chrisroper.co.za » Ugly!

Chocolate stunts your growth

Chris — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:11:43 +0000

No man, what IS this! Why use a strange blonde midget with stunted arms to sell your chocolates? Who would possibly want to share their bubbles with a scowling, cartoon-villain gay stereotype in pyjama pants? When the marketers sat down to ‘brain’storm this one, what did they say. “Hey, there’s a massive untapped market in the disabled crap midget hairdressers sector, let’s create a character to appeal to them.” And to think companies pay for this shit.

Faraway Midget Stunted Chocolate Eater

I'm stretching..... all the way from the 80s.

Benign Girl!

Chris — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:12:26 +0000

Received this mail from Brett of Shit That I Think About. I must say, I don’t share his loathing of Benign Girl. Perhaps because I love totally ugly Chinese kitsch. But it’s ugly enough to feature here.

Brett’s mail:

“Chris

“Children’s toys are generally hideously colourful and garish. But this takes it to a new level. The word benign to me, brings up the word tumour or mole. I looked it up in the dictionary and lo and behold it also means gentle. Frankly I don’t care, my friends 3 year old daughter had this in her collection of ‘cds’.

“It’s important to teach your kids not to discriminate against people who have Cancer… BUT WHAT?!?!? Chinglish at its best (is that un-pc?)

“The photos are not great, but it was difficult to take pictures whilst throwing up.

“Brr”

Tumour Girl Rides Again.

Psychic Pussies

Chris — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:56:45 +0000

It’s bad enough having a magazine called Soul and Spirit on the shelves, exploiting gullible twits who believe in psychics, mediums and associated charlatans, but a special supplement called Is Your Pet Psychic? Jeez, people, what’s wrong with believing in the conventional flimflam of the major religions? Verily, it is as easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, as it is for an idiot to enter the kingdom of bullshit heavens. JENNY SMEDLEY HAS THE PROOF! Of course she does. Neighhhh.

Talkin' Pussy Blues

Soul and Spirit? More like Suckers and Salesmen.

Guns and beer

Chris — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:50:23 +0000

This is a Joburg bar’s idea of clever decor. I asked one of the guys there what the idea was, and he said something about a beer brand. Miller’s? Who knows. But it’s really not sexy, clever, stylish of anything else positive. It’s just stupid. Guess when you have an official World Cup song that starts off lauding soldiers (I suppose that’s to appeal to the Sudanese market), you can expect violent imagery to be part of the fun side of Joburg. And South Africa.

Plum wrong

Chris — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:53:28 +0000

God, I love it when people (I use the word loosely, and also because I tend to overuse the word moron) spend 1000s on a billboard or an advert, and can’t be bothered to copyedit a sentence. Like that Samsung ad squeezeback that ran on DSTV soccer for weeks before someone noticed that it said, “Samsung – in a league of it’s own”.

This is even funnier, because you actually have signage for the Royal Palm Hotel in background, but they still write “Royal Plum Hotel’ on the sign. Oh, and the URL for the hotel goes to a shoe store’s website, with no explanation. I’d love to know who the ad agency is. If any.

Sit on this

Chris — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:35:40 +0000

‘How hideous is this cushion? It’s like someone shaved a Maltese poodle and shredded the fur.’

Those are the immortal words of AmandaSevasti, whom I thank for this Ugly! contribution. It certainly, uh, unmade my day.

For beautiful things, visit her blog.

And if anyone has an Ugly! contribution, please mail me.

Ugly chess

Chris — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:13:02 +0000

Wandering through San Francisco’s Chinatown I took dozens of pics of really, really ugly gimcrack things. Masters of tat, the Chinese of San Francisco. For starters, the ugliest chess set you’ll ever see, except in the unlikely event that there’s one out there based on SA politicians (I can see Winnie as the Red Queen, and Julius Malema as the Donkey. Knight, you say? Oh.

Croc-ugly.

Chris — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:40:12 +0000

Thanks to @Nafisa of www.nafisa.co.za for this pic – yep, they’re giant Crocs. Just when you thought it wasn’t possible to get any uglier.

Little known facts of Croc horror -

1. Crocs sponsor SA singer Dozi. Yep. A match made in hell.

2. Scientists have proven that only cockroaches wearing Crocs will survive a nuclear holocaust.

Why do we still hate Crocs so much? If we do, and I hope we do.

Because, people, THEY’RE STILL OUT THERE! Just this weekend, someone tried to defend a Croc purchase to me, telling me they’re ‘comfortable’. Yes, so are safari suits. And at least safari suits are retro-cool.

This just in from @afairweather. Yep, high heeled Crocs.

Vomit Table

Chris — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:35:56 +0000

I’m starting a new section called ‘Ugly’, in homage to all the plugugly crap that we have to look at every day. Anyone is welcome to mail me a picture of something truly, awfully ugly they’ve seen recently, with a paragraph on just how ugly the thing is.

On chris@chrisroper.co.za

Today’s Ugly: a coffee table from @home, which appears to be the unholy love child of a toilet seat and snot blowing gaily in the wind. And it only costs R4900.00.

ANC-stylee

Chris — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:51:24 +0000

Good god. There ARE worse things than corruption, it appears. What on earth would possess the ANC (South Africa’s ruling party, the Absolutely Nauseating Clothes Party) to sell these awful, ugly, disgusting jackets? Just how much trouble is our poor country in? I’ve always voted ANC – nothing has turned me from that, not the antics of Zuma, the idiocy of Malema, the stupidity of Manto, nothing. But this is the kind of crime against humanity that can drive anyone into the welcoming arms of Helen Zille. For god’s sake, ANC – get a little dignity! And these pieces of crap come in xxxl! – that kind of sums up the fat cat thing. Damn, my eyeballs are bleeding. The is the first convincing argument I’ve ever seen in favour of curtailing freedom of expression. (Thanks to @urbanrenewal for the heads up, and the resultant rising gorge).