LargetrouserS

Two-fisted Tales of Trousery.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

A load of old pony ?

You know when people have too much money. It's when they start treating their pets better than their children.

We've seen designer clothes for dogs, diamond collars for lizards and dieticians for cats.

Imagine my astonishment this evening when I turned on the telly and saw an advert for horse perfume. One can only assume that the enthusiastic equestrian is no longer happy with the astringent smell of saddle soap and thus this new fragrance has been borne of repeated market focus groups.

The product is blandly called "Lovely", almost as forehead-smackingly crass as calling the new Will Young CD "Unlistenable" or anything that David Beckham advertises as "Chav Toss".

Whilst there are no actual horses in the advert, presumably due to some Equine Equity kerfuffel, the makers have substituted the suitably horse-like Sarah Jessica Parker.

LargetrouserS: Two legs: good; three legs: Large

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Parkinson's Alzheimers

Last Saturday evening saw veteran celebrity interviewer Michael Parkinson extract 60 minutes worth of "chat" from American songstress Madonna, whose hits include "Papa get the breech...loading rifle, there are poor people on the lawn"; "Vogue ? - no Country Life, actually" and "Get orf moi lahnd" (sorry - couldn't think of a pun).

For someone who started as a penniless jobbing dancer and ended up a lady of the manor, one may have expected a rich and sustaining broth of an interview instead of the flavourless consommé that was delivered.

Nevertheless, the piece served two valuable purposes:
1) the effortless promotion of Timothy Taylor's Landlord Ale, quite possibly one of the nation's finest beers and now favoured by the Duchess of Dirge; and
2) confirmation that Parky really is losing his marbles.

Let me illustrate the second point. After watching his guest perform two of the most openly boystown, leather clad, oiled up, rainbow-coloured, Heaven-sent, bump and grind songs, both of which would have blown Soft Cell, The Communards, Erasure and the Village People off stage, the dear old buffer (Parky, not Mad Donna) was heard to enquire, "...so...why do you think you have become a bit of a gay icon?"

LargetrouserS: The bottom bracket since 1990