Celebrity Tooth King gets me smiling

The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth: Dr Sunny Luthra's doordrop mailing

I was amused recently to see a leaflet drop through my door advertising the services of a man who describes himself, very modestly, as a "Top Harley Street celebrity dentist". According to the gushing copy, Dr Sunny Luthra was acclaimed by The Sunday Times as "the celebrity tooth King" for 'cutting edge' procedures such as '30 Minute Teeth Whitening' and 'Same Day Veneers'. We learn that Dr Sunny is a regular on Richard & Judy and that his surgery in South West London is full of glass, chrome and Italian leather.

There are lots of rather hideous before-and-after shots of people with minging mouths who've been reconstructed a la the Bionic Man. But all is forgiven, because there's also a poem. It's unattributed, so I wonder whether it might have been penned by the celebrity tooth King himself. I won't treat you to it all, but here's a sample: "Smiling is infectious. You catch it like the flu. When somebody smiled at me today, I started smiling too."

Dr Sunny, I like your style, mate. But you'll excuse me for saying that it will have to be a very rainy day before I ever check out the digital telly and pre-preview impression computer software.

02.17.06 @ 05:01 PM PDT [link]

A few observations on the Winter Olympics
1. What are those things they're giving out as medals? They look like CDs that came out of the bargain bucket at Woolies.

2. Since when has "to medal" been a verb? Someone has clearly been meddling with the English language.

3. That bloke on the skeleton bob, who's the boyfriend of the girl who won silver, is apparently known as "Dr Ice" because he has a PhD in engineering. He designed his own board. I like the nickname. But if I had a PhD, I like to think I'd be too clever to throw myself around an ice track at the speed of the 2.40 from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.

4. Where are Torvill and Dean? Don't they do that Bolero dancing thing any more?

5. I like Sue Barker as a commentator, but would prefer Pam Shriver or John McEnroe.

My homepage: www.philwoodford.com


02.17.06 @ 04:47 PM PDT [link]

Londis shop radio (revisited)
I've blogged before about this sad genre of syndicated shop radio. I don't want you to think I'm in Londis all the time, but I suppose it's my local 'convenience' store and it's run by a nice bunch of guys and has a pharmacy etc. I feel I ought to support it.

But they do have this embarrassing radio station that's pumped out around the UK. I think I'm right in saying that it's actually bought in by a number of chains, who have their own ads and promos spliced into the shows. Nice little earner for whoever came up with it.

Anyway, that's not the point of this blog, which is becoming a bit like a Ronnie Corbett sketch. The point is that I was listening yesterday to this DJ as I picked my way among the mushrooms towards the chocolate biscuits. She was talking about Robbie Williams and the Brit Awards and for a moment you might have thought you were listening to any mainstream radio station. Suddenly, however, she shifted 180 degrees and started asking whether we had enough tea and coffee in the house. It was always important to keep a good supply, because you never knew when friends might pop round and you wouldn't want to be embarrassed. Let me tell you, I was embarrassed just listening to her. "Up with the Partridge" on Radio Norwich has nothing on Londis, believe me. How any self-respecting person could sit themselves in a studio and spout this stuff is beyond me. I can't believe it pays, so it must be the thought that one day she'll be on Radio One. Let's hope she remembers to drop the tea and coffee references when she takes over from Chris Moyles.
02.15.06 @ 04:52 PM PDT [link]

A middle-aged woman in Londis yesterday
One can of Kronenbourg 1664. 99p. That's it. Nothing else. She looked quite respectable though.

A good year for beer and a great sale for Londis.
02.15.06 @ 04:43 PM PDT [link]

Life on Mars: Reg sets 2 o'clock deadline for improvement in plot
The barking mad BBC time-travel drama, Life on Mars, really does manage to get worse every single week. Alright, I admit that I'm still watching. But increasingly it's out of fascination for how far the scripts can actually deteriorate. It's almost as if a conscious attempt has been made to make each episode more preposterous than the preceding one.

For those of you who have missed the series so far and don't have a benefit of a time machine, Detective Inspector Sam Tyler (played by the formerly respected luvvie, John Simm) is in a coma. But it isn't just any old coma. It's a coma set in the early 1970s, when if you wanted to tell someone you were on a train, you had to get off at the next station and insert 2p when you heard the pips.

This week, some bloke called Reg - who wanted to be a hero, but never got to fight in the war - holds a couple of hacks hostage at the local newspaper. They don't recognise him, but it turns out he's been the unsung janitor there for the past eight years. Why didn't they notice him emptying the bins and turning the lights on and off, for crying out loud? It might have saved a lot of bloodshed.

To cut a long story short, Simm and his co-star Philip Glenister get holed up with Reg and have about twenty opportunities to jump him. The old boy is as crazy as teabags and turns his back on them about every five seconds, but it takes a number of hours before anyone even considers an escape. Even then, Reg - the soldier who never was - somehow manages to herd about five of them back into custody.

I should have said that Reg has set a deadline. At 2 o'clock - the time the presses roll - someone is going to die. And DI Tyler suspects that this will be the cue for his mother to turn off his life support machine in the world outside the 1970s Matrix. That would definitely be the end of his coma, full stop.

Things looked bleak, but there was one subtle clue to Sam's likely survival. The certain knowledge that there are at least two more episodes. Possibly even three.





02.13.06 @ 04:22 PM PDT [link]

Websites you will probably never need to visit 003
Recall of a stapler product back in 2002: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml03/03017.html
02.12.06 @ 03:38 PM PDT [link]

She cannot be serious


This is how Mrs W sees me. Admittedly, it's a quick sketch done on the back of an envelope, but I look like some kind of criminal out of a Dickens novel. It's based on the photo below. In which I also look a bit like a criminal out of a Dickens novel, it has to be said.
02.12.06 @ 03:31 PM PDT [link]