created an ad based around a new character called Confucius, which seemed something of a coincidence.

Confused.com hit the TV hard in the post-Christmas land grab for Car Insurance and Car Insurance Comparison sites. Their new interface was the focus for the ads, rather than the frankly irritating cartoon world type ads they'd previously used for what seems like an eternity.

In the shadow of the positive feeling and perception of Compare the Market following the Comparethemeerkat.com ads, Confucius has popped up.

Confucius - The New Aleksandr?

Given how keen Confused were to piggyback their SEM activity onto Comparethemeerkat.com keywords, even using specific creative despite the fact that searchers were after the meerkat himself rather than car insurance, they haven't done themselves any favours in terms of not appearing to have hastily rushed out an imitation.

Confucius is basically a cross between Aleksandr the Meerkat and Yoda, which bizarrely makes him look quite a lot like Chris Moyles. Yet they have still not moved away from trying to promote the values of the site, which seems much less like the brave step taken by Compare the Market and more gimmicky.

That's not to say that people won't imitate and interact with the character in the same way they have done with Aleksandr the Meerkat, although I can't find any evidence of the character on the likes of Twitter. They've also made the rather elementary error of picking a name that is already established as something else. Confused indeed.

You can see the ad and judge for yourself here:

Tic Tacs recreate missed Everton goal

As a means of compensating for their ad running over the winning goal in the Everton vs Liverpool FA Cup match last week, Tic Tacs have recreated the goal - using men dressed as Tic Tacs.

This is a great bit of work from a brand, Tic Tacs who have already had an enormous amount of exposure from a chance occurence. Dan Gosling will be happy that his first goal for Everton has been immortalised in Tic Tac form.

Has anyone lost a key?

I'm on the train to Slough this morning and I noticed these two keys
resting serenely on a window ledge.

There's no discernible way of opening the window so I literally have
no idea what they are for.

I've left them there just in case.

I Care

I Care, and so does Hacksaw Jim Duggan. We Care because Nick does, and so do lots of other people.

Guardian Chalkboards - Settle The Argument

The Guardian launched its Interactive Chalkboards today with a big coverwrap on the Sport section.



If, like me, you read The Guardian of a weekend, you'll be familiar with the likes of David Pleat providing analysis in the form of complicated diagrams showing a load of numbered sperm swimming around a big green box. Pleat, Steve Claridge and David James are used as examples of how the new interactive chalkboard facility can be used to juxtapose different players and different matches to prove or disprove a theory about said player.



I was struggling for inspiration this morning but had a quick play with the tool, which can be found at guardian.co.uk/chalkboards. You can choose any game from the Premier League from the last three seasons, and track passes, shots, tackles, clearances, interceptions - you name it. This is all available broken down player-by-player.



You can compare one match to another, and save and share your findings with notes about what exactly you're trying to prove. I managed to find Paul Robinson's goal for Tottenham against Watford to see just how far it traveled. Bloody miles is the answer.



This is a great and really unique feature, and the sort of thing The Guardian does really well. The most interactivity most football sites manage is Fantasy League or at best weekly score predictions.

I was actually hoping there would be the chance to draw in players and movements, which would have created the opportunity to be a bit artistic and possibly even mischievous. Hopefully that will be the next stage.

Robbie Keane Virgin Trains Tactical Ad

Virgin Trains probably thought they were pretty clever running this ad in light of Robbie Keane's return to Tottenham from Liverpool on Monday:

Virgin Trains' Tactical ad Featuring Robbie Keane

In actual fact, what they are promising is that they will get you to Liverpool and back from London in six months. Which is about the best they can do. I see what they're trying to do, but surely there have been quicker u-turns that would have left them less open to ridicule?

If ITV Covered the OJ verdict

Thanks to @shanerichmond
for this. This will run and run...

You Tube putting title and rating on embedded videos - when did this happen?

I noticed this morning that You Tube continue to mess about with their embedded videos. First they added a Search Box, now they are now putting the title and rating of a video as a caption across the top of the box. Very odd, and not even a little bit of point in it.

Well done ITV

You wait nigh-on 120 minutes of ITV's interminable commentary for Everton or Liverpool to score in what was a truly awful match with no luck. Penalties are looming, which will at least provide some drama.

Hang on, why are there adverts on? I'm sure the match hasn't finished. It'll be funny if this is a mistake and someone scores...



Good job ITV, good job.

Playmobil Founder Hans Beck RIP

The Father of Playmobil, Hans Beck, has died aged 79 following a serious illness. Playmobil was very much secondary to Lego round ours, but it is a worldwide phenomenon, having exported 2.2 billion figures to 70 countries worldwide.

This also gives me an excuse to post this excellent Michael Jackson Playmobil figure.



More quality adaptations of Playmobil here.

Celebrity Stalking - Sharon Horgan

For various reasons, I'm often accused of 'stalking' celebrities. Not because I do, mind, but because I walk around with my head up and have a knack for remembering faces I've seen on TV or in the media in general. And I've spent much of my time on Twitter being amused by the musings of the various celebrities and fake celebrities on there.

A strange thing just happened to me. I'd been thinking of referencing every time I see a famous face and posting a little something about them. I created a rule for myself that I've yet to have to implement, whereby if I see the same celebrity three times, I have to speak to them. Watch out Cheeky Girls and Eddie Izzard, is all I'm saying.

Sharon Horgan (centre) - I'm not stalking her

Anyway I've also been meaning to get into the comedy Pulling, about which I've heard great things. There was an ad last night for the series starting on Dave 'on Tuesday at 9:30'. Note to Dave, if you show an ad on a Monday, people can reasonably assume that, by Tuesday, you mean tomorrow. They don't, they mean next Tuesday.

Anyway, the reason this links is because the woman in the ad was just unloading a child from a car near my office. Sharon Horgan her name is, apparently (I did a small amount of research) and she's Irish and very funny. According to Wikipedia, she was one of the writers on the excellent Monkey Dust.

I'm using this as a flimsy excuse to post the first clip I found on You Tube of Pulling, in lieu of the recent slacking off in the Four O'Clock Funny.



Incidentally, I'm probably going to bin off the Four O'Clock Funny unless anyone is particularly attached to it, and focus on more ad hoc posting in the hope it will discourage laziness.

Funky Stuff - Breaktime

This is awesome - Breaktime by Gangpol & Mit.

If these guys don't get commissioned to make an ad or a music video soon then something is sorely wrong with the world.

I'll be posting up some of their other stuff in the coming days.


Breaktime from Gangpol & Mit on Vimeo.

The Most Amazing 'Talent' Display in a Beauty Pageant. Ever.

Here's Miss Aritao (it's in the Philippines apparently), walking along, balancing some strange tower thing on your head. Quite good, but not amazing. Hang on, what's she doing with that chicken?

It snowed round our gaff

Not big news to a lot of the world, but it brought London to a halt.