Have you got "it"?

Would you rate your singing ability as COMPENTENT?

Do you like to just ‘give things a go’ without thinking them through?

Has anyone ever “raised you up”?

Has a member of your family recently died?

Maybe YOU’VE got the X-Factor!

Can old morons learn new tricks?

Following on from my recent innovations in branded-meat marketing (BMM), no-one has been beating my door down with cash to find out more.

This is understandable as few people (i.e. only me) can FULLY comprehend the significance that branded food has for the advertising industry.

Any place I see left unbranded (eg paving slabs, wardrobes, animals, the sea, etc.) brings a tear to my eye. When will our industry learn that we could be cramming marketing messages in front of people ALL the time? I predict another twelve years at least.

If they read this blog, you can reduce that figure to eight months (seven months for the KEY insights to sink in + a month to do something about it).

The lack of creativity in a supposedly 'creative' industry is staggering and could potentially reach flabberghasting levels unless these old morons can learn some new tricks.

Witness the future of branded meat

Make frankfurters work for you NOW!

The picture should be self-explanatory, unless you're too thick to "get it". Basically it uses meat-writing technology to deliver a powerful brand message at the perfect moment.

Oscar Wilde gutter persuasion

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, we're all in the gutter but some of us are persuading other gutter-people to buy things

Mrs Belmot's guide to NOT killing the planet

The internet is costing us millions, and who's paying the bill PLUS service charge? The planet, that's who.

To make matters worse, the tip isn't optional like it can be everywhere except America. You've GOT to pay, like when you go to America or an American puts the guilt on you with their judgmental eyes in a British restaurant.

Here comes the maths. Keep up.

I keep my computer on ALL the time. What's the cost of this in electricity? No-one can say for sure, so let's say £5 of electricity a day.

Now let's multiply this by 1,596,270,108 which is the total number of internet users.

That's a whopping £7,981,350,540 - nearly eight BILLION pounds a day. The biggest number I've ever written. Whatever that means to the planet is anyone's guess. MY guess is that it's terrible news. It's giving me sweats. BAD sweats.

To make matters worse, this ISN'T factoring in the cost of running all the servers needed to keep the internet full of clutter, like your photos on Facebook, or day-to-day banality sharers such as Twitter or Facebook again.

Let's factor that amount in with a conservative highly-educated guesstimate: let's double the previous figure and add four billion to make a round TWENTY BILLION pounds of electricity a day to run the internet. No wonder the planet is cankerous.

Now let's apply the insight. Keep up again.

We might as well just pour poison onto soil while paying a fortune in electricity. This is NOT advice, it's a metaphor. Don't actually do this. I do NOT need a repeat of the 'Milork' leaflet fiasco. If we keep on internetting at this rate, I safely predict a global catastrophe before the Olympics in 2012.

What to do:

Delete everything you've ever put on the internet to reduce burden-strain on servers. Stop using banality-sharers more than once a month. Turn off the central heating and wear more clothes. Clean your house using wind rather than hoovers. Microwave jacket potatoes rather than ovenning them. Check this blog on an hourly basis for mandates.

Case closed.

File under environmental FACT-mongering.

P.B (post-blog - DO try to keep up)
Herman has been strutting around the house claiming he was "born to drive steel", whatever that means. This has all the hallmarks of a 'whopper'. He's been listening to too much Johnny Cash and wearing "that" shirt again.

Mrs Belmot's shopping voucher

Shop staff can't be expected to keep up with current or even bygone internet trends (such as blogging and forums), so prey on their ignorance with Mrs Belmot's multi-purpose printable discount voucher:


The great boon is you can use it anywhere AND I've made it a socking great 75% off anything you want. DEFINITE takers include Budgens, River Island, WHSmith and Bennett's garden centre on the B2038. No-one is keen to accept it but they can't argue with the internet.

It's the kind of ROI which name brands can only envisage during fevered dreams or waking hallucinations.

The bacon is back.

Mrs Belmot's Guide to the Internet

KA-AAARK! KA-AAAARK!

KAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRK!

