1977: The Lyons Maid lolly and ice-cream poster (bring back Zooms)

IT’S 1977. Lyons Maid is tempting you with its ices. What did you enjoy?

Anorak

Posted: 13th, January 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comments (8)

View from my loo: the toilet on the 68th floor of The Shard

The ‘loo with a view’ on the 68th floor of The Shard in London as the The View from The Shard attraction is due to open to the public. No need for frosted glass.

More Shard views here.

Anorak

Posted: 11th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment

The pick of British Fashion Council’s London Collections 2013: Men

WE’VE been at the British Fashion Council’s London Collections: Men. This is what you dudes will be wearing next year. Old Mr Anorak was ever ahead of his time:

Anorak

Posted: 10th, January 2013 | In: Fashion | Comment

Fast food legends: creator of the McDonald’s Chicken McNugget dies

A LEGEND whose work impacted on all of our lives has died. Former McDonald’s CEO Fred Turner, creator of the Chicken McNugget, has died:

Last week when he was in the hospital, Mr. Turner turned to his daughter, Teri Turner, and two of his grandchildren.

“He said to us, ‘Who’s had a better life than me?’ “ she recalled. “He said, ‘I did something with my life. I made a difference.’ ”

Anorak

Posted: 10th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment

Self-help books are only for the educated

EVER buy a self-help book? Laura Vanderkam notes:

[T]he people who buy these books are, like all book buyers, “pretty comfortable,” says John Duff of Penguin. “It’s going to be that middle-class person, reasonably well-educated” and in “very rarefied” company, as “our market for all books is really very limited. Most people stop reading when they leave school.” Those who don’t stop probably have their acts together.

Call it the paradox of self-help. “The type of person who values self-control and self-improvement is the type of person who would seek more of it in a self-help book,”Whelan says. “So it’s not the unemployed crazy lady sitting on the couch eating potato chips who reads self-help. It’s the educated, affluent, probably fairly successful person who wants to better themselves.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Anorak

Posted: 9th, January 2013 | In: Books | Comment

Addicts are buying drugs with Tide washing powder

TIDE washing powder is currency. NY Mag has news of washing powder bartering:

Shoppers have surprisingly strong feelings about laundry detergent. In a 2009 survey, Tide ranked in the top three brand names that consumers at all income levels were least likely to give up regardless of the recession, alongside Kraft and Coca-Cola. That loyalty has enabled its manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, to position the product in a way that defies economic trends. At upwards of $20 per 150-ounce bottle, Tide costs about 50 percent more than the average liquid detergent yet outsells Gain, the closest competitor by market share (and another P&G product), by more than two to one. According to research firm SymphonyIRI Group, Tide is now a $1.7 billion business representing more than 30 percent of the liquid-detergent market.

Anorak

Posted: 8th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment

Kate Middleton Pregnancy Watch – The Kate Effect dresses up fashion PR as news

KATE Middleton Pregnancy Watch Day 37 – The Kate Effect helps you win with the Duchess of Cambridge:

Victoria Ward (Telegraph): “The ‘Kate Effect’ overstated due to Duchess’s thriftiness”

Overstated. By whom?

But some now suggest that the phenomenon has been overstated because of the thrifty 30-year-old’s penchant for wearing styles that have long sold out.

Roland Mouret, the designer, who has worked with the Duchess, said that business was more likely to be boosted by US reality television stars. “The kind of people who like Kate’s style are not the kind to rush out and copy her dress,” he told the February edition of Vogue. You don’t see hundreds of women running around looking like her. To be honest, we’re more likely to get orders on a dress that Kim Kardashian’s worn.”…

Jane Shepherdson, CEO of Whistles, said the same of a cream blouse also chosen for an official engagement portrait, which was more than two years old. “It didn’t do anything for sales,” she said. “We do short runs. By the time you see pictures of Kate, we’ve probably sold out anyway.” Shepherdson has described the Duchess as “a great advert, but no more than that”…

Andy Rogers, brand director at Reiss, admitted that while the Duchess raised the profile of the brand, they did not sell “zillions” of that white dress [she wore for her engament photos] because it was an old style.

Anorak

Posted: 7th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment

Bargain of the year: save £7,119,520.01 on camera equipment

BARGAN of the year:  Sigma EX – Wide-angle lens – 24 mm – f/1.8 DG – Minolta A-type:

RRP: £7,120,000.00
Price: £479.99
You Save: £7,119,520.01 (100%)

If you can see it, it’s yours.

Spotter: Winker

Anorak

Posted: 6th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment (1)

Andy Burnham is the latest fool to wage war on salt and butter

SHADOW health secretary Andy Burnham wants to ban foods that contain what he considers too much salt, fat and sugar. Of course, this being modern politics, Burnham soon dissembles and wants us to join the debate:

“Labour wants to lead this debate. That is why we are asking the public and experts if new limits for sugar, fats and salts would be the right approach. Like all parents, I have bought products like cereals and fruit drinks, marketed as more healthy, that contained higher sugar levels than expected. I don’t think that any parent would be comfortable with their child eating something that is 40 per cent sugar.”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2013 | In: Politicians, The Consumer | Comment (1)

Drunk and ranting Icelandair passenger tied to seat (photo)

ON Icelandair flight from Reykjavik to JFK, the passengers and cabin crew reacted to a 46-year-old Icelandic man who’d mainlined the free booze, spat, attempted to throttle a woman and yelled about the plane crashing. They gave him a seat with a very secure belt.

