WASHED AND READY TO EAT

I was approached recently by Professor Dame Sally C Davies and Professor Rory Collins, who wrote on behalf of the Department of Health to ask me to participate in a programme called UK Biobank. Their ambitious aim is to sign up half a million Brits aged between 40 and 69 and monitor their health over a number of years. Creeping in at the very bottom of the age range, I perhaps have the most to gain from this long-term project, as potentially they'll be able to identify trends that will help in the fight against disabling and life-threatening illnesses. Nevertheless, I've told them to get lost. They want three tablespoons of my blood, as well as saliva and urine, but that's not the only way in which they're taking the p**s. I'm expected to attend a two-hour appointment at a centre which is inaccessible by public transport from where I live. The idea is I then agree to wear a wrist monitor for a week and give permission for them to analyse my confidential medical reco...

The Afghan elections have attracted a lot of international media scrutiny. One of the bonuses for female observers is the re-emergence of former Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah. Now one of the presidential candidates, he has aged a little and sports a grey beard. But as Mrs W observes, he's still so good looking, they named him twice.

Apparently they're checking the gender of that South African athlete because of her astonishing recent performances. Shouldn't they also do some tests on Usain Bolt? My theory is that he's a closet East German shotputter.

I couldn't resist another quick snippet from Ronald Pelham's book of stock letters written in the late 1940s. Here's another common-or-garden situation. You're a widower and you want to acquire a second wife by post. She's a widow and thus in the market. MY DEAR MRS. MARLOWE Since my friendship with you and the great pleasure I have had in it, the loneliness of my life and the anticipation of an even more lonely future have seemed to me unendurable. That your life is a lonely and anxious one, too, I have guessed from the confidences with which you have honoured me. Can we not help to brighten each other's lives and lighten each other's burdens? I'll spare you the rest, as I'm sure you get the picture. How many times, I wonder, was this letter sent in the post-war era with only a few modest adjustments? Like changing the lady's name at the top, perhaps? Pelham is conscious of the fact that his readers may, in fact, include the female recip...

It's always fun to flick through the ephemera of yesteryear. Two gems have come to my attention recently and I wanted to share them with WARTE readers. I'm already tweeting 'How to be a good hostess' at www.twitter.com/spillershostess . It's a small, ring-bound book produced as a promotional vehicle for Spillers Flour in what I judge to be the tail-end of the 1950s. The foreword is by actress Anna Neagle , who praises the 'gay and lively' ideas contained in the publication and is full of advice for aspiring hostesses. 'Don't think that only a married woman, helped by her family, can earn a good-hostess reputation,' she writes. 'Bachelor girls can do wonderfully well at it too...' The advice on teenage 'get-togethers' makes particularly interesting reading. Mum is supposed to take her daughter aside and tell her that she and Daddy will be out for the evening, but back at 11. 'See all the washing up's done and the place ti...

I'm just contemplating one of the worst corporate straplines I've seen in a very long time. P&H Sweets sets our pulses racing with the slogan 'Always delivering retail snacking solutions'. Let's be charitable and concede that they're targeting retailers with their message rather than consumers. Even so, their line fails on so many levels. Are they distinguishing themselves from rivals who only sometimes offer retail snacking solutions? Or those who offer a completely different kind of snacking solution? The non-retail kind that we'd never buy in a shop. Let's be honest. Even the guys in my local Londis would be surprised to hear they were selling snacking solutions. They are likely to be under the common misapprehension that their shelves are full of sweets and chocolates. It's one for tomorrow's copywriting course, that's for sure. Where I always deliver first-class corporate training solutions.

The folks at Waitrose know how to rustle up a fancy sandwich. Take their limited edition Poached Salmon offering, for instance, complete with pea purée, mint and tartare sauce. Never has so much pretention found itself stuffed between two slices of bread. But listen to the blurb on the packet. They get their salmon from 'the cold, clear waters around Scotland where fish can swim against the tide, becoming lean and full of flavour.' God forbid they'd select bland, flabby salmon that neglect nature's exercise regime in favour of an easy ride with the prevailing current. I dread to think what other horse manure this over-excited copywriter is planning to write about alternative sandwiches in the range. But I never eat chicken unless I know the bird has a personal trainer and flaps at least three miles a day.

The Iraqi government has recently announced that it intends to introduce a ban on smoking in public places. At last I'm able to give Baghdad serious consideration as a holiday destination.

Oxford University offers an interesting range of one-day courses, which seem to be open to the general public. For just £46, for instance, you might choose to sign up for a day school on 10th October, entitled 'Space, Time and the Universe'. Quite how accessible the event is, however, remains open to question. The agenda provides a few clues. 10.00 am Special Relativity 11.15am General Relativity 1.00pm Space-time and black holes 2.15pm Space-time and the universe Imagine the coffee breaks.

