The Ronaldodillo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The road to Brazil got underway a fortnight ago with two rounds of qualifiers and, although the tournament is still two years away, World Cup fever has already started.

In front of the World Cup organising committee legendary striker, Ronaldo, revealed Brazil’s mascot for the upcoming tournament; yet it was not what most people would have expected.

Mascots usually represent a country’s unique quality, and football fans will remember England’s World Cup Willie, who stood tall as a figure of English bravery. Pique, Mexico ‘86’s moustachioed jalapeño pepper, was also regarded with great fondness.

More recently, France ‘98’s Footix cockerel turned out to be a kid’s favourite and Zakumi the leopard – South Africa’s answer to a lead marketing brand – ticked all the boxes.

So, what creature did the perennial football betting odds favourites, Brazil, choose as its national figure? A colourful Amazonian macaw parrot could certainly reflect the flair and excitement of Brazilian football, attracting the attention of children across the world.

The tournament could possibly be used as a means of highlighting environmental problems in the country and the endangered golden lion tamarind would collate well with an educational campaign over conservation.

It was with great delight that Brazil’s mascot for the 2014 World Cup was revealed to be that colourful, vibrant, and most certainly aesthetically pleasing creature: the armadillo.

Although the creature looks a lot like Ronaldo, it is disappointing Brazil 2014 have decided to commemorate this tournament with a cartoon-like representation of the chubby striker.

Rarely will an armadillo inspire the imagination of a zookeeper, never mind a whole world of football-mad children.

With a tiny blue shell and innocent tail, the World Cup armadillo is simply a generic pawed animal with some features attached.

There is no independency, no uniqueness to the mascot and, although the animal is under threat of extinction, it sadly will do little to inspire an increasingly savvy young generation to buy into Brazil’s World Cup brand.

With Brazil 2014 still just a speck on the footballing horizon, how about some Arsenal tips to tide you over this weekend’s Premier League fixtures?

Boston manager Bobby Valentine’s threat to punch a radio host in the kisser has come back to haunt him, with the Red Sox man insisting that his words were a joke after the threat was relayed across the country.

Valentine, who joined the Red Sox less than a year ago, was responding to a comment by WEEI Radio host, Glenn Ordway that suggested the manager had ‘checked out’ of the season.

“What an embarrassing thing to say. If I were there right now, I’d punch you right in the mouth. Ha, ha,” Valentine said. “How’s that sound? Sound like I checked out? What an embarrassing thing.”

Valentine is known by fans betting MLB for his outspokenness, and this ‘joke’ was taken by most as simply a light-hearted word of warning to Ordway not to proceed with his line of questioning.

Instead of proving Ordway’s claims that Valentine is in some way ‘checking out’ of the Red Sox’s season, the annoyed manner of his reply proves just how much stress and strain the manager is currently under.

Boston have had a terrible season, and saw the outgoing trade of Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Nick Punto, and Carl Crawford to Los Angeles in August in an effort to reinvigorate his underperforming side. Gonzalez was a severe loss, hitting a home run in his first Dodgers match against Miami.

The Red Sox currently lie a disappointing fourth in the AL East, desperately in need of some decent MLB scores, and it is up to Valentine to sort out the mess. What he does not need is light daytime radio interviews with prickly radio hosts looking to expose the frustration that must be boiling underneath the surface.

Joke or no joke, Valentine will have learnt his lesson and will not be making the same interview mistakes again.

The opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games were in a word amazing. All the precision, the timing, the effort that went into a spectacle of human synchronicity and performance. You have to honor the spirit and talent that went into creating such an amazing spectacle. So I would like to take the time to congratulate Beijing, China on an amazing show.

An almost frightening display of precsision.

The kind you can only get when there may be a gun

to your child’s head just slightly off stage.

My mother and all her ancestors were British. I’ve lived, gone to school and worked in the UK. Which in no way gives me any right to say the following:

London? What the fuck were you thinking?

What gives me the right to say that is, like most of the civilized tv watching non-athletic, couch potato(e), and vastly untalented mass of the great unwashed citizens of the world I was waiting for someone to run out and say; “Just kidding! and a big Monty Python foot to come down out of the sky and then start the real Olympic Opening Ceremonies that the Brits had 4 years to plan.”

And now for something that makes sense.