The technique may also work for childish seat kickers, adult seat over-recliners in economy, the arsehat who puts his bag in the overhead locker by your seat, the person who invented the RyanAir scratchcard jingle and in-flight menu, and Noel Edmonds.

Spotter: Andy Ellwood

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment

Readers Digest won the Cold War for Ronald Reagan

I LOVED Readers’ Digest. It was a pocket-sized slice of mid-Americana. Jordan Michael Smith notes:

Reagan was a lifetime reader of the Digest. He once used an article from the magazine to slur the nuclear freeze movement as being comprised partly of Soviet agents. It was terrifying to contemplate the most powerful man in the world getting foreign policy ideas from a pocket-sized general-interest family magazine, but Reagan was not alone. For decades, Reader’s Digest was the primary source of information and opinions about international affairs for tens of millions of Americans. The magazine did not just run any articles about foreign policy, however; the Digest had a clear right-wing perspective, which had a tremendous, though often ignored, influence during the Cold War.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment

Mumbai bar sells gang rape cocktail as India blames women for being abused

INDIA is reeling with the gang rape and death of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi. So, who thought it good idea to sell a rape cocktail at the Bonobo, in Mumbai, India? Was it bar owner Nevile Timbadia? The women of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) believe he to be the brains behind the ‘Balatkari’ (Balaatcar) brew.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, January 2013 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment

The north London idiot coffee wars (1st world problems in Harris + Hoole’s)

MEANWHILE…in north London:

“I thought: ‘That’s very brave, opening up next to Starbucks,’” Bridget Chappell, a full-time mum, said of Harris + Hoole, a new coffee shop in north London next door to a branch of the US behemoth and four doors down from a Costa Coffee.

“I like to try independent shops, and it was really very nice with great coffee,” she said. “But when I got home, I looked it up and discovered it was a chain.”

Chappell is one of a growing number of Harris + Hoole’s customers discovering that the new, independent-looking, stripped-back coffee shops popping up on high streets across London and the south-east are part of a chain that is up to 49% owned by Tesco.

“I avoid Starbucks because it’s a big chain and it avoids tax,” said Carol Levine, 50, a Crouch End physiotherapist enjoying her lunch break in Harris + Hoole. “Now I find this is Tesco … It looks like a small indie. It is disingenuous. It makes me upset. I feel duped. I don’t go in there [Tesco]. It is taking over the world. If it [Harris + Hoole] had been called Tesco Coffee, I wouldn’t have come in.”

Katy Smith, another Harris + Hoole customer, said: “I don’t really like Tesco. I don’t shop in Tesco. Now I’m in one of them. They’ll probably be on every high street soon. I would avoid it, like I avoid Starbucks and Costa, which I thought I was doing today – putting money back in the community.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comments (2)

Woman spends NYE imprisoned in a shop

NEW YEAR’S EVE is a wonderful time isn’t it? A feeling of togetherness, celebration and dodging puddles of puke and sexual sputum. Unless you’re the old woman from France who saw 2013 in while imprisoned in a supermarket.

The 73-year-old in Roubaix was shopping at an Intermarché store on December 31st when she felt ill and headed to the toilet.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 3rd, January 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment

Vintage ads: The Milky Way in 1930

IT’S 1930 and the Milky Way boys are excited by “barely crumbling” bars of stuff:

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, January 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment

Health puritans wants us to stop drinking ‘poison’

YOU boozing in January? Cancer Research UK (CRUK) doesn’t want you to. It’s Dryathlon invites non-drinking drinkers to donate al money they would have spent on booze to fund Cancer Research UK

How about Dry January, the Alcohol Concern:

Feel better. Save money. Make a difference. Your chance to ditch the hangover, reduce the waistline, and save the pennies. Your mission: to avoid that cheeky after work pint, that glass of wine on the sofa, or that big boozy night out, for the whole month. Make a real difference to the lives of those harmed through alcohol misuse by getting family and friends to sponsor you and raise money for Alcohol Concern.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, January 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment (1)

Self-help book of the day: How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday

BOOK of the day is for those of viewing the gaping year ahead with apathy and misery. It’s Hiroyuki Nishigaki’s How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?

Intro:

I think constricting anus 100 times and denting navel 100 times in succession everyday is effective to good-bye depression and take back youth. You can do so at a boring meeting or in a subway. I have known 70-year-old man who has practiced it for 20 years. As a result, he has good complexion and has grown 20 years younger. His eyes sparkle. He is full of vigor, happiness and joy. He has neither complained nor born a grudge under any circumstance. Furthermore, he can make #### three times in succession without drawing out.In addition, he also can have burned a strong beautiful fire within his abdomen. It can burn out the dirty stickiness of his body, release his immaterial fiber or third attention which has been confined to his stickiness. Then, he can shoot out his immaterial fiber or third attention to an object, concentrate on it and attain happy lucky feeling through the success of concentration.If you don’t know concentration which gives you peculiar pleasure, your life looks like a hell.

