Some things just don't need to be said

Now I make a point of watching the commercials on telly or listening to them on the radio. For me it’s a learning experience. Many of them use a quality of voiceover that I aspire to be. Sometimes you just hear a voice and you instantly know the product that they’re advertising. You know who we’re talking about, or perhaps more importantly, the brands in question.

Honda is one of my personal favourites. They use a guy called Garrison Keillor and his voice has the power to convince me that any product he’s talking about can be trusted. Any idea he mentions is sure to change the world. Let’s face it, if a company manages to hire a voice that gets you reaching for your wallet before you even know what you’re buying, then they have hit the jackpot.

Sadly, the majority of adverts in this country are a learning experience for entirely the opposite reason. These are the adverts that have the general public wondering just how something so awful could have made it onto the air. “Did they run out money?”, “Where do they find these morons?”, and so on.

| bet you’re thinking of one right now aren’t you? I am. There’s a double glazing company that employ this bloke with long wavy hair but nothing on top to essentially shout at you about their special offers. I can’t remember the name of the company, where they are based or what their phone number is. Now that’s what I call powerful advertising!

But there is the third breed. The advert that is produced well, voiced properly and edited nicely. It’s just that the script is utterly ridiculous. My personal favourite is for a firm offering laser eye surgery. “All of our procedures are carried out by experienced, qualified surgeons”. Well thanks very much! I was rather hoping you wouldn’t let the new work experience girl have a crack at my eyes with a massive frickin’ laser! Sure, she makes a lovely cup of tea but surely we have to draw the line somewhere.

We voiceovers are hired to interpret the words and bring them to life. We do the best we can with what we have but we have all of us learned not to question the wisdom of the copywriter, the director, the producer, the client’s representative - even that work experience girl with the big frickin’ laser.

And so to my quest. I want to put together the top 10 worst adverts of all time - as voted for by you. They can be poorly acted, badly shot, scripted by monkeys or voiced by people with the personality of grouting - whatever it is, post your comment, ideally with a You Tube link so I can see it for myself, and the results will be posted here soon, so stay tuned.

Speaking at the Airport

Even though it’s a good two months before the family and I head off on our holidays - yes, I know, I’m working through the summer months whilst everyone else goes off to play melanoma roulette - I keep thinking about checking in at the airport.

Now the security people would have us believe that the security has been beefed up a lot in recent years. I’m sure it has, and it’s given rise to every cliche you can imagine whilst waiting in the queues:

“Of course, it wasn’t always like this, but what would you prefer, waiting an extra five minutes or getting on a plane with a terrorist?”

Interesting point, is there a third option where you get on the plane with the terrorist and I fly somewhere else? I’m thinking Florida....

The thing it, despite all of this new security, we’re still getting asked all the same questions as we get ready to pay an extra twenty pounds because our luggage has gone over the limit by half an ounce. It’s not my fault, my wife Shelly has never found a decent hair dryer in any hotel room ever, so she insists upon packing her own bloody salon in there! I’m allowed to make hair jokes - I have none of my own with which to make fun.

Again, it’s always the same questions - “Did you pack the bag yourself?”, “Could anyone have interfered with your bags?” blah blah blah. Now I don’t know about you, but I think that the terrorists........prepare yourself.......I think that they may have worked out the right answers.

I mean what did they think was happening on the 10th September? “Ahmed, what do you have for question one?......Oh, so I did pack the bag myself, wow that could have been really embarrassing.”

And we’re all absolutely terrified to try and make a little joke when speaking with the check in people. What do we think is going to happen? An immediate strip search just as soon as I suggest that I allowed some random stranger in army gear to pack my bag for me? It’s like the second we’re confronted with people in authority, our body language tells the world that we are guilty. It doesn’t matter what we’re guilty of, we just are and we really should be taken straight to prison - or hell - whichever is closer.

So if you should happen to work at airport security and have found this blog whilst googling job opportunities, I salute you, because most of us are apparently more terrified of you than we are of The Taliban. Hmmmm - putting that word into a blog - I wonder where else this is going to show up now?

And so it begins

As a voice artist, I’m often asked to look at the multitude of different dialects that we have throughout this wonderful world of ours.

I certainly have my favourites - I enjoy some of the Eastern European dialects, which is handy if I ever want to get work on a building site. Of course, first I would have to learn a little something about building, because if it’s anything more complicated than putting up a shelf, you’re really better off calling the professionals. 

Amongst my very favourite though is Welsh. Ah Wales - the country that gave us Tom Jones, Catherine Zeta Jones, Aled Jones and of course - Charlotte Church Jones.

Now in North Wales they are very proud of their language. All of their road signs are written in both English and Welsh - which is weird for place names because in most cases, the English name and the Welsh name are exactly the same. Maybe the sign makers were getting paid by the letter, so that’s a smart move on their part.

This is a language which is sometimes completely devoid of vowels. Seriously, there are words in that language that would choke an ordinary man before he got to the end of a sentence. It’s like melodic phlegm. And can you imagine what Welsh Countdown is like?

“I’ll have a consonant please.....and another.....and another.....and another......I think you know where I’m going with this” Thirty seconds later and they’ve managed five 7 letter words, two first names and the names of a couple of railway stations for good measure!

There are accents which lift the spirit, and there are accents which scare the living daylights out of people. I’m not going to name names here, because I’d hate to think my first blog was taken down on the grounds of incitement to racial hatred.

Anyway, in case you’re interested - I can do the Welsh accent if you need it.

Until next time.....