Mrs Belmot's blog is back like a phoenix from the ashes!

I have LITERALLY died under an avalanche of requests from everyone wanting to know how they should use the internet in 2009. Luckily my trusty St Bernard (brain) dug me out of the snow (did the maths) and gave me some brandy (vimto) before lumbering off (they're friendly but their attention span is woeful):

Mrs Belmot's Guide to the Internet in 2009

Blogging - don't bother. I stopped for ages and everyone else jumped off the bandwagon too, like sheep-moths following a flame going out. Puff! In the hands of amateurs (you) It's basically a long-winded waste of time and internet space. In the hands of a pro (me) it's a razor-sharp tool of insight and foresight.

Twitter - Like blogging for infants (see above for the pro/am distinction).

Facebook - I rarely go here and only check back to see if they've changed their colours to something less "IN YOUR FACE". Get OUT of my face, more like! Ha ha!

Voucher codes: a BIG thing. Anyone paying full price at Pizza Express is a berk-royale. They're everywhere and shop staff are too thick to comprehend how the internet works, so just make your own and they'll believe you.

Google - Slowly but DEFINITELY becoming pre-occupied with death as my picture-documentary on Google's search suggestions recently exposed:

Herman - embroiled in a Rocky Horror Show 'time warp' fight against the postman. A nasty mess left on the drive. DON'T tell the council or they'll go ballistics, when they should really go forensics. Herman keeps threatening to "do the time warp again" and sometimes invites me to join his sordid game saying "LET'S do the time warp again". A glassy look comes over his eyes when he says it and he goes all a-fluster. Sordid

Lunch - most likely a pie or 'toasty-soup'. NOT both.

I've moved on the internet

I'm NOT dead, so stop sending wreaths. My house looks like the Whitehall Cenotaph.

Chilling.

If you want to keep reading, go to TERWITTER!

Top brass haven't rumbled the spy!

If you're a regular drinker (reader) at the fountain (blog) of my knowledge (advice), you'll have DEFINITELY been going thirsty (not reading/learning anything new) lately.

There's no mystery, so don't try cracking the case. You won't. Also don't bother ask what I've been doing, just keep reading (drinking).

I REALLY need money, and that's no lie. NO-ONE ever pays the invoices I send out, so the only solution was to swallow the bullets and get a job.

None of the best advertising agencies (ones in the South East) bothered to reply to my CV, even though it CLEARLY told them I would be a great Managing Guru or Advice Director. It's rude and shameful because I know for FACTS that they reap my blog-advice like thieving harvesters. Their loss is also my loss - they don't get my massive kudos and I don't get their money. No one wins.

Taking an unsubtle hint from my husband's war stories/lies, I decided to spy on the industry... from the INSIDE! Can you imagine me in a balaclava and sunglasses like a REAL spy?

Anyway, forget that image in your mind because everyone who works on the checkouts has to wear the same uniform. Also, the application/interview process was non-invasive and they didn't probe how much I knew about advertising. Ha ha! Imagine what 'top brass' would say if they knew I was a blog-genius with even MORE top brassy skills than THEIR top brass.

At the moment, I'm biding my time on the checkout before presenting my plan to re-position the WHOLE supermarket chain for a Digital generation. I'll DEFINITELY present to top brass. My low-brow colleagues on the shop floor simply won't be able to grapple with the concepts involved. You need the ability to think metaphorically but most of them can't even think plain-phorically.

I really have to get off the checkout soon. The money is rubbish and it's literally an unwanted eye-opener to see what people buy to eat.

Let me fill the box

There's been nothing but rubbish on the television for days on end, so I've been working overtime coming up with GREAT ideas for new programmes which someone would actually want to watch.

"Fish and Fowl" - a fishmonger and a butcher who solve crime but the butcher is REALLY reluctant. The fishmonger (Darren) has basically got nothing else to do with his time because everyone's using supermarkets. So he turns to crime-solving with FUNNY results. The butcher (Samuel) is the brains. It's set in the 90s and it's got those two from Never the Twain if they're available/alive. First episode features a stabbing by a canal. Uh oh!