Amid the controversy over David Cameron's use of swearwords on the radio, you may have missed the revelation about his favourite character from the A-Team. The posh Tory leader apparently identifies most with Mr T. And there was me thinking he modelled himself on the smooth-talking con artist, Face.

If you're looking for a pick-me-up, you could do worse than visit www.oldjewstellingjokes.com Here's a sample of what you're in for...

The British government is a great believer in straightforward questions and answers when it comes to swine flu. So here are a few of my own, based on empirical observations in a number of clinical settings. (As well as watching the telly and looking at Twitter.) Q. Is it possible to distinguish between the symptoms of swine flu and any other kind of flu or nasty respiratory virus? A. Not really. They can all give you a high temperature, a cough and some aches and pains. The only way of knowing whether someone's got swine flu is to take a swab and send it to a path lab. Q. Are we therefore swabbing anyone we suspect of having swine flu? A. No. That's too difficult, time-consuming and expensive. And it means that people who may be infected need to come to the surgery. Q. So how do we know if someone has swine flu or not? A. We don't. But if they tell us on the phone that they have a high temperature and a cough, we'll say it's likely they have it. Q. And if it's...

Earlier this year, budget hotel chain Premier Inn claimed in its UK newspaper advertisements that it offered "everything you'd expect from a 4* hotel". Having worked in the ad industry, I know there's inevitably a certain amount of poetic licence in the promotion of products and services. Sometimes, however, boundaries get crossed. I protested to the Advertising Standards Authority about the misleading nature of the claim and was pleased to see this week that the watchdog ruled against the Whitbread-owned business , saying that the ads breached three sections of the relevant codes of practice. As I frequently tell my students, however, the British regulatory system tends to be rather toothless. The ads won't appear again with the same form of words. But the campaign is now over and some months have elapsed since the original insertions. Is there any way we could create a system that works faster and carries more clout?

Staying recently at the Hilton in Cardiff, I was a little bemused by the luxury chain's colour-coded breakfast guide . In order that residents can watch what they eat, every item of food on the menu is given a badge reminiscent of the playing pieces in Trivial Pursuit. Low fat and low cholesterol foods are marked in subtle blues. High fibre is green. But what of the stuff that isn't so good for you? The traditional English fry-up, perhaps? Or the high-fat cheeses that sit on the continental counter? Well, watch out for the red and yellow symbols. Although the colours spell danger, the names don't. Red stands for 'hi-energy'. According to the corporate blurb, it's just the kind of stuff you might need if you want to go on a day's sightseeing. If you're feeling particularly decadent, you can go the whole hog and follow the yellow 'indulgence' trail. This seems to give you carte blanche - or carte jaune, perhaps - to eat anything you want, althoug...

Driving Fatigue advert from Driving Fatigue on Vimeo .

The Telegraph reports that a small haberdashery chain in Eastern England rejects 90% of job applicants because they're unable to do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Presumably the remaining 10% are rejected for not knowing what haberdashery is.

One of the mini-Ws has been studying advertising and persuasive writing at school and recently took in a jpeg of a slogan I wrote for a supermarket chain. It was proudly shown to the class of primary school kids, complete with explanation and rationale. A classmate then had a chance to do her own 'show and tell'. She opened up a box and produced a dead dragonfly.

Nicholas Penny, Director of London's National Gallery, has claimed that Trafalgar Square is being 'trashed' and has become 'bloody awful'. It seems the great unwashed are playing music, drinking, climbing on plinths and so on and this is upsetting the equilibrium in what he describes as his 'temple of art'. It's this kind of elitist snobbery that drives countless people away from high culture. 20 years ago, the great British public rioted in that 'bloody awful' square to protest against a poll tax that penalised the poor. Sports fans gathered there more recently to hear the news that London was to host the 2012 Olympics. Lord Nelson gazes down on an iconic stage that has played a massive part in the vibrant culture and history of the capital. And I'm not sure he pays much attention to the prima donnas and intellectuals who snipe from the sidelines.

Lovely project from two students I taught at Kingston University. They've explored the idea of 'greenwashing' by creating eco-friendly packaging for products such as weedkiller and rat poison. The stuff looks so harmless, you could imagine sprinkling it on your cereal. More information at http://eleanorsdesignbox.blogspot.com

The term ‘character’ is perhaps a little overused, but – believe me – Hugh Symons was a character. Not many people, after all, get to star in GQ magazine at the age of 80. And even fewer octogenarians are selected for inclusion because they happen still to be playing football. Hughie died recently after a period in a major London teaching hospital. He had once been a consultant there, but unfortunately – as old age and memory loss took its toll – he wouldn’t have recalled the fact. And the staff who treated him were none the wiser either. If we turned back the clock a few decades, however, Hughie was actually a rheumatology specialist and in charge of physical medicine. Leading football players of the day would come to him with their knocks and injuries, which would have put him into seventh heaven, as Hughie himself had been a very useful player in his time. He signed for Wimbledon in an age when they’d pay you a shilling and cover your bus fare if you turned up for training. In th...