Now, see, I know I’m not the only person to find the Bird’s Eye Polar Bear adverts creepy. I know this for a fact. Other people find him creepy too. The great divide seems to be whether or not we like him.

Short answer: I don’t.

It’s bad enough that there’s this passive-aggressive, snarky mammal in the freezer that in real life would be ten times my size with feet the size of bicycle wheels, teeth designed for ripping seals apart and a tendency to chomp first, ponder prey-appropriateness later. Bad enough that he’s voiced by an actor I best remember going off his head in Platoon. I mean, is that why he can’t tell whether it’s a pea or a cannonball? Because he’s still having flashbacks?

He tries to tell you what to eat! A polar bear! Who lives in the freezer! And somehow can survive the lack of air and general scarcity of seals in the average British domestic household!

Then I realised. He’s trapped in there, talking to himself, going batshit crazy like Adrian Brody in The Jacket. Playing with the switch that makes the light go on and off until the bulb blows; or fapping into the bags of vegetables while trying to drink himself to death on ice-cold vodka. The only interruption in his interminable life of tedium, imprisoned in the dark with the tupperware boxes filled with solidified leftovers and the peas that escaped from the bag to grow wrinkled and grey in the hoarfrost, is when someone opens the door.

He’s deranged. Anyone would be after being stuck in there. There is no one who could possibly survive that sort of environment mentally intact. But these people, coming to the door, letting in a brief glimpse of daylight and a warmer world of colour and sun… He has to be careful. He can’t scare them off. They might not come back. He has to be nice, friendly, helpful.

There’s nothing quite so creepy as a deranged predator trying to be nice, especially when the mask slips and the simmering rage and hatred sneaks out in the form of sharpened sarcasm:

“Hey, Laura. You know, I love preparing chicken.”

“Really?”

“No, Laura, nobody does.”

“I’m feeling a little neglected… And Clive? Don’t be a stranger.”

I swear the subtext to that reads: “Because if you are, next time you open this door you might just find that I gut you like a pig.”

“Urgh, gerroff. You’re lying on my food.”
“I’m not lying on your food, I’m lying on your ribcage.”
“And it’s pressing all my food over. I have a food baby.”
“You have a salad baby?”
“And maybe a pie baby. Because of the half a dozen mini pork and pickle pies I bought in the shop.”
“YOU HAD SIX PIES?”
“Er… No?”
“No?”
“No. I had one pie.”
“You said you had six!”
“I bought six. I had one.”
“What happened to the rest?”
“I was mugged.”
“You were mugged.”
“Yes. By a bat.”
“A bat?”
“Yes. It swooped down and mugged me for a pie.”
“But that’s one pie.”
“Then I was mugged by a doggage. It swooped down too.”
“A swooping doggage?”
“Yes.”
“And the next pie?”
“I was mugged by a cathedral.”
“A cathedral?”
“Yes.”
“Did it swoop too?”
“No, it was lurking.”
“Okay, so that’s four pies. What about the fifth pie?”
“I was mugged by a band of unruly elementary particles. They wafted in and stole it. I don’t know what sort they were because they were too small to see.”
“Elementary particles. Right. What about the fifth pie?”
“That was han archangel.”
“Really. Which one? Because I’ll ask them.”
“The archangel Piethief.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just nom all the pies yourself?”
“No! I only had one pie, the pie you saw me eating. I didn’t buy half a dozen pies and schrompf them all, oh no. I was mugged. By a bat and a swooping doggage…”
“And a cathedral.”
“Yes.”

Note that you too can share in the brain-melting world of Frood by following him on twitter. Good luck and be warned: it’s catching.

I have a shameful confession to make: I am addicted to Top Model.

I spend most of my work day dealing with situations that are either technically or diplomatically complex, or both, and when I get home of an evening I don’t have the mental energy for anything other than mindless viewing. There are a few programmes on the telly that manage to provide this without causing sufficient aggravation to make me want to kick the box, which is the main problem with soaps. I don’t want angst. I don’t want human relationships. I don’t want anything that will make me cringe. People who are engaged in a competition that is marginally reliant on something resembling skill or ability, and which they think is the most important thing in the world despite it being completely pointless on a practical level, is about my level of braindead television. Project Runway and its UK equivalent occupy a similar niche.

Most of the time Frood goes and does something constructive while I’m in a near-catatonic state of vegetation in front of this programme, however he often comes through for the final judging in which Tyra and company critique the girls.

Frequently the contestants are told to “bring it” and it has exercised us, on a casual basis, to determine what this “it” is. We have been confused. What is “it”? From whence does “it” come? How big is “it”? What does “it” look like?

After careful perusal of advertisements and the sort of programmes that seem to be popular, we think we have determined what “it” is.

According to the Thompson’s advert it can fit in a suitcase. It can’t be overly heavy because the skinny girls on Top Model have to be capable of carrying it. According to a Ministry of Sound advert one is required to inflate it (“pump it”). It may or may not be blue.

We think “it” is a one-man bouncy castle. It’s the only thing that meets all the requirements.

Darling.

So if you want to win a $100,000 contract with Cover Girl cosmetics, the thing to do is visit a company specialising in industrial rubber and get them to make you a bouncy castle big enough for Miss J Alexander but not so big that you can’t carry it. Remember to tell everyone not to wear high heels.

Frood got me this for Christmas.

Heeee!

He thinks this is the best thing he has ever seen, EVAR. Every time he sees it he starts laughing.

Mind you, so do I.

We made this:

“You’re a lesser spotted, frangible geek.”

OH REALLY.