Missed Opportunity

RoT is trying to say something here; it's just not sure what.

There should have been a fanfare. 1000 trumpeters, at least, dressed is glittering unitards. And balloons, in huge, rainbow bunches, lining the streets. For yes, some time ago, Reviews of Tings celebrated its second birthday. RoT could pretend that it had decided to celebrate in a low-key manner, like that time Britney got married to that D-Bag she was definitely related to in Vegas. After all, one was a big deal; maybe it’s best to save the celebrations until five. But four years without a party? What kind of life is that? Determined to make up for this wasted chance, RoT packed its overnight bag and hopped on the Eurostar to Antwerp, which it had heard was the new party capital of Europe. It wasn’t. So while RoT spent the (freezing) night hopping from foot to foot outside, waiting for Antwerp train station to open (hostel mix-up), it got to thinking about other missed opportunities. It thought of the Cadbury’s Spira, which, in a just world, would have become Britain’s National Snack. It thought of the misplaced faith of the British people in Paula Radcliffe, and the countless opportunities she subsequently missed. It even, fleetingly, thought of lost loves (sustained eye contact with strangers on buses). But mainly it thought of Lutricia McNeal, and of her two late-90s smash hits, which should have seen her become the world’s most successful ever singer and, later, President. Shame.

Verdict: Ain’t that just the way that life goes down? Happy 2nd Birthday, Reviews of Tings!

****

Boeing 737-800 Flight Safety Information

You may need to make this larger to fully appreciate the safety narrative.

The pilot announces that flight is about to crash. You feel flouting the ‘no phone’ rule no longer matters and promptly phone your wife to tell her you never loved her and the marriage was a sham. Matters settled, you turn your attention to the flight safety information – to which you paid no attention when the ‘sun’ crisped stewards performed their best catastrophe play at the start of the flight. First up, you’ll notice the emergency oats will descend – spinning your head will release the oats so you can chomp away like a happy horse. Next up: only blue bloods are rescued, so a fashionable gillet will slide at a Dave Benson-Phillips-angle towards you face. Simply don your rural wear and whistle for a pauper to rescue you. Next up comes an opportunity to use the smoke as a cover to steal high-heeled shoes, earrings, false teeth, glasses, and perv up ladies’ skirts. You are not, however, allowed to take your bounty form the plane, so try to enjoy it onboard. Next up, pop off the door, perform the maracrena on the slide and run away to the nearest disco in your spotless, red dress that definitely wasn’t smudged in the fire or anything. Anyone with laser vision is allowed to set fire to the wings, but the door is an absolute no-no. Finally, open your letter box to receive the letter that tells you what to do in case of an emergency. Only people wearing seventies clothing are allowed to leave.

Verdict: phew, we’re safe! And for a minute there RoT thought it was about to burn on a plane. And die. Forever. 10/10. 

Telling Your Friend About That Weird Dream You Had About Them

The relevance of this will become clear.

‘Hey dude,’ he mumbles as you let yourself in and slump onto the sofa. Cash in the Attic might be on the TV; RoT hasn’t really put that much thought into it. Your friend brings you a cup of tea and as he hands it to you, his finger brushes yours. In an instant, you remember. ‘Man, I had a dream about you last night,’ you say, not really thinking the consequences of this through. Your friend barely even looks up at you: everyone knows that dream-talk is the most boring type of talk (inching out pet-talk). ‘I went round to your house,’ you begin, ‘to ask you about going on holiday. But your house was, like, well different, and that. It was rank.’ Your friend is possibly listening, but he’s definitely texting someone. ‘You weren’t there,’ you continue, doggedly, ‘But you left a note telling me to watch this new drama programme, because you were an extra in it.’ Your friend grunts in reply and changes the TV channel. Loose Women is just starting on the other side. ‘So I watched this programme for like 50 minutes and you weren’t in it. But then you got home so I was talking to you and you said your bird had dumped you and you were well sad.’ Your friend listens to you a bit more now: he doesn’t have a ‘bird’, so any talk of one elicits excitement. ‘But in the background – aw, mate! – the TV was still on and it was your bit and you were proper getting it on with this bird.’ Already this is a bit weird. You should be able to tell, from the nervous laugh your friend gives, or the way he draws back, slightly, away from you. But you continue. ‘She had a proper tidy body, like, but when her face was on screen it was all like an aardvark, only it tapered into a lollipop.’ You must know to stop now: your friend has stood up and is pretending to tidy the pile of Nuts Magazines on the coffee table. ‘And then you started SUCKING on her lollipop face! Mate, it was wicked!’ Your friend leaves, shutting himself in his bedroom. When, after an hour, he hasn’t emerged, you leave. You never see him again.

