The ad was created by CHI & Partners and features one of favourite tracks -  The Universal by Blur – and was one of their weirdly animated ads.

The TV ad depicts a family’s comings and goings  interrupted when a voiceover states: “Oh, the boiler’s not working”.  A British Gas van appears and a man walks from it into the house as the voiceover continues:  “Sometimes you need a little help there”. Then the sound of gas ignition is heard, followed by a cheer from the family.  The voiceover adds: “Which is why you can reach us every day. Even over Christmas”. Finally, a Christmas scene appears and the voiceover says: “Look after your world this Christmas with British Gas”.

Those who complained are likely to have been disgruntled customers who questioned whether British Gas would carry out repairs on the same day, particularly over the Christmas period.

In its defence, British Gas said it did not believe the TV ad stated or implied that it would attend call-outs and carry out repairs on the same day, particularly over the Christmas period. It added that the voiceover clearly stated “which is why you can reach us every day, even over Christmas”, and said it never intended to advertise its speed of response. The aim of the ad was said to demonstrate the efficiency of its call centre service and that its high-level of service did not fall over the Christmas period.

The ASA adjudication ruled that the ad implied a same-day call-out service that formed part of the British Gas package and was likely to mislead.

The game itself is OK if you like that style of music game but enhanced by the Beatles soundtrack and story.

The outro to the game is just as impressive as the intro, take a look for yourself:

Glad to see that the quality of the incidental elements of the game were not scrimped on.

And to think that in my youth I had pictures of this woman on my bedroom wall!!!!

The first time I saw it I wasn’t sure what had happened. Someone at Coke HQ must have eaten a dodgy mushroom or something as this is a trippy ad.

From my research it seems that the backing track was written especially for the ad by Clavin Harris and is called “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, La, La, La” and there is a rumour that it will be a single later in the summer.

Personally I’m not sure that a catchy song is enough to carry this ad and many would classify it the drawer marked ‘weird’. Coke ads seem to be all of the place of late with no distinct theme  flowing through the campaigns.

Creative this ad may be, but do I really want a drink that Gremlins gargle with?

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh as I’m sure that there are plenty of people that will love this ad but personally I think that it is memorable for all the wrong reasons.

I thought that you weren’t supposed to get Gremlins wet…………………..

EBay to the rescue – 2 tickets to The Saturdays at original face value.

First act was a girl from LA called Jessie Malakouti who reminded me of Madonna when she first hit the UK – Lucky Star era. Full of energy, catchy pop tunes with a punky edginess to her look. She managed to get the audience up on its feet within the first few bars which was no mean feat considering the capacity crowd consisted of parents with teeny boppers (Me), twenty somethings and a contingent from Brighton’s gay community.

Jessie Malakouti Live in Brighton

Next up was a slightly more established 18 year old Pixie Lott who had a recent number one with Mama Do. She was framed by a couple of dancers for most of her set but her acoustic version of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” was by far her highlight moment.

When the the headliners came on the place went wild and my little girl was as excited as Christmas morning. I was excited for other reasons – seeing attractive young girls cavorting on stage in various revealing outfits still has an effect on me for some reason.

The girls belted out their hits to the delight of the crowd who were eager for a nod or a wave from Mollie, Una, Frankie (my personal favourite), Vanessa and Rochelle. They also obliged us less knowledgeable members of the audience by playing a few covers like Kate Nash’s I kissed a Girl and a bit of Pink’s So What.

Many costume changes later and up and down the stage staircase a few times and The Saturdays had exhausted their repertoire including a few new songs from the new album. Eye candy aside they put on a half decent show that seemed to have something for everyone. The Brighton Dome is a great venue and perfect for an act of this magnitude – half filled concerts are embarrassing for all concerned.

10 year old Lily loved it and will be buzzing about the experience for a long time to come and if I am honest it wasn’t a bad way to spend twenty quid.

One of the surprises for me (although on reflection I don’t know why I should be surprised) has been the music game genre with massive titles such as Lips, Guitar Hero and Rockband. I am an avid Lips player as I was blessed with the voice of an angel (or so I think after a bottle or two of wine) and I have been known to pick up the ‘fender’ on Guitar Hero on the odd occasion but I had never been drawn to Rockband…….until now:

My Dad loved the Beatles and I grew up with them and the stunning animated trailer for this game makes me feel that I gotta have it. Love them or hate them the Beatles had a massive impact on music worldwide and this 2 minutes and 40 seconds of cinematography has summed up their changing styles in a nutshell.

