Rafael Meavitali

Don’t Compare!

Hair loss medication . Toilet cleaner. And the list goes on. It doesn’t matter what product or service is being sold, some of these advertisements are SO rubbish! Does anyone else think that some of the adverts on UK TV are atrocious and a total waste of air time and money or is it just me? I give you the Go Compare adverts for a fine example–the ones with that annoying fake opera man on…how annoying are they out of 10?! Seriously, people, whatever happened to the good old adverts of old that inspired us and made us want to go out there and actually buy products? Is it the end or what?

Of course, I am not completely naïve. I do understand that on some (warped and perverse) level, it’s a good thing (at least the manufacturers think this is a good thing–) that the ads catch our attention, however that may be. In a way they want us to remember them, and how better to install them in our minds forever than by making them as annoying as possible?

The thing is, every time I hear that advert, I mute the TV. Without exception. It has now got to the point where I am really annoyed whenever it comes on. Not just annoyed, but enraged.

What’s the answer? Who knows. But what I do know for certain is that the person who came up with the idea for that advert had better not admit to doing so in front of me!

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What has information overload done to us?

I had to use the catchphrase of a very well known search engine provider in the title because that really is the case. I have seen quite a few adverts where the search engine Bing has shown the overload of information in our human minds. I didn’t think much about the advert, but I did think about how easy it is to get information that we need.

fifteen years ago, you could never find the information that you needed as quickly as today, so if you had to do a school project on red diesel, it would take hours to look it up. Nowadays you just shove the words into a search engine and boom, millions of web pages in a split second. But really, we should rephrase the title to “What have search engines done to us?”Why they have given us a world of information right at our fingertips! And not just that too. If you type in 2^2+3-6 into Google you get the answer 1. If you type in define:potato into Google you get many definitions, but mostly pointing to the tune of “a starchy root vegtable.”Search engines now do so much more compared to when they were first made.

The search engine to the computer is like the microwave to the kitchen, it gets the job done in next to no time, be it to heat up a curry or to find out about your ancestors. Search engines have changed our lives, by helping us find the information we need without turning the library upside down.

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What will they remember us for?

It is a lovely Saturday and I have just returned home for an excellent (albeit short) excursion to Tate London where I have spent the majority of the day looking at great works of art from years past, stepping back in time and catching glimpses of what life must have been like in those days. And it got me thinking about all the great things that we have from the past that we can learn from and infer what our ancestors lives were like, amazing works of literature, great works of art, hieroglyphics, breathtaking statues, catalogues of records in finely studied handwriting.

And what will we have to show for this generation? Facebook?

I have to stay that if modern day humanity was to be judged on the Internet and what we left behind in ways of art works and novels, I think our future relations may believe that this was an age of regression instead of forward thinking. The Internet (although is a great invention of mankind and made the global community come together more than any other creation) seems to revolve around self-indulgent websites, pornography, and scams. Not to mention berating news stories, explicit vice and violence, and fan-sites that revolve around people who no one knows why they are famous.

Is this what happens when you educate the masses? Did all the art, higher thinking and education, etiquette, and literature take a backseat to medical microdermabrasion and self glorification? I don’t think so, but it seems that through what we are creating, we are proving quite the opposite.

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Just A Note

This post is about depression. There, I said it. I aim it not to be depressing, of course, but if it is a little then I apologize in advance.

Yeah, I know, you sure got lucky stumbling over this article didn’t you!

So the thing is this, and it’s only my opinion:

Everyone gets sad, but sometimes I think there should be more awareness of what depression is, because (and this may not be the case with everyone but certainly is with a few people) depression is not just about being sad and feeling low. OK, it is a lot to do with being sad and that, but it’s so much more than that, and can’t be cured just by some good old fashioned London comedy. My point is that there is still a great attitude towards depression which is largely inaccurate. Quite simply, many people still think it’s something that is somehow intentional. That the person affected should be able to just pull themselves together.

If you’re one of these people (not to be condescending, truly) then here’s something you really need to understand: people with depression are unable to snap out of it. They feel trapped, helpless, and often unable to do simple things which you wouldn’t think twice about.

The point is this: if you notice a friend is sadder than they normally are, and they are like this for some time, be there for them, don’t push them away. They may need you more than ever.

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Seriously Now

I was just on Facebook. By “just on” I don’t mean I was just telling the world about my new fridge and the precise temperature it manages to maintain and how amazing it is and how everyone should know it because, well, who wouldn’t want to know that? No, I mean I was just on it looking about and checking my messages, seeing what my friend Adam had to say about his brand new Gastric band and all that (he says it’s wicked and thoroughly recommends it). I don’t really go in for Facebook to tell you the truth. One of the things I especially don’t like about it is when people write things that are particularly offensive, I mean outrageously so. It isn’t so much the offensive things I mind as the people who comment on the offensive things. That really offends me!

The comment in question was a joke; it was about the recent Cumbria shootings and, while I could see how a certain type of person could find this sort of thing vaguely amusing, it was sick and unnecessary and altogether out of order. It got me wondering: what are the people at Facebook HQ doing allowing this kind of thing? Fair enough if it was a one-off but truth be told there are loads of outrageous things said on Facebook, and someone should at least moderate it.

I might sound like an old fart, and maybe I am, but honestly, is it so hard to police this sort of thing?

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Just One More Time

Before I had Laser Tattoo removal on a really ugly tattoo I got on a stag do, back when I was younger, I used to be able to lie down, pull my feet and legs back and spring up like a ninja, straight in to a standing position. I’m not even lying! This is not like one of those stories you tell when you have drunk six pints and can’t tell what is real and what is fake: I really could do that.

For some reason, while trying to sleep last night I had this on my mind. Something was bugging me: could I still achieve this miraculous physical feat? Or were my days as a springing ninja relegated to the past? To a youth better left alone–

No, of course not! I was just the same. Maybe a little heavier, but surely just as agile and fit as I had been aged twelve.

So I got up, did some stretches, and prepared to do the feat.

Lying down on the floor I was nervous. I had to do it quietly, you see, otherwise I would wake my other half up.

Carefully, I drew my feet towards my chest and prepared to spring forward. Then came the butterflies, and a moment later I threw myself in to it with full commitment–

I landed hard on my hip, having twisted slightly and not quite pushed up enough (seeing as my abdominal muscles were now non-existent; I’d forgotten how big a part they played in the ninja flick-up). It hurt, but you know what? As I crawled back in to bed I was smiling because at least I had tried.

I wasn’t smiling when I woke up, however…It felt as if a truck had run over my belly–

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The Illusion…

Every now and again, when drifting off in to that universal place that isn’t quite sleep and isn’t quite made up of sensical thought, I end up reminiscing about things from my childhood. This happened to me just now (just after thoughts of ’why is the bum bag such a hallowed thing in Germany?’): I was thinking about those salt and shake crisps you used to get–the ones where you yourself got to salt your own crisps!

How brilliant?

In a time before driving, adulthood and decision making, having my own little packet which contained salt was a big deal for me (and I still like to partake in a bit of this whenever I get a chance, it has to be said). At this young age my father used to tell me that I was “the chosen one” and that not every little boy got a small blue bag in his packet of crisps. No, I was indeed ’special’.

Years later I would discover that, alas, I was no more special than about a million other very ordinary children, but still, the illusion wasn’t ruined. I still look back upon opening up my first bag of salt and shake crisps with the same awe and wonder that Charlie did when he came across his amazing golden ticket.

Praise the little things, that’s what I say. The little things are just as important as the bigger things, and I think us as a civilization would do well to remember that.

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