You can't create a craze, it just happens.
So with that in mind