"Risen Damp" - a one-off TV special. Basically a funeral wake for Rigsby turns sour when his corpse is exhumed by the police for "tacky" reasons.

"Rappy Days" - Ritchie Cunningham and The Fonz, now living in Surrey, recapture their golden youth by staging a series of vitriolic rap battles in Leatherhead and Horsham. Promotes family values and The Fonz ends EVERY rap by saying "Eee!". You won't find out until the last episode if it's really happening or if the WHOLE series is from the deluded mind of Mr Cunningham, now a senile idiot working the checkout in Homebase. He ran a hardware store in the original series, so he would have transferable skills.

Do NOT be surprised if these turn up in the schedules later this year. If anyone at the BBC or ITV checks their emails today (unlikely), we might even get them next week!

I need to buy more video tapes.

The stench from the shed has now penetrated into the house. If Herman doesn't change his clothes soon, I'll have to hose him down! Ha ha! Like in a zoo!

I'm metaphorically bombing the neighbours - with ADVERTISING!

The neighbours have NOT yet bought in to my latest innovation in advertising, which is their loss for being naysaying fools.

Just when every old-timer will tell you that there's no new way to reach people, I've fitted a new tyre (come up trumps) onto a Honda Civic (the advertising industry) and pulled out of the lay-by (started doing it first before everyone else).

If you can brain-imagine this, it's a cross between television and radio advertising which reaches people NEITHER old-fashioned method currently does.

Basically, when the adverts come on in between programmes of the TV, I turn the volume up to unbearably loud levels, creating an invasive wall of bass-heavy advertising messages penetrating through the brickwork of the house and into neighbouring houses.

If you want a war analogy (most people do) it's less of a targetted sniper shot and more of a carpet bomb technique, indiscriminatly hitting EVERYONE. The great bonus is that it also hits civilians (people walking outside) as well as neighbouring buildings.

Anyway, next-door has complained every day of this week about the noise but I've blamed it on the difference in volume between programmes and ad breaks (VERY probable excuse). They'll feel the ROI when the messages seep into their thick skulls.

As it is, they're complaining to various industry bodies. Ha ha! They will NEVER guess I'm doing it on purpose!

I wanted to get Herman to connect the television to the stereo to reach a wider audience, but he's been slumped face down in the shed for the last three days under his tanning lamps with his radio receiver tuned to static. I don't pretend to understand the appeal of amateur radio, so I've left him to it.

The smell is getting abominable in there. If he wants any dinner, he'll have to "shed" those reeking clothes. Ha ha!

If the sun won't tan, I will

If I had to describe myself, the first adjectives through the door would DEFINITELY be positive, pro-active and a great resource for top-level advice on ANY subject in English delivered promptly.

It seems that my husband doesn't know me AT ALL because he was completely astonished when I came up with a turnkey solution to help him get a tan while the weather is rubbish. It's this kind of mistrust that makes him an idiot and rots our marriage from the inside.

The genius behind the thinking is that I've combined Herman's two favourite activities (waste-of-time amateur radio hamming and watching "the box") with getting a 'Cat Deeley'-style tan but WITHOUT the need to have his blood transfused from using fake tan.

Basically, I've set up eight angle-poise lamps with 100 watt bulbs in the shed pointing STRAIGHT into Herman's face when he's blathering away to other radio idiots. The light might not do much tanning, but the proximity of the bulbs (about 4cm from his face) should produce enough heat to effectively grill a fabulous tan onto his head.

I've also hooked up two car batterys to the television. The picture is basically un-watchable but the rays coming off the set push out a tanning effect you can feel from across the room, and that's ROI that money can't buy (although literally it can).

We're also keeping all the house lights on 24-hours a day. Our carbon footprint will be a disgrace, but every little helps the tan so do NOT blame me. I probably do more for the environment than you.

So far, no tan has developed and Herman's been complaining about eye strain, headaches and partial blindness. However, the BIG silver lining is that his eyes are starting to turn a milky white colour which will REALLY offset his tan when he finally gets it.

