I Am Not A Follower of Fashion, I Am A Free Man!

I will not be pushed into a shop, measured, briefed, debriefed or given a changing room number.  My life is my own.  I set trends.
Unlike Markies...  I guess they've been looking at last year's Hallowe'en pictures...

The Best Licence Plate In Years? AE 10 YOU

According to the DVLA this plate has already been taken, meaning there is someone out there who thinks faster than I do (technically I though of it after the 10 plates have finished!).  For the paltry sum of £399 (or maybe £799) they have one of the coolest licence plates available in decades, A E I O U.  Kudos Sir, or Madam.

My First Official New Word: Double-Wicking

Yes I know it sounds obscene, but here's its official meaning / definition:
Double-Wicking - verb (only used in Present Perfect Continuous tense)
To burn the candle at both ends, e.g. I've been double-wicking a lot recently

In a moment of creativity it came to me and I now submit it to the ages as my first official* word.  Believe it or not but I'm hot on your heels Colbert...

* = Well, my first public word.  Like most people there are dozens of words I've created or altered in a unique language known only to me and my (at the time) better half.  You know if anyone ever actually makes a physical, hand-stitched version of 'Your Language' to English dictionary then they should probably be crowned the Most Romantic Man Alive...  Excellent, I now have a title to my collection and another thing to chase Colbert with!

Fernado Torres Wins The World Cup For Liverpool!

A special World Cup version...
Su *bufanda* demostró que era un rojo; Torres, Torres!
...

And here's the proof:

More from the Official Liverpool FC website, courtesy of Getty Images 

The Easiest Marketing Gig Ever ... Call Your Product Snog!

Err, that's it! The copy just writes itself: "You never forget your first Snog", I Fancy A Snog .com and so on...

Guess Who's Back? Mountain Dew in the UK!

OMG!  (Hopefully that's the only time I post that)  Mountain Dew is back in the UK!  And I've just guzzled a bottle down in less than a minute!  At an outrageous £2 for a 500ml at Baguette Express (in They Gyle in Edinburgh is also as desperate) it was worth every penny.  And this is not the much rumoured Mountain Dew Energy, this is the straight Mountain Dew, albeit with the label in Polish (I think).  I've missed you so much darling...

Limited Time Offer: England World Cup Stuff In Scotland?

Sometimes I don't get around to posting things when I first see them or think of them, and this is such an instance.  A lovely special edition pack of Carlsberg lager at a bargain price of £4 for 8 (275ml) bottles proudly stating their sponsorship of the England team.  The strange thing is I saw this in a Scottish Tesco store - must have been a mis-delivery...  I am interested whether this rock bottom price is across all Tesco stores or if it just in Scotland as the are going to find it hard to shift the packs!
However, in delaying writing about this there was a slightly missed opportunity, out by about one week.
The promotional offer ends on the 20th June, if only they had of extended it by an extra week and it would have been as psychic as the damn German octopus...!

500 Posts Over 5 Years ... Happy Birthday To PhillG.com!

Wow!  I've been doing this for five years now, spanning three different careers!  500 different posts, many of which I don't even remember (such as the fact I'm a Googlewhack!) until I re-read them...  There are course many posts that will go down in infamy, like me deciding after 9 months to close down PhillG.com and open a new blog reflecting the "real" PhillG.  Thanks to all the different readers and the 205 comments made over the years.  Why do I keep doing this?  Simply to inform and enlighten.  There are literally hundreds of people across the world who are guided by my reviews of World Premieres during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for deciding whether or not to see the show when it reaches them, or even the performers keeping in touch with fans pre-bookface!  People can also find out how to fix a showers, why swans abandon their eggs and of course, when the European & UK Premiere of Toy Story 3 was (last night and it was excellent!).  Keep on reading and I'll keep on bloggin'...

Acceptable Institutional Racism Through Retail

Assuming we are all aware of the racist 'Anyone But England' t-shirts it seems a bit of a surprise that I can offer you an example of acceptable institutional racism through retail but then again I'm all about defying expectations!  Just so we are clear, the A.B.E. t-shirts are racist in Scotland, whereas in England they are seemed as a bit of a joke; no doubt why they have their own Scotland Not Playing (S.N.P.) t-shirts.  But substitute England for any other race (who are a minority in Scotland) and it would be arrestable racism.  So back to the acceptable version.  Wandering around Cameron Toll of all places I saw this poster encouraging people to get behind any team other than England but for a very good reason - the winner of the competition gets a holiday to the country who wins the World Cup and their hook is 'Anywhere but England'!  Very clever and ingenious whilst avoiding real racism.  Yes it gently plays upon the "we don't want our (friendly) rivals to win" but it does so for purely personal gain rather than bigoted beliefs.  Also, the 'anywhere but England' line isn't 100% true either, I'm pretty sure England is second bottom on the list of places you could go on holiday from Scotland, with North Korea last.  Kudos to Cameron Toll for an effective and amusing competition.

ITV1 HD Miss Opening England Goal & Only Scotland Has HD Now!

Wow, I knew ITV was a channel in trouble but accidentally pressing the "go to advert" button the second the England throw-in was going to be taken and missing Steven Gerrard's delightful goal is a huge own-goal!  Apparently this didn't happen on regular ITV, just restricted to their much-hyped ITV1 HD channel. What makes it worse is that as they have restored the feed it is standard-definition, not HD (look in the top right, there is no HD logo).  You can also confirm this by flicking between the normal ITV channel and HD versions and you'll notice no picture difference and no time delay (the HD version is usually behind the normal version).   So you can't watch the England game in HD on ITV, unless of course you live in Scotland where we have STV and their HD feed has been un-interrupted so the Scots are the only people watching England in HD right now!  You can't right things this funny...  Anyway, someone's head should roll for this especially as it comes after ITV messed up the deciding goal against Liverpool in the dying minutes of extra time in the FA Cup game against Everton.
UPDATED:  It seems they have restored some camera feeds for the mid-point of the half (as the ITV HD logo returned) but the whole game is still not in full HD in England, only in Scotland!  Furthermore the second half is being broadcast only in standard definition.