The games is released on 09/09/09 and the Xbox 360 is my console of choice and the combination of the Beatles music, my angelic voice and the stunning 360s HD graphics means enjoyment is assured (well mine is………..I can’t vouch for the neighbours!)

Being a male I can multi-task, (often thought to be only a female trait but not so!) that is to say I can surf the net and watch TV at the same time. This comes in handy sometimes when I spot an ad that takes my fancy and lets me research it instantly.

It also helps to save arguments when the wife and I are trying to guess the band behind the advert music and occasionally it means we stumble upon a real gem.  The 2007 Jaguar TV ad was one of those gems. The ad itself was ok but the soundtrack had both me and the wife saying “I like that”. Internet to the rescue. Within 10 mins I had found the artist, title and downloaded from iTunes.

It turned out that the band were Fujiya & Miyagi who hail from just down the road in Brighton and  in a further twist of coincidence it turns out that one of the wife’s colleagues is dating a band member! Small world.

Fujiya & Miyagi’s MySpace site list Serge Gainsbourg, Kraftwerk and Aphex Twins as some of their influences and I’m not quite show how to pidgeon-hole their sound. There is definately an element of techno but it is gentle not hardcore. The vocals are not like most ‘chart music’, they blend in almost like an additional instrument. It’s good and I like it.

Apparently the origins of the band’s name come from a brand of record player and the old guy in the movie The Karate Kid (and not a firm of Japanese lawyers as I read on one website).

Oriental sounding name aside Fujiya & Miyagi are a regular on the old iPod.

Olya Chubarova – vocals
Anton Zalygin – programming, vocals, guitars, sound production
Sergey Chernov – bass
Michael Zencov – drums

This four-piece hail from Samara (somewhere in Russia) and mix together funk, disco, electronica and hip-hop in a new and I think quite refreshing way. The sound is obviously influenced by European indie and electronica bands and the vocals are bit crazy – definitely must be some helium involved.

They gained some attention after their song Uaaa…a! appeared in a 2008 Russian movie hit Rozidgysh (Prank) and from trawling the net it seems the Cheese People are doing their thang in clubs across Russia.

Their debut self-titled release is difficult to get your hands on (I’ve been trying for quite a while now) and I read a piece that described some tracks as ‘post-punk’ and others as similar to The Prodigy but I don’t quite see the link.

Musically it is a bit mad and reminds me of the freshness that bands like Pop Will Eat Itself were creating in the early nineties. It may take a few listens to get into it but when you do you won’t get bored. I have a few tracks that I was able to get but from their MySpace site a while ago on my iPod and they are regularly on my playlists.

If anyone hears of them coming to Blighty, be a good sport and let me know.

http://www.myspace.com/cheesepeopleband

It’s one of those tracks that pops up all over the place including chill out albums (you know the ones that are supposed to help you come down from that post-clubbing high) and it’s on one of these albums that my wife first heard Gymnopedie No.1.

When we got married a few years back and were considering the music for signing the register we both independantly chose this tune.

Satie was born on 17th May 1866 in Hornfluer in France and wrote his first musical composition aged just 18. During his life, Satie had been artistic in all incarnations of the word having produced musical compositions, art and contributed to a number of publications including Vanity Fair. Most of all he was the sort of guy that stuck to his ideals and called a spade, a spade.

That said he lived his life with certain eccentricities; he formed his own church, lived in relative poverty and produced the Vexations – a short piano piece that is repeated 840 times! He was also considered to be a forerunner of minimalism and devised ‘furniture music’ – music that was supposed to be in the background rather than listened to (the elevator music of its day?).

From what I’ve read he was always considered as an ‘outsider’ and valued his privacy so highly that he never let anyone see his apartment in Arceuil (suburb of Paris), where he lived for 27 years until he died in 1925.

After his death they found further evidence of his unusualness in his home including:

• four pianos: two of which were back to back, two of which sat upside-down on top of the other two
• a portrait of Satie by his former lover, a trapeze artist called Suzanne Valadon and
• love-letters and drawings from his romance with Valadon
• his collection of drawings of medieval buildings
• seven velvet suits
• dozens of  never been used umbrellas

His music was rather unknown  until the early 1960s but his now thought by many as composer that was ahead of his time. It’s also claimed that he influenced others such as Debussy.

I’m still not sure I can decide on whether he was a genius or a nutter but I do know that I love Gymnopedie No.1.