IT’S baffling: why marketing people spend so much on campaigns doomed to miss the target. So much time, brainpower, effort and materials wasted. To say nothing of the waste incurred in printing and distribution. Plus the waste of so much money. Wasted not only by the marketers themselves but also by the poor sods who pay for these useless campaigns. Mountains of junk mail, so much of which ends up as litter. Discarded as unwanted and unread. Maybe the mere act of designing and printing this multi-coloured mass of pleas to buy (or sell) is considered sufficient. It’s akin to… Continue reading
Modern life
Like all the best villians they creep up without warning. Seconds later, their deadly effect has been suffered. As sudden and unexpected as we see in the movies, or in the endless succession of gory TV dramas. Or read in the plethora of crime fiction. It’s all over before the… Continue reading
Diction: a person’s way of pronouncing words Such a simplistic (and I do mean simplistic) definition of a word with so many shades of meaning. And one that is widely open to a plethora of subtle differences. Surely the emphasis should be less on the speaker’s way of pronunciation and… Continue reading
SUDDENLY I am delving into my memory bank, reliving how it was to take that nerve-racking walk from West to East across Berlin’s no-man’s-land of Checkpoint Charlie. An instant recall sparked after inexplicably waiting two decades to open a book fully intended to be read when it made its spectacular… Continue reading
AMONG the many misused words littering modern communication there is surely none more abused than smart. It has several meanings. These include clever, quick-witted, brainy, shrewd, astute and intelligent. Other synonyms on offer include savvy, perceptive and quick on the uptake. Thus expectations run high of any product or service… Continue reading
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CAN’T help wondering how many of the doubtless thousands of air fryers bought in the Christmas shopping madness will end up discarded, re-gifted or otherwise dumped. This must surely be the most useless bit of kitchen gadgetry ever. Over-publicised, over-promoted and oversold it is destined for the dump once reality bites. As commented on here a few months ago, https://tinyurl.com/eps4vnja it is severely limited in its application. It offers no substantial benefits over any of the several alternative means of cooking a meal. Certainly not any worth the price asked for a model with even moderate capacity. Little wonder that… Continue reading