Anorak

Posted: 1st, January 2013 | In: Books | Comment (1)

The greatest keep-fit videos and TV shows ever

IN 2013, we will be working out. We will get ripped and hard bodied. But who can help us. We’ve trawled the web and can bring you the greatest TV keep-fit gurus of all time. Dust off those machines and go to it!

Jim Body the gymfantastic pride of Wausau, Wisconsin

Anorak

Posted: 31st, December 2012 | In: The Consumer | Comment

1941: Home Meat Curing Made Easy (with Pig FISTING)

IN Home Meat Curing Made Easy, home butchers back in 1941 could learn how to cut up a pig, a lamb or any family member and rub it into tasty glory. It was a book also enjoyed by mass murderers:

Anorak

Posted: 30th, December 2012 | In: Books, Flashback | Comment

On diamonds and other jewels of divine semen

ABOUT that Cartier diamond necklace and rare orchid you were given for Christmas, Jennifer Ouellette has pearls of wisdom:

In ancient China, most gemstones were said to be drops of divine semen that had hardened after fertilizing the earth. For instance, jade was believed to be the dried semen of celestial dragons. (Note to self: never wear jade again.) In Chi Kung and other forms of Chinese medicine, “jing” is sexual energy, which can also denote “essence” or “spirit.” That’s why masturbation isn’t advised among Chi Kung practitioners: it’s a form of energy suicide. … 

Anorak

Posted: 30th, December 2012 | In: The Consumer | Comment

Bad toys – 14 more terrible toys

MORE Bad Toys for Christmas

After a hearty snack of turkey sandwiches, crisps and Coca-Cola, the small persons of the house can take turns on this revolving Sit’n’Spin stool until, one by one, they have redecorated the living room with brightly coloured seasonal vomit.

Anorak

Posted: 29th, December 2012 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment

April Bloomfield’s A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories – the hilarious reviews

WHAT are the critics saying about British-born, New York-based chef April Bloomfield’s A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories? If you like eating pigs, it promises to be cracking read. Her intro even offers the chance to chortle: “When I was girl, I wanted to be a policewoman…”

She turned to another kind of piggery for a career. On Amazon, though, many are outraged and upset. The reviews are memorable.

Pity the piglets:

This is the most disgusting cover and should be taken out from any book display… The cover of this book is absolutely disgusting, revolting and insensitive… I don’t think I can hold it in my hand without cringing, and I cannot imagine the “book” being displayed where young children are present.

I read no more:

This is the most disgusting cover and should be taken out from any book display.The killing of animal for food is a fact of life but doesnt need to be shown as a trophee. In fact as soon as it appear on Amazon, it simply put me off culinary book altogether. I am a regular customer of cook books but i have to say that this put me off completely to buy anything for a long time – Nash

I saw this book in a bookstore and felt bad for the poor pig, what angered me next was a woman who dragged her young daughter over to see it and they both laughed. What the hell is wrong with people when they find dead animals amusing? I really wanted to slap both of them! It’s a very sad world we live in 🙁 – Gail Witham

Meanwhile…in Russia: 

What a tasteless, insensitive, repulsive cover. Dead baby animal on display. Don’t bother to argue that is what meat is. Graveyards are full of corpses. I don’t need to see photos of them displayed on the cemetary walls  – CBC

I’m not pigist but…:

I would lose my appetite everytime I picked up this cookbook to prepare anything from it.

I’m not a chef. I’m an ordinary person who likes to cook and entertain. I do handle larger cuts of meat and poultry that I cut up myself. I’ve cleaned freshly caught fish…

This is America, the land of free speech and the right to express an opinion… I am not willing to spend my money on a product that carelessly displays a dead animal for commercial appeal – Cathy

Do judge a book by its cover:

Poor pig that got murdered. I find the cover distasteful. Dont judge a book by it’s covers? In this case, I have! – Don Grego

The Malaysian sequel- A Girl and her Puppy:

It saddens me to see a book so casually flaunting a killed pig. Actually, this is only a piglet.. several weeks old. Would this be so acceptable had it been a calf (“veal”), or better yet a puppy? – L. Jorgensen

DIE!

SHAME ON APRIL BLOOMFIELD FOR HOLDING A TORTURED AND KILLED INNOCENT PIG ACROSS HER SHOULDERS LIKE A PRIZE! A GIRL AND HER PIG? THE TITLE SOUNDS AS IF SHE HAS KILLED HER OWN BELOVED PET TO SATISFY HER SALIVARY GLANDS! DISGUSTING! I HOPE THIS COVER TURNS OFF MANY POTENTIAL BUYERS! SHE DESERVES THE CHOLESTEROL AND ALL THE COMPLICATIONS IT BRINGS! – LUCKY TO LIVE IN LA (LA,CA)

Who else if off to buy one, then..?

Anorak

Posted: 29th, December 2012 | In: Books | Comment (1)