Lets break down the show: We start off with a pastoral scene of England. A nice tableau of Glastonbury Tor (Once considered to be the actual Isle of Avalon in the legend of King Arthur.) And I thought to myself. That’s kind of nice. Showing the beauty of England. The lush green fields. Framed by a historic site of mystical power (The tor) and they didn’t go with the old standby of Stonehenge. Cool.

The model. Before someone ‘Cried Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.’

Just when you thought maybe you were going to see something the rest of the world considers as British. I don’t know; something like Knights in armor, castles, kings, queens, princesses, fish and chips…

I would have settled for A knight in armor fighting a plate of fish and chips.

But just when you were ready to sit back and watch some real Medieval Times (remember go on your birthday and you eat free!) These extras from Charles Dickens’ novels rush in and start rolling up the grass.

What says welcome more than displaying the most socially repressive period in your history.

What’s next? Taking the bikinis out of women’s beach volleyball?

I guess building a set that depicted the great plague or cutting the heads off of Henry the VIII’s wives was considered too much of an expense. So they went with the destruction of the pastoral lifestyle and highlighting an era of class struggle, child labor, orphanages and workhouses instead.

By no way am I criticizing the history of the British. Every country has history they aren’t proud of. Every country just doesn’t highlight it as a multi-million dollar opening to a world sports event. Maybe we should. Maybe the Utah games opening ceremonies should have been an homage to the Donner Party.

We could have sold Donner-pops. Think of the marketing people! Mitt Romney dropped the ball on this one.

The Atlanta games could have highlighted a ceremony showing the benefits of slavery in the pre civil war south.

Doubt Mary Poppins could make this nightmare go away.

Lake Placid games could have shown a bunch of settlers killing native Americans.

Enjoy your souvenir blanket.

OK. Maybe that was a bit harsh. But lets move on. We pass the Dickens – Industrial revolution era where people were pulling back and forth on cranks and large smokestacks were being erected. Which has no sexual overtones whatsoever.

Federico Fellini says: Sometimes it’s just a train going into a tunnel.

What could be next? Victory of WWI and WWII. Showing the true resilience of the British people and how they pulled together during a time of unbelievable horrors. Showing the London Blitz and Saint Paul’s Cathedral standing proudly in the background as a true symbol of British perseverance through times of trouble?

No… Let’s bring out a bunch of children in hospital beds which looks like a tuberculosis ward and then bring out the nightmares of sick children.

Nothing says national pride like sick children!

And just so you remember that we’re still relevant we can drag out J.K. Rowling and Lord Voldemort.

According to NBC commentators

the only reason children read.

If you missed it at one point his wand had a sparkler in it

Spare no expense…

Someone, anyone, who can make this stop? Where is our national hero when you need her.

Oh good. Mary Poppins. Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’ll have a spoon full of sugar, and a shot of Ny-Quil.

However if you want Julie Andrews to scare away nightmares perhaps a remake of Blake Edwards’ S.O.B where she did the topless scene would have better to defeat Lord Voldemort.

Would have pacified me as a child.

So after Mary Poppins cures Tuberculosis and scares away the nightmares of tortured children we get to the only good part of the entire opening ceremonies. (Besides the part where the athletes march in and you get to see how hot other countries athletes are!)

I want one day in my life that I can be this Hansome

And this Oily at the same time.

Ok. So Brazil was an easy choice.

The highlight. Or the only light. In the entire thing was:

BEAN!

Would have rather seen him do a Black Adder thing rather than Bean. But let’s all be happy he didn’t go with the whole Johnny English route.

The entire Chariots of Fire part, the Piano, everything was great. But is that really saying something considering everything that came before or after this segment. And we’re not done yet. Now we get to celebrate the greatness that is British innovation. So they drag out Sir Tim Berners-Lee. And 99% of America said “Who”? And then the TV said inventor of the World Wide Web. And 99% of America said; “I thought Al Gore invented the internet?” And %98.5 of Americans said that last statement without being ironic.

Invented The Web. Thanks for all that porn!

And how do we celebrate the British invention of the World Wide Web. This amazing piece of technology that has changed the way everyone in the world interacts, studies, learns, shares information and writes crappy blogs about how much a show sucked even though they couldn’t be bothered to get off their lazy ass for once in their life and create something original?

With an inflatable house, the worst of British music, and a story of two teens that fall in love via text messaging.

