Babi a Fi

Ogilvy & Mather developed the 'Reasons To Believe' campaign in 2013 to be used worldwide to promote Coca Cola, with the exact footage and wording differing from territory to territory. The press attention the advert received in the UK was mostly around how the Irish version of the ad had switched the gay marriage scene for one of an interracial marriage. I couldn't find a full version of the UK advert on YouTube. For more like this, please click the image below:

40 question blogger challenge I ganked from Dreamwidth. :)

Not much of interest to report. I had Healthier Scrutiny committee, but I've not been very healthy myself! This weekend especially I've just wanted to curl up in a ball. I have so much stuff I need to catch up on so hopefully I'm going to wake up feeling human tomorrow morning. Wish me luck! ☆ READING:  N/A. ☆ WRITING:  About those Nazi punching memes doing the rounds. ☆ WATCHING: Anthony's been watching Fraiser, so I've had to see a lot of it too. It's okay, way better than the more modern US sitcoms he insists we watch. ☆   LISTENING:  A romance playlist because it was St Dwynwen's Day this week. ☆ WEARING:  Socks. ☆ EATING:  I had some Space Raiders the other day. Blast from the past! ☆ REVIEWING:  N/A. My posting every day pledge was falling seriously behind, so I've decided to cross-post my queer history posts from Tumblr to the blog. It means I have less to write overall, and it's easier to archive

This 2003 advert for Marmite spread - you either love it or hate it - attracted 71 complaints. The ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) deemed it to be inoffensive and it continued to air without restriction. The ITC (Ofcom’s predecessor) ruled that the kiss was a “clearly jokey scenario” and did not portray “homosexual intimacy or indeed sexual or romantic activity of any sort.” Marmite claimed that this was the first same-sex kiss in UK advertising, but there had been a few before it. For more like this, please click the image below:

The inlinkz in this post is ready to go but I'll add the rest in the morning - 3am is my limit! :)

Thomas Cook , one of the best known travel agencies in the UK, launched a ‘bold and contemporary’ ad just in time for Christmas 2016, featuring a same sex kiss and a family with two dads. Jamie Queen, marketing director for Thomas Cook Group and UK, told Marketing Week: “I think marketers can always do more to represent the needs of the consumer and that’s what we’ve tried to do with the gay kiss. It comes down to the needs of our customers and addressing a modern population.” I haven’t seen anything in the media about complaints being received, which suggests there haven’t been significant numbers. For more like this, please click the image below:

Master post for Tumblr write-ups on queer themes in long running ITV cop show 'The Bill'.

One or more of these has provided the backing track to just about every piece of romantic fiction I've ever written...

I keep seeing the Nazi punch memes going around on social media and it made me think of this clip from The Thin Blue Line: http://babiafi.tumblr.com/post/156445277283/the-thin-blue-line-punching-nazis-before-it-was In just a few three second gifs this kind of sums up why 'go forth and punch a Nazi' is hardly as straightforward a sentiment as it might first appear. How do we define Nazi - is an underage teenager who spouts right wing opinion as ripe for physical assault as an adult who organizes Neo-Nazi marches? Then there's the sticky question of whether just anyone can punch a Nazi. If a straight white male police officer - some would argue the very definition of 'privilege' - is provoked, does it make it acceptable for him to punch a person in custody? Or is it only okay if he did it on the street and out of uniform, for everyone to witness? What consequences, if any, should the puncher face? Who gets to say where the tipping point is for equal redress u

Barclays became the first UK bank to feature a same sex couple in a TV ad in 2012. They have been the headline sponsor of Pride in London and are recognised as one of the country’s most supportive LGBT+ employers - its in-house ‘Spectrum’ network has over 3,000 members. There was little interest in the story from the mainstream press, although various LGBT+ publications ran interviews with the real life couple who starred in the ad. Eg. from Gay Star News : When Barclays decided to include a gay couple in their new personalized debit card commercial in the UK, they didn’t just hire two actors. Instead they picked Niki Mahona, 23, outside his job at London’s famous Selfridges department store. And they gave him and his 19-year-old real-life boyfriend, Luis Donegan-Brown – who also works at Selfridges – a taste of fame.  The couple have only been together for just over a year but now they have the claim to fame of being one of the very few same-sex partnerships ever depict

I really loved this 2013 advert for NatWest bank featuring twins who are similar in some ways, but opposite in others. There was no fanfare over its release, and little mainstream media interest. Just a sweet ad that invariably threw people on the first watch - you think she’s leading a super secret spy double life or something until they meet up in the coffee shop! For more like this, please click the image below:

This week we're talking about gifts, the kind you get for new arrivals, and just how strange some of them can be. Shower visors! I actually bought one of these before Marianna was born and we never used it. It's one of those things that seems like a great idea until you realise you're more likely to be pouring a little bit of water with your hand, not blasting your baby's head with a shower head, and getting it on will probably be more trouble than the few seconds of rinsing. Baby headbands with fake hair. You can get them with fringes (bangs), or little pigtails, or even full on wigs. I actually won one of these for 1p in a round of eBay Bargain Hunt and it was totally bemusing. I tried peeling off the hair so we could actually use the hairband but it did not want to come loose! Snot suckers! These can be useful but the idea is just so nauseating. Especially when you can get little bulbous ones that you pump instead of having any connection between

On The Buses, 1969. Aunt Maud comes to visit and asks awkward questions about why Stan isn't married - and why he spends so much time with his bus conductor...  On the Buses was a hugely popular ITV sitcom - like, it had its own comic strip and the stars were mobbed in the streets popular - with seven series and three feature films produced between 1969 and 1973. It followed Stan Bulter (Reg Varney), his family, and his worklife as a bus driver alongside best friend and bus conductor, Jack Harper (Bob Grant) - most of which involved skiving off and / or avoiding the wrath of Inspector ‘Blakey’ Blake (Stephen Lewis). This clip is from S2:E4 ‘Aunt Maud’, and originally aired at 7pm on 21st June 1969 to an audience of millions. When Aunt Maud comes to stay, she asks awkward questions about why Arthur and Olive (Stan’s little sister) have no children despite being married nine years, and why Stan still hasn’t even managed to make it down the aisle… Like most popular ‘low

Bless This House, 1971. Sid wishes his son was more of a man's man - especially when he learns he's going out with a ballet dancer named Eugene... Bless This House was a popular ITV (Thames Television) sitcom which ran for six series between 1971 and 1976, and spawned a feature film in 1972. It followed stationery salesman Sid Abbott (Carry On star and household name Sid James ) as he attempted to make sense of the cultural chasm between himself and his children, 16-year-old schoolgirl Sally and 18-year-old layabout Mike, fresh out of art college and more interested in political protest than finding gainful employment. This clip is from the very first episode, ‘The Generation Gap’, which originally aired 2nd February 1971. Sid is worried about his kids - Sally has taken to wearing padded bras and appears to be on the contraceptive pill, while Mike doesn’t seem to be interested in attracting the opposite sex at all. Of course, it eventually turns out that Mike and E