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Tuesday, 24 November 2015

blog 164. I Don’t Like this Ad...


Whether it’s a printer with a cash-back option or  Myleene Klass smirking smugly in another frock your mum would like or boiler cover from ‘just’ £10 per month, it’s impossible to get rid of them.

No matter how often the ‘I don’t like this ad’ red cross is clicked, another one pops up almost immediately. It’s like being involved in a permanent survey of things that really really really piss you off. And if I go the next step and tick a reason why I don’t like this add they thank me for helping them improve the experience then the same one will pop up again anyway as if to say you think we really give a ---?

When I first turn on my Yahoo email (other providers do it though Yahoo is possibly the worst) the little time circle of dots swirls around and my mail wont load until someone I don’t know and will never meet manages to load their gush onto my private e-mail, while my life ticks away. I cannot get rid of this constant invasion unless I PAY.

Spam is the same. No matter how many times you report it the same stuff keeps right on returning. But the ads are in your face. They don’t default to somewhere you can’t see them until you check the folder to see which bank wants your password or who wants to sell you some medication – usually Viagra. And now that the US company that makes Viagra has married the Irish company that makes Botox in order to avoid tax, it won’t be long before we are getting joint ads for paralysed faces and budget erections...

It’s like someone letting their dog piss up your leg and saying ‘I will get him to stop if you pay me’.

And you can’t ignore the bloody things.

So I am trying to email my mum and find out how her pepperpot went on Wednesday and my eyes are drawn to a message that takes up about 1/3 of the type space asking ‘Should you be selling your stocks?’ I only own vegetable stock cubes. Who would want them?

Someone called Ken wants me to download his report about a retirement plan. Ken, honey, we won’t need retirement plans, they are gonna legalise euthanasia for ordinary people.

Then BT want me to get their TV. The face of the woman in the ad says it all. She looks horrified and dismayed – she clearly hasn’t been botoxed. That is how I would look if I ever had to have anything at all to do with BT ever again - ever.

Then there are the ads containing items I recently searched for on the web making me feel like Yahoo is stalking me. It’s creepy. The stalking ad is followed, paradoxically, by an ad for human rights. Oh the irony.

A gymnasium wants me to pay £19.99 per month for membership. Almost £20 to exercise indoors with other people’s carbon dioxide, sweat and body odour and, worse, all the bloody horrible chemicals they use to suppress the b.o. – why? Get rid of your car. Instant exercise on tap every day AND you double save the price of running a car and the gym membership.

Hey – you know what – never mind Ken it’s me who should be giving financial advice.

Then there are banks offering credit cards. Presumably to pay for all the tat these ads pressure you into wanting that you didn’t know you wanted until you logged into your e-mail to try to contact your mum.

Then there is an ad for half price Sky movies showing pics of flicks I wouldn’t go to see if THEY paid ME.

Then more BT this time offering a sport app.

And I still haven’t finished the e-mail to my mum.

So I am going to advertise my new paperback book that I just managed to get OUT THERE. I nearly had a cataclysmic personal implosion dealing with all the IT stuff but I’m sure it’s good for my character. Anyway Maybe I’m not a Pigeon is ready in paperback for you or your mum, aunt, sister, cousin to fill that quirky, fun, stocking filler gap. Then you can cosy up with it on Boxing Day while everyone else looks at shit in the sales and diet products on the internet. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/151924729X

If you don’t want to see my ad just pay me some money every month for the next year.