More venom from the fountain pen of Mr Hunt (he writes it all out long hand, it takes me forever to type it up … and the paper always smell funny – like sweat and fried onions):

ADVERTS: Selling idocy

There are degrees of idiocy. Everything is on a scale and even I can accept that pointless cultural afterbirths like Westlife or Simon Cowell aren’t really in the same league as people like (yawn) George W. Bush who elevated the practice of idiocy to truly apocalyptic levels.

So with that in mind I’d cheerfully hold my hands up and admit that today’s idiots are certainly at the shallow end of the pool – idiot-wise. They’re irritating certainly, but not life threatening.

Nevertheless, I hate them.

I’m not even sure who they are. The smarmy marketing executives who have decided that every advert on our screens must be populated by skinny indie kids and sound tracked by obscure jangly, high pitched electro folk. These adverts have begun to spread across ad-land like a aesthetically-pleasing, ethnically-balanced cancer.

Let’s start with the indie kids as they’re the most obvious part of the problem. Firstly, no one has groups of friends like these dead-eyed, perma-grinning morons but if you’re convinced you’ve got what it takes, here are a list of rules you must follow if you and your pals fancy flogging a few phones or an internet service provider:

1. You should all be models.
2. Make sure you are all androgynous looking and wearing skinny tees. Anything baggy will severely decrease your chances of making people want to be like you.
3. A warm autumnal colour scheme should be enforced rigorously. Immediately ostracise anyone who wears black or fluorescent colours.
4. Someone must wear a scarf at all times. Even in summer.
5. Someone must have an afro. If it’s the scarf guy then you get double points.
6. You must, must, must all be from different ethnic backgrounds. If, for example, you suddenly find yourself with two Hispanics in the same group, pick the skinniest and stop answering calls from Chunky.
7. Don’t ever speak, just grin at each other like the smug cat that got the double smug cream. If you need motivation for all the grinning, just think how skinny and attractive you are.
8. Take up a retro hobby/activity such as kite flying, colouring with crayons or go karting. Learn to climb trees and make things from rubbish – sculptures, jewellery, voodoo dolls …
8. All grow stupid, stubbly pretend indie beards.

Congratulations, you are now all giant dicks.

As for the music, this is slightly more problematic as a lot of it is actually pretty good. Joanna Newsom for instance, is a legend. The world can never have enough punk harpists. So it’s not the music as such but the way it’s been identified, isolated and cynically commoditised. The first time awesome left-field music was used it was probably a genius idea but now it’s become insipid. It’s just part of the formula, another great idea that’s been packaged and duplicated ad nauseum in the mistaken belief that lightning can be bottled, that originality doesn’t tarnish and fade like everything else. Artists are brought into the abattoir of the modern music industry even earlier and everyone loses.

Repetition, negative association, death.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Stop it!

No, seriously, STOP IT!