I’m not going to trudge through the entire story of the Frankie and what’s her name falling in love while they play Relax

But enjoy if you want to listen to it:

Anyway. We end up with some rapper that no one outside of England has even heard of Frankie and what’s her name run back into the inflatable house while they show images of British movies on it. Like Trainspotting. A movie about Scottish Heroin addicts where a baby dies in it’s crib. (Way to keep a love story on an up-note there England.)

We finally get to the point where the people who actually matter in this thing get their welcome. The Athletes.

And During this time I wonder to myself: “What’s the Queen thinking?”

NBC commentators keep remarking how fast the Athletes entering the stadium is going.

Of course it’s going fast. Everyone is dying out there. This show is a disaster. Someone quick get to the end and maybe Sir Paul McCartney can save all of this.

Hey Jude? Really. Someone explain to me what Hey Jude has to do with the Olympics without making any reference to the 1972 Munich games massacre of Israeli athletes? Paul, Sgt Pepper, Revolution, Blackbird, you had Glastonbury Tor right behind you get up there and B-side us with The Fool on the Hill! I would even have accepted something from Wings! Even Here Comes the Sun would have been something positive.

So we get to the end with an extreme midnight hard out to my NY local news where they commented quickly and with a straight face on how wonderful the Olympic Ceremonies were.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe even with all my British exposure I didn’t get the cultural beauty that was Dickens, child sickness, nightmares, and Prodigy singing ‘Firestarter’. Maybe it’s because I’m not this guy:

Will the Brits be able to close this out with some class and something original. Something new and not tired or awkward. Something the British people can stand up and be proud of? Who’s slated as the musical guest for the Closing Ceremonies?

Fuck…

Sooner or later Mitt Romney will understand what it is like the be a presidential candidate. With that, hopefully the realization that people are going to ask weird questions, dig into your background, and make a huge deal about things you have said or done. (*cough* Romney-care *cough*) Our current president, Barack Obama, has and still has his share of people giving him fun names like, NoBama, and Fart Bongo. The second one, although funny, I don’t understand where it originated.  All the Urban Dictionary has to say about it is:

A derogatory term used to refer to President Obama. It is a poorly constructed insult using two off-rhymes for his last name: Fart = O and bongo = bama.

I would like to point out, however, that there is a link from that page where you can ‘buy fartbongo mugs & shirts’. Capitalism, is there anything you cant do?  That being said I would rather have the beer stein with the angry dragon definition on it. But, I digress…

Not only has Obama been called odd, and humorous names on the internet, but he has also had an effigy of himself hung in a storefront, outside a house and by a ‘Christian pastor’.  Terry Jones, the same pastor who wanted to have a Koran Burning Day. (I never know what to bring on all these odd holidays. Are pork chops allowed?)

Stay Classy Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach.

Please do not go to his website and email gay porn links using his contact tab.

Or fax pictures from a  Fed Ex Kinkos.

That would be improper.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, gets upset when you ask about Bain Capital, His Governorship, or his Religion. Well, what should we talk about then? How’s the weather on your planet Mr. Romney? Oh wait. Apparently asking about Mitt Planet, Kolob, is a question about his Religion.

The weather on Kolob is clear, with a slight chance of Venn Diagrams.

And no one would have ever thought of asking about or questioning Barack Obama’s Religion. That would be incredibly out of line and in poor taste.

No one would dare bring up Kenya, Islam, or question his lineage. Right?

Recently Cher got in trouble with the Mormons for Tweeting: 

I Feel if he doesn’t get all his DUCKS IN A ROW we’ll b forced 2 listen 2Uncaring Richy Rich! The whitest man in MAGIC UNDERWEAR in the WH. Her Tweet made 

Remember Cher? Married to Greg Alman, and Sonny Bono, Her daughter Chastity Had a sex change, (one or two papers may have mentioned it). Cher did that video where she straddled a battleship cannon while wearing a fishnet bodysuit. If anyone knows about ‘Magic Underwear’, it’s Cher!

Mormons who wear garments known as temple garments that are supposed to be worn “both day and night”; according to the LDS Handbook of Instructions. These garments are not to be removed to participate in anything that can be “reasonably done” while wearing the garment. Which may explain the over sized front pocket.

Like Kramer, Mormon men need the ‘secure packaging’. Their boys need a house Temple.