Verdict: We all know how this bit goes: better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open ones mouth and remove all doubt.

****

Brand Development Agencies

Jumping off the Brandwagon.

One thing that RoT has noticed about Mad Men (and it’s only watched 2 seasons, so no spoilers please) is that, when pitching to a client, the talented workforce of Sterling Cooper are succinct. Whether it’s Peggy clinching a deal with a major client and securing Freddy Rumsen’s office for her own, or Don reducing an entire room of grown men to tears with some well chosen family snaps and a Kodak Kaleidoscope – these guys are to the point. Not so in 2012. Image is everything –  if you want to develop a brand in this day and age then you have to look the part. There’s an easy guide to this: if you’re a man, wear clothes several sizes too small for you; if you’re a lady, swamp yourself in multitudinous layers of drably coloured fabric. In both instances use at least an entire canister of hairspray to ensure hair is at maximum volume, pop on a pair of oversize specs and – voila! – you’re a brand ambassador. Now you look the part, you’re going to have to learn the lingo. Sometime soon you’re going to find yourself in a boardroom full of eager marketeers. They hired you to refresh and develop their brand and this is it: the moment for you to dazzle them with your bold, creative work. Except you haven’t done anything, of course. Because there’s nothing to do: the concept of brand development is ludicrous, a fantasy. It’s key to understand the dynamic of the boardroom: these people know that you’re a style-over-content, blagging, talentless waste of space. You know that they know that. You have to give them what they want. You’ll definitely want to kick off with ‘At the heart of our brief was the desire to create something classic, yet modern’. Talk about ‘clean lines’ a lot. Use the word ‘cohesion’ as much as possible. A strong way to finish? ‘This is cultural. This is asirational.’ [dramatc pause] ‘This is emotional’. Don Draper would turn in his grave/nursing home.

Verdict: big fat liars.

***

Beaker (of Muppets fame): the language of

RoT isn't going to cheapen itself by making tired comparisons.

Nowadays, there are many celebrity scientists: Richard ‘God assassin’ Dawkins, Stephen ‘I got my voice from Casio keyboard’ Hawking, Patrick ‘I eat my ear hair’ Moore, and of course we’re all familiar with election-bothering Brian Cox pointing at Outer Space and saying, ‘how mental is that?’ But what about the first celebrity scientist? No, not Simon Mayo Galileo – Beaker, you muppet! Beaker is often thought of as Bunsen’s bumbling lab hand at the prestigious research unit, Muppet Labs; not so. If only we could understand Beaker’s language we would realise that Bunsen is actually hoodwinking us with his mistranslations. Beaker’s language can be difficult to comprehend. Once upon a time, RoT never quite got that sparrow to admit it was responsible for using the last of the milk – even after the few remaining undigested drill bits had been worn down. Beaker’s language can be equally as impenetrable as that sparrow’s circumlocutory (or downright perjurious) tweeting. What may seem like mindless squeaking is actually the base level of a frequency only just able to be heard by the human ear. Imagine you could hear barely a whisper of bass from Cher’s hit, ‘Believe’, and nothing else, so low its just a sexy tremor – all the emotional complexities of Cher’s robotic-voice-mangle would be lost. Such is life listening to Beaker. Beaker is a scientific hotrod: he takes on science with the same verve as Rambo takes on his own side who think he might be a bit murderous – that’s right, by proving their point and murdering them. Beaker speaks only in scientific proof: his every utterance is a complex algorithm, expressed in a binary of noises designed especially to annoy dogs (Beaker HATES dogs). And what does Bunsen do, jealous of Beaker’s scientific acumen? Relegates him to The Chief Secretary to the Treasury assistant status and tells us all that he’s a bumbling shitfest, only fit to be prodded like a caged Geordie in some sort of coat experiment. Bunsen, you shit, we know where you live!

