Yours angrily, The Colonel

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) this week celebrates its 50^th birthday. To mark the occasion, it has released a list of the most complained about adverts in the last 50 years. It’s an interesting list, not least because it gives an insight into what most irks Middle England and prompts it – accompanied by much huffing and puffing – to pick up a pen or write an email to a body such as the ASA.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Not forgetting violence of course. These are the themes you would expect to send seismic rumblings under the feet of the nation, causing china to tinkle and audible gasps to be heard from church halls. So what was top of the list of most complained about adverts? Was it naked, vajazzled women watching men having sex whilst throwing cats into wheelie bins (the women not the men) all to advertise cat food? No. Think of something truly morally reprehensible. That’s right, it was the Kentucky Fried Chicken advert that DARED to show people … wait for it … singing with their mouths full.

You’ve fallen off your chair, right?

Yes, it really is a shocker. Stop the clocks, etc. According to those who complained (a record 1,671 people), the advert set a bad example to children. Hell’s bells! I can think of plenty of properly bad examples that no one gets their knickers in a twist about. Just put together a collage of celebrities’ and politicians’ photos, close your eyes and stick a pin in it. Bingo!

So this is where the nation’s moral compass settles. We’re happy to watch public humiliation on reality TV, people been pulled from car wrecks (real or and somewhere down the road from Holby City) and flipping Eastenders but not a bit of chewed up chicken in someone’s mouth.

The people who complained must be parents. (Scary how becoming a parent can suddenly make you conservative to boot). What does this say about their parenting? Well, that’s 1,671 people who should have sat down with their kids and explained that whilst the advert was very funny (they would obviously have to lie about their feelings here) it’s actually not very nice to talk with your mouthful. Basic Guide to Table Manners Talk done. Instead, I expect they taught their children that switching off the telly in a strop, thumping about angrily with steam billowing out of your ears as you compose your complaint against moral decay is a perfectly acceptable way to behave.

How to be fabulous

You’ve been lured in by the title haven’t you? I bet you’ve been drawn into posts and articles like this before. The promise of ‘fabulous’ is very hard to resist. Particularly if you’re a woman. Especially if you’re a woman. Look at the number of magazines women buy that promise the Golden Ticket. (Women’s lifestyle/fashion magazines had a circulation of 6,863,314 at the end of 2011. Source: ABC.)

According to women’s magazines women all want the same: to be fitter, thinner, lovelier, more sexually alluring and successful at work (although on the latter some magazines have yet to be dragged into the 21st century). The sexism inherent in this bothers me. No, I’m not claiming to have noticed anything original. I’m pointing out the bleeding obvious. To become fabulous is to become empowered. Yet where does the power really lie when the yardstick is other women and much of it is to attract men? Seems that the power still sits with those around us, not with ourselves. Depressing really.

So what’s to be done? I suggest we ditch the mags and subscribe to my 3-year-old’s guide to How to be Fabulous. She wisely advises that to be fabulous you must:

• Be nice.
• Be good.
• Listen.
• Not burn your fingers on the oven.
• Be a builder.
• Don’t chop your fingers off with scissors.
• Not be grumpy (like me apparently – delightful child.)

See, it’s as easy as that. Male or female, fat or thin, young or old, you can ALL be fabulous.*

* The precise amount will depend upon your circumstances and your soul may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments.Due to market fluctuations terms and conditions are subject to change without notice. (You didn’t think it was really going to be that easy did you?)

Quite frankly I’m a bit pooped

I am writing this fresh from ‘going for a run’. When I say fresh, I mean fresh – I’m slightly moist and clammy and my intergluteal cleft will be leaving a damp patch on the chair. This wasn’t just any old run though. It was my first ever run in what have been 35 pedestrian years of life.

When I say I’ve been for a run, I ought to qualify that. What I’ve actually done is embark on the NHS’s Couch to 5k regime. The website describes it as follows: the “C25K plan is designed to get just about anyone off the couch and running 5km in nine weeks.” I’m delighted that I have proved myself to be “just about anyone” – for me that’s practically an Olympic gold medal – and not someone whose arse has become truly and irreversibly melded to the couch.

I’m not ashamed to admit it was touch and go though. I’ve been thinking about dusting off the trainers for a good couple of weeks after hearing of a friend’s success with C25K (I even downloaded the podcasts a week ago) but I then made polite excuses and slowly sank deeper into the sofa. I was too tired. I was too hungry. I’d got flat feet (but then someone told me that Linford Christie has too – sigh). There might be a nuclear holocaust whilst I was out and I really ought to be at home near my kids.

And so tonight I at last struggled into my industrial strength sports bra (I’m not bragging – to be honest it’s not entirely needed and any post-breastfeeding mother will testify to the inevitable disappointment in that area). I was a little out of puff after getting the bra on and that really didn’t bode well. Yet I got out the door (having also added tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt to the sports bra in case you were wondering) and returned having run for a whole EIGHT MINUTES. Okay, so it was 60 seconds of running followed by 90 seconds of brisk walking but it was still eight minutes. Yay for me and all the couch tatties in the world! (Hell’s bells, I’m pooped though.)

I’m measuring the success of this run on four important criteria:

1. Did my pelvic floor hold out? YES (I didn’t stray far from home just in case …)
2. Did I trip over any uneven pavement and knock my front teeth out? NO
3. Was I chased by any dogs? NO
4. Did anyone see me? NO. Well apart from one elderly man who I waved at so as to disguise my lack of style. And what better way to make it look like I wasn’t running like a girl than by flapping my arms?

I’d tentatively say that tonight was a success. I’ll never be a runner, nor will I be kitting myself out in lycra or getting ‘in the zone’ as I thunder around the local recreation ground dodging the dog muck. But as with any sporting achievement for the girl who was always picked last in PE, it can only be good for me.