Catholics hierarchy wear funny hats and dresses, Orthodox Jews have funny rings of hair on the side of their heads, Muslims have weird outlooks on women and such, Buddhists wear odd robes, and Mormons wear ‘magic underwear’ see everyone’s religion equally dumb. Except for the neo-pagans. They don’t wear weird stuff.

What? This is how all level 80 Warlocks dress.

So if you are a member of a group that has weird (different than the social norm) beliefs:

• Like god lives on a planet called Kolob.
• A Jewish prophet took a detour to a then unknown land and told the indigenous peoples that he was the real embodiment of god.
• You have to wear these ridiculous looking sets of underwear in order to hang out with us.
• Our messiah was a guy from upstate New York who wanted multiple women so if we head to Utah we can do that but don’t ask me any questions about it.

People may have some questions. And since you are applying for the job of the most powerful person in the developed western world. You have to answer them and others. You also have to get use to being made fun of. Just ask any of the other non-elected presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the past 25 years.

Michael Dukakis

Bob Dole

Al Gore

John Kerry

John McCain

And Everyone’s Favorite:

Sarah.

A helpful idea for Mitt Romney. The rest of us in the great unwashed love to put people up on a pedestal for one reason. Because it is so much fun when they fall off. Now with the internet becoming the mainstay of how the average slob (see what I did there?) gets his or her daily dose of mis-information, anything you say, have said, done, haven’t done but can be shown in a photoshop of a picture of you and a set of magic underwear. Will now be sent to billions of users on a moments notice. So whatever you do… Don’t be careful. Say it. Do it. Even if you think it’s stupid. Elections aren’t about who has the best policies, or best ideas for the direction of the country, or even more intelligence. (G.W. Bush proved that). It’s who entertains the great unwashed for the longest period of time.

You ask me who was Nixon’s VP choice when he ran against Kennedy… I’d go to Wikipedia and find out, provided there isn’t a new video on you tube of a cat falling off a table or a dog humping a stuffed animal to the music of ‘The Spice Girls’ that I haven’t watched yet. But if you ask me who was McCain’s running mate in the 2008 elec… Palin. No wiki needed. Then I would go on to google image search to find all the funny pictures and videos I could.  Palin may have been a complete dingus and her idea’s completely half-baked. But at least she was entertaining. So at the first debate wear this:

And ask the guys from South Park to work on commercials for your Campaign. I guarantee if you use this clip, no one will forget you:

Computer maker Asus tweeted out the following comment and picture at Computex 2012. Showing a behind shot of their new ‘Transformer AIO‘ (Click link to read about the actual product) and an attractive woman. Here’s the picture and Tweet.

yes, yes it does.

There is not one false statement in that tweet. Both the unit on the table, and the unit in the dress look good from behind! But oh no that’s sexist! When is it sexist to say that a person (in this case a woman) is attractive? Ads on TV and in print show women fawning over well built men.

I’m outraged that the woman at Burger King wants David Beckham to take his shirt off! All men boycott Burger King because they are treating David Beckham like a piece of meat! For shame Burger King!

But no, because Asus tweeted a picture of a product with a ‘booth babe’ displaying it ,(Yes they are really called Booth Babes.) and made  mention that she had a nice ass. Which ok…

it’s nice, not great, but nice

Now the women who are easily offended come out of the woodwork and say “Hey Asus don’t you want women customers.”

Here’s some examples of the twitter outrage:

From Leigh Honeywell: “Hey Asus, do you not want women as customers or something? Not cool.”

Pwang added, “Wow, ASUS poignantly shows why tech is an uphill battle for women.”

Anil Dash posed, “How sexist is tech?”

Here are my replies:

“Hey Leigh, no they don’t because then men will have to come fix it for you.”

“Pwang, that and the fact that women keep breaking their nails on the keyboard.”

“Well, Anil, considering EVERY tech type convention has ‘booth babes’ they know their target audience.”

But now I’m an ass for pointing these things out. It’s fine for women to say a man should get undressed in a burger commercial. But say a ‘booth babe’ has a nice ass and now we have a problem!

The woman is that picture was hired for one thing… To be in that picture! She’s there as eye candy. To attract customers. The same way any man sitting on a large stack of money is there to attract any woman.

Because we all know this woman is in the relationship for love.

One Million Moms (or OMM for short) has had their facebook page closed down. Now there is speculation that the Moms have closed it down temporarily until the heat is off versus facebook actually closing it down. Either way if you need to go to a place to taunt or laugh at them go to onemillionmoms.com.