Verdict: Beaker’s language surpasses any other language known to man (except, perhaps, Dutch, which is constructed entirely of flem). Still, it’s a bit whiny. 7/10.

The Curious Decision to Cast Reese Witherspoon in This Means War

I'm having sex right now. You can't tell. It's nice.

Nobody has worked Teflon Face like Chris Pine. Ever. That man takes something that shatters most teenage lives and manipulates it – he makes you want to touch his face. With your genitals. Exhibit B, in what has swiftly become a line-up of moviestar hunks, is Tom Hardy. Now Tom – or Tommy, as RoT calls him – has never been hotter. He’s in a new Batman film and he might like having sex with men and he hates Jonathan Ross and he’s Heat’s Torso of the Week. Imagine, then, a film in which these two human embodiments of sex are pitted head to head for the affections of a woman. Which actress could possibly play the part of a temptress so staggeringly breathtaking as to addle the minds of these beefcakes? Beefcakes, moreover, who could have, literally have, any woman they want? Angelina Jolie, perhaps, who we all know is the best at sex? Certified World’s Sexiest Woman and only human being who is 95% legs Rosie Huntintgon-Whiteley, maybe? Or even sexpot Marion Cotillard, who could whisper to them in French? No. Our femme fatale here is Reese ‘Granny’ Witherspoon, a woman with the sex appeal of a slowly drowning limpet.  Sure, she’s pretty and has lovely hair. But she is not woman enough for Pine/Hardy. We all saw her lose her virginity in Cruel Intentions, lying on her back and taking it, politely gasping as Ryan Phillipe gave her his best. Her sexual technique has not advanced since then: it’s clear to all the world that sex for Reese Witherspoon is an activity solely restricted to the half hour break between Monday’s Coronation Streets. There is no chance that Pine/Hardy, who, by the way are playing SPIES (or something) in this film, would ever fall for the insipid, mumsy ways of Granny Witherstpoon. No chance at all.

Verdict: RoT is better at sex than Witherspoon – it should be batting its eyelids in the direction of these two spectacular gunshows.

**

Gloop

Suffers from gloop.

What are gloop? And how does it mean? These are important questions, but the grammar owls amongst you will have noticed something a little odd. What has happened to RoT’s often impeccable, often dubious, but never bizarre, grammar? The answer is ‘gloop’. Gloop lollops off the tongue like Blackpool hen-do at closing hour. Gloop permeates the brain, swelling like a toad’s throat, or perhaps that of a fresh-faced dictator. Even thinking about gloop has glooped RoT’s grammar – such is the power of gloop. Gloop is not just the greatest, most powerful word in the English language, it is a glorious state of mind. Gloop wobbles in an order of its own: a glorious new age, sludging over the past like an omelettey amoeba across the face of a sleeping man. Gloop: just say it. RoT knows it will make you happy. You can live off gloop. Gloop can educate your children. Farming gloop will make you prosperous. Should gloop slip over any liminal region, mined or otherwise, gloop would just reform like the syrupy singularity it is. Gloop! It will last for ever! Or at least be glooped underneath a glass case to be glooped over.

Verdict: RoT has no idea how things came to be like this. Long live gloop! 10/10