All the news that's unfit to blog

Don't tell me the title of this is wrong, because it's not. I'm in the steely grip of a stinker of a cold. If you imagine you're dying of sinuses, you'll be halfway to thinking of how I feel.

It didn't help my health that Herman's self-improvement plan has meant I've spent the last few days visiting him in hospital while he recovers from getting healthy.

He's become obsessed with his appearance and for some reason is aiming for a "size zero". I blame fashion idiots like Ian McShane and Wogan. I've made him take the posters down in our bedroom but I know he still idolises them. I've looked in his wallet

Anyway, he's an idiot because he believed one of his radio ham friends who told him that Cat Deeley always drinks fake tan then sweats it out to get a great all-over tan. The theory is 100% sound but I am DEFINITELY sceptical that Deeley would have her stomach pumped and most of her blood transfused every time she wanted to look lovely and orange.

Also, Herman ended up being treated for heat exhaustion after turning the central heating on full and sitting in the kitchen with the oven door open to "get the sweats going".

The only silver lining is that the smell in the kitchen is now wonderful, just like in Cat Deeley's house, I assume.

The smell of rotting wicker WILL return

The results of my week-long investigation into the unbearable noises coming from my garage are finally in.

If you want to brain-picture the noises, I'd describe them as wheezing and clanging. Also screaming and thudding.

The breakthrough in the case came when I discovered that the noises ONLY came from the garage when Herman wasn't in the house. Then I mounted a surveillance campaign by looking in the garage the next time he went in there.

Conclusion = he's guilty as sin and DEFINITELY "at it" again. I thought he'd got it out of his system but I will NOT cast stones because we were all "at it" in the 80s, but he's an idiot for starting again and will 100% do himself an injury.

I wish he would just stay in the shed where he belongs.

I'm bracing my eyes to start seeing him in gym shorts and sweatbands again. Last time he was into fitness (approx 1987 - do NOT quote me) he used to wear a sweatband on his head, two on each wrist and four on each leg = a total of thirteen sweatbands. The laundry basket had to be thrown out after it bore the brunt of a heavy "workout".

The smell of rotting wicker was unbearable.

I'm also worried about the state of his exercise bench. It's had the chest freezer balanced on it for the last 15 years and was only something Herman got from a garden centre in the first place, so it is almost CERTAINLY a deathtrap for anyone using it for bench pressing or sitting.

That reminds me: I must take some chops out of the freezer before Sunday. They'll be no good to ANYONE if they're "al-dentay".

Loneliness = BIG cash rewards

Ho ho ho!

I've just been hit in the marketing region of my brain with a SCORCHER of an idea!

What do most people spend longest looking at when they're gullible and needy? Answer = lonely hearts adverts.

Here's how YOU can turn the melancholy loneliness of the masses into a stack of ROI bacon fifty feet high:

"Dead beautiful billionairess seeks someone for friendship. Maybe more! About me: I'm not fussy about who I meet so you're DEFINITELY in with a chance. I like the cinema and loud pubs, but one thing I will NOT tolerate is the build up of limescale under the rim of my toilet.

That's why I use Toilet Duck. It stops germs like gangbusters and leaves my house smelling great. It's also great value, not that money is an issue to me.

If you're interested in meeting someone new, you could contact me. But if you REALLY want to have a fragrant and hygienic bathroom, then it's Toilet Duck all the way."

Put that advert in your local paper and watch the money come walking to you. Want to know how it works? Here's the analysis:

• I rope in the desperate by claiming to be beautiful and rich. Then I hook them like greedy fish by claiming to like loud pubs. I'm talking THEIR language now.
• Now they're putty in my fishing net (hand) so I introduce sub-liminal AND plain-liminal information about a product.
• Result = a huge rise in the sales of Toilet Duck in the cash-rich singles market.

Ha ha! This one is a dead guarantee to 100% deliver the bacon all year round, but expect a whopping sales increase around Valentine's Day. It's when ALL eyeballs are on the singles pages.

In other news, Carol has RUDELY announced that she is thinking of staging a musical version of 'Trading Places' this Christmas at the community centre. Everything she touches turns into disasters so steer clear as if it was made from the plague.

