No Likee

You know what really annoys me? Caro Emerald's album. Not the music on it, whatever that's like, but the title: Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor. This is not only a tautology (since, metaphorically speaking, 'deleted scenes' must necessarily come 'from the cutting room floor') - it is also a contradiction in terms, since (literally speaking) there wouldn't BE a 'cutting room floor' involved in the digital process implied by the word 'deleted'. In theory a tautology and a contradiction should cancel each other out, shouldn't they? But no, they don't - two wrongs don't make a right - and it drives me insane with anger every time I see it. Caro Emerald is Dutch, but I can't forgive her. Sometimes I wonder if she did it just to annoy me.

Words, though - they're a 'mindfield' (as one of my work colleagues says). Take that bowel cancer advert in which you are warned to look out for 'blood in your poo'. I wonder how many meetings it took to arrive at the epithet 'poo', as opposed to the numerous other available options? How I would have loved to sit on (so to speak) the meetings where they thrashed it out, listening to the various cases put forward by the supporters of 'shit', the proponents of 'poo-poo', and the fans of 'faeces'. I might have contributed a motion myself, just to see it flushed out. Stools? 'Too ambiguous, they'll think it's an Ikea advert.' Bowel movements? 'Too formal.' Crap? 'Too...crap.'

And then imagine the cheers when they announce that they're 'running with poo.' I can't believe that this hasn't been televised.

Then again, maybe they think that there's enough shit on TV already. I haven't seen Take Me Out in a while, but the other night even the ITV announcer, over the credits of TV Burp, described it as 'brutal'. I wonder what it's like now? I like to imagine that Paddy McGuinness' limited repertoire of catchphrases has deteriorated into surreal nonsense. As the next contestant is introduced he roars: 'Let the strawberries see the telephone!' Or: 'Let the stapler see the giraffe!' (the audience laughs just as wildly). And the couples no longer holiday on 'the Isle of Fernando's'. They go straight to Hell.