Why have the Moms left facebook. I believe it is due to false advertising. As of the writing of this there are only about 38,000 of these mothers which could be a violation of truth in advertising. They could have called themselves ‘almost a million moms’, or ‘getting to a million moms’.  Personally I would have called it ‘Big Pile of MILFS’ but that name is already taken by one of my favorite porno movies.

‘GIS’ for pile of milfs. (At least the only one that was considered ‘family friendly’)

The other possibility is all the flack they are apparently taking a lot of heat over the new J.C. Penny advert for Father’s Day. Seen here:

The Ad is showing two men happily playing with their children. It’s Father’s day, why wouldn’t you want to show a picture of fathers playing with their children to remind you what a father should be instead of that broken and distant mess on the couch polishing off his 3rd case of cheap beer while you walk quietly around the house hoping not to be noticed. Why can’t we just play catch dad? why? I’ve mowed the lawn twice this week already…sorry I digress.

I think the issue that the Nearly One Million Moms (NOMM for short which is what I will call them from now on untill I see a complete list proving one million.) have is the caption in the upper right hand corner of the picture:

“First Pals — What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver –

all rolled into one. Or two.

Real-life dads Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children Claire and Mason.”

A swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver? And you get two of them? Sign me up! I couldn’t get dad to teach me how to ride a bike let alone fix the damn thing when it broke.

Thanks for the bike dad…

This is pretty much the NOMM’s mission. To shut down anything they can consider offensive. They did a similar boycott when J.C. Penny had Ellen Degeneres as a spokesperson. Angered that she was openly gay, NOMM has had all their members write “REFUSED…RETURN TO SENDER.” on any advertising an booklets that they get from J.C. Penny.

There are so many better reasons

to hate Ellen, gay is not one of them.

Which is costing the US Postal Service a lot of money. Look at if as a fiscal sort of way. If NOMM sends back any mailers from J.C. Penny that were sent at first class bulk mailing post, which means a return to sender gets sent back to the post office and discarded by the post office. Which is costing the US postal service money. If J.C. Penny sends out 12 monthly flyers at $1.50 and one yearly catalog at $5.00 and all 38,000 NOMMs are making the post office pick that back up at their cost then over a year the NOMMs are costing the us taxpayer roughly 3 million dollars a year. And that is if their NOMM numbers are the estimated 38,000. If they truly are in the millions then it’s closer to $ 78 million a year. These mothers are costing me money! Someone get the Tea-Party on the phone. They should know about this!

Grandma, Jesus is not picking up

an elderly hooker in red pedal pushers.

No matter how big your sign is!

 This J.C. Penny is not the only target on on NOMMs list. Their victims include:

• Jenny Craig and Dexatrim. Which tells me the moms have been doing a lot of OMM NOMM NOMM and feel bad about their weight.
• Chuck E. Cheese. See reasoning above. Or for possible urine content in ball pit. Or for calling it a ball pit.
• Celtrixa: The stretch mark removal cream: Because the ads were being shown on an MTV show called “Skins”. Good marketing if you ask me, but what do I know.
• Wrigleys gum: Because of the slogan ‘Have your Dessert & Chew it too”. Due to it’s overt sexuality… Ladies, if you’re chewing something after pleasuring your man; make him go see a urologist!
• Jiffy Lube: Because they call their 10 minute oil change a ‘Quickie’. Versus their other service: ‘Come to Jiffy Lube; we’ll grease you up and give you a rim job.’

I emplore you to go sign up with NOMM so you too can help them ‘restore the biblical foundations of morality in media, commerce, and government and receive timely emails for a call to action.’   

And tell them you want real biblical advertising.

• Make Carnival Cruises put two of every animal on each trip.
• Every episode of “Say yes to the dress” must give the ‘father in law to be’ Prima Nocta.
• Finally all science questions on Jeoparday can only be answered with “What is because Jesus loves me?”

We’re coming for you Trebek! You smarmy heathen!

So until I  get my NOMM welcome package I’m going to take a trip back to my wasted youth and find copies of old J.C. Penny catalogs and do what all young men did before they discovered porn. And send some of those NOMMs one of these toys.

Hey NOMMs! My door is closed for a reason!

Thanks Japan. Scientists have found a drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea that may transform this treatable with antibiotics social disease in to something that could become a global health threat.

Funny, all the other video we shot this week this stuff was white.

The new strain, called H041, cannot be treated by normal medications. This has required doctors no options but to try alternative and untested treatments.

Alternative treatment… place your penis on the table and stretch it out as far as you can.

The blame for this new strain of gonorrhea is being put on cheap home STD tests. Is this really the area you want to save money on? I mean given the choice between the 30 pack of Keystone light and the home STD test I would have to put the Keystones back.

Hold my stones…

Order now and get a free speculum.

The center for disease control has released a picture of the virus that makes up the H041 strain. Also known as “Ho-you nasty”. Below you will see a picture of the normal strain of gonorrhea:

All cute and pink. Hardly scary at all.

The new super gonorrhea is a different animal all together. (It’s faster than a premature ejaculation, more powerful than a jet powered fleshlight, and able to leap up your vas deferens in a single bound.)

Good lord! Kill it, Kill it with fire!

Or use one of these fine condoms.

To combat this the Japanese have come up with a disposable version of the fleshlight. The Japanese sex egg. Just unwrap, lube, polish a glass rod for some reason, and throw away. Just whatever you do please remember to throw these away after use. Do not store them next to the cadbury cream eggs.

Yum!

The Japanese sex egg…

Is this a proper example of ‘Irony’? A woman who works at a wholesale lingerie company, owned and operated by orthodox Jews, is fired for dressing too sexy? Lauren Odes of New Jersey was terminated by her employer, Native Intimates, for dressing to sexy and being a distraction to the owners and employees.

Can you tell she’s from Jersey?

Lauren was asked by supervisors to tape down her breasts. And here is the problem with religion. Any faith that says ‘Thou mamaries art to great and it displeaseth the Lord.’ Is not one I want to be part of.

Lauren responded to the taping idea as anyone would: “Are you kidding me?” The female supervisor went over to the closet and pulled out a bright red bathrobe with pictures of guitars on it and made Lauren wear it over her clothes until she could go out and buy something to cover her giant globes of sin.

Self shot of Lauren wearing the latest Orthodox Jewish lingerie from Native Intimates. Sexy.

While she was out looking for a sweater to conceal her ‘Dirty Pillows’; she received a phone call informing her she was terminated.

She and her lawyer, Gloria Allred, has filed a sexual and religious discrimination suit against her former employer with the equal opportunity commission.

Take a look at the items Native Intimates sells. I do not see a red robe with guitars anywhere… No birthday present for the wife this year!

Bet they don’t sell one of these: 

There are a few things you can’t do in Baseball

First off: No crying.

Second: Don’t tackle the umpire.

Carlos Lee decides to tackle the umpire instead of getting the ball…
Third, and this is important, if you get really angry, do not hit the umpire with your batting helmet!

Brett Lawrie, angry at a perceived bad call by the umpire throws his helmet which ricochets off the ground and hits umpire Bill Miller. I’m sure there will be some suspensions but how long…

There is also no hitting yourself with a bat.

And no Mooning.

There are plenty of ads that pass us by as they play out ten times a day on different TV channels, but every now and then, there are some that draw you in.

The ones I like the most at the moment are the Fosters good call ads. If you haven’t seen any of them yet, you’ve been missing little 30 second portions of comedy genius, centred on two likeable beer drinking boys in Oz – Brad and Dan.

Brad and Dan epitomise a certain section of Australian culture. They like to spend time sipping from cold cans of Foster’s premium lager while holed up in the shade of their yellow beach shack. While they while away the hours, various girls are seen in the background being useful – putting up the dartboard, posing for Brad while he paints a picture, that kind of thing.

Every ad follows the same format, where Brad and Dan’s day is interrupted by the Foster’s phone ringing. At the other end of the line, there’s a British man with a problem he needs help with. The two Aussie agony uncles are more than happy to dish out advice – on relationships, personal hygiene issues and dealing with people who invade your personal space.

The boys have a laid-back charm about them, and their solutions are always cheerful ones. They see an up side to every situation. For example, when Ben from Southend is angsting about whether his girlfriend will end up looking like her mother, the boys tell him to stop worrying.

There are some things that are beyond our control after all, and besides, by the time the girl does begin to look like her mother, he’ll have other worries like: “why do I have hair growing out of my ears – and how do they make scotch eggs?”

If you want to see what you’ve been missing out on, you can catch all the good call ads on the fosters.co.uk website.