She's just trying to jump on MY 2001: Sapce Odyssey panto bandwagon. Get off my wagon! And bring back my baking tray while you're getting off.

That said, I'd throw good money after bad to see Trading Places on the stage. What a hoot! One was deaf and the other was blind. Uh oh! That spells t.r.o.u.b.l.e!

How many miles to Facebook?

Hi blog-reader-lovers!

Everyone is fully aware that NO-ONE campaigns harder than me to keep the internet tidy. As President of the Internet, it's basically my job (it's not paid, so send "the readies" as a token of appreciation. I need the money).

Here's my latest policy decree which should drive through change and 100% deliver the bacon on the tidy front:

When you're driving in your car, you rely on signposts to tell you where to go. At the moment, everyone uses Google like the back of a road atlas to look up where things are. If we had more internet signposts, like in my technical plan above, we'd all know where to go and how many internet miles away it was.

It's the equivalent of being in Leatherhead and thinking "Phew! Only five and half miles to Dorking! I've got time to listen to 'You Can Call Me Al' AND 'Under African Skies' before I get there."

Of course, by the time you've navigated the ringroad, you could probably listen to 'The Boy in the Bubble' as well, but that's just local knowledge. You won't get this unless you know the area.

If everyone jumps onto the signposting bandwagon, it should REALLY sort the ham from the spam.

Meat sorting can also be invaluable in an offline environment when organising fridges and packed lunches. NO-ONE wants to prepare themselves to enjoy spam and find out in their mouth that they're really eating ham. It's a nasty jar for the brain AND the tongue.

Anyway, if you want to help the internet government's work, you can join the cabinet on Facebook.

A long wait until eggy December

It's July 10th which is BRILLIANT news for fans of Christmas. We've got the most boring six months out of the way (well done everyone) and we're DEFINITELY getting closer and closer to the big day!

It's only another month and a half before we're allowed to get the decorations out again, but if you're struggling to labour through the rubbish summer months here's some practical advice on how to get your festive juices wet NOW. Follow this plan and you'll literally hit the ground running when Christmas kicks off in September:

• Close the curtains and turn the lights off at 6pm every night. This will trick your brain into thinking the days are getting shorter = getting near to Christmas.
• Wear less clothes so you feel cold (like in winter) but IMAGINE that you're actually wearing more clothes (like in winter).
• If this doesn't work, wear more clothes (like in winter) and use your imagination to make you feel colder (like in winter).
• If you wear more clothes you may suffer heat exhaustion, so your imagination will REALLY have to be up to the task of feeling cold.
• Not everyone can handle nog, especially egg nog. Prepare your stomach lining NOW with gentler nogs in time for "eggy December".
• Good summer nogs include Ribena nog, water nog and chicken nog.

Now I come to think about it, one of my dining room chairs is STILL in the garden from last Christmas.

The noise in my garage has been unbearable for days. If it stays like this for another day, I'm DEFINITELY going to mount an investigation (look in the garage tomorrow).

The casserole has worked medical magic

After coming back from Falaraki, both my husband and me have been suffering BAD jet lag. I haven't got a CLUE what time it's meant to be! We've also both come down with tickly coughs, possibly as a withdrawal reaction from rubbing Vicks all over for two weeks. On the Belmot illness scale this would rate as "irritating and persistent", also known as a "Vernon".

Killing two health birds with one medicine stone, I made a casserole for dinner last night but replaced the beef stock with Benylin to combat the cough AND create drowsiness. I also replaced the onion, carrots and beef with Benylin too, to guarantee 'impact' on the nervous system.

As a safety net, we also had warm milk (Benylin) before going to bed.

The results have been mixed but worthwhile. I slept like a baby and feel BRILLIANT today, although it's still hard to focus on moving or stationary objects. Sitting down still causes nausea. Herman also slept like a baby and had to be winded five times in the night. It was NOT pleasant for me or the air in our bedroom but he said it reminded him of being in the army.

Don't put ANY store by this kind of claim - he makes them all the time. I haven't a CLUE what he did in the army and he's a whopping liar. He gets all excited and makes boasts about killing this and marching over that.

Anyway, I made him scambled eggs (Benylin) for breakfast, so he's calmed down again (passed out in the driveway) which makes MY life easier.

The holiday is OVER

The mystery has been solved. The christening was DEFINITELY in Falkirk because we couldn't find any sign of it in Falaraki where I've just spent the last two weeks.

I know EXACTLY what you will be thinking and the answer is: no - not a single wireless router in sight. Conclusion = the Greeks are about three years behind us on broadband. If you want to check this, contact the Greek government. It is NOT my job to do this for you.

On many levels, the whole christening/holiday was a disaster. I ONLY packed the essentials in my suitcase (PC tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, mousemat) and left Herman to pack all the clothes.

On one level this demonstrates trust, but on another it demonstrates he's an idiot because he only filled his stuicase with amateur radio equipment (broadcaster/transmitter, microphone, 50ft of aerial, morse code book).

Now I actually see it in writing, the quantity of electrical equipment is almost DEFINITELY why it took us so long to get through passport control.

Anyway, the cloudy lining was that we had to wear the same clothes for two weeks. The irony is that this would probably have been a great bonus if we HAD actually gone to Falkirk (for obvious reasons).

Proof that Herman is not a logical thinker (like me) is that we couldn't even plug any of the equipment in as he didn't pack any travel adaptors. Instead, he brought a pack of Glade plug-in air-fresheners. If you've been doing the maths as you go along (recommended) you'll realise that the room STILL didn't smell nice because we didn't have any travel adaptors to plug the plug-ins into.

Another bad lining to the holiday cloud was that the weather was GREAT. Normally, this would be a boon but someone (Herman) didn't pack any sunscreen. Instead we had to make do with Deep Heat and Vicks. They stop the sun but they stink ROTTEN.

The sight and smell of Herman lathering himself up with linament next to the pool caused a lot of other hotel guests to complain to the hotel manager about stinging eyes and the whole pool area was closed for three days while they mistakenly drained the filter system.

On the plus side, our muscles were definitely relaxed (TOO relaxed in Herman's case) and we didn't have any Greek colds or Greek flu. Herman boasted to a Portuguese tourist that his sinuses were so clear that you could ride a bike through them, but the tourist got tetchy about this whopping claim and told him to prove it.

The only thing that diffused the situation was the fumes from the Vicks and Deep Heat which the tourist reacted badly to. We didn't see him when he came back from hospital so Herman's bicycle sinus claim still stands. It may well pass into local legend. If you go to Falaraki in the future, let me know.

On reflection, we could have solved a LOT of our problems using money but I don't trust Euros. Last time we had any foreign money, I got confused on "the schnapps" and thought I was playing Monopoly and tried to buy the hotel we were staying in. Lesson = avoid foreign currency.

The only silver lining is that we didn't go to Falkirk. I'm assuming that it's a right dump.

Greece versus Scotland

My agency (house) admin is in a SHOCKING state at the moment.

Last year, my husband and me were invited to a christening (only better than weddings in that they finish BANG on time, EVERY time). The tragedy in this story is that Herman spilled creosote on the invite when he was redecorating the downstairs loo, and we can't read whether we're meant to be going to Falkirk or Faliraki.

Common sense comes down HARD on Falkirk as Angus and Marion live there, but Herman has always had a yen to go to Faliraki so he's booked us two tickets on a budget airline.

The Faliraki yen is a big boast on his part as he's NEVER mentioning it in his diary in the last 27 years - I've really done the research on this one.

This is part of a MUCH bigger trend of lying about lifelong desires which aren't included in 'The Herman Documents' (his title for the diaries, not mine). Last week he claimed he had ALWAYS wished he could be hit by lightning, but I'm convinced he was just saying this to impress a competitively macho plumber.

Conclusion = the christening present is likely to be Ouzo, which will be MASSIVELY inappropriate for an infant, regardless of where the Scots really live. It doesn't matter though as they ALWAYS send a card when a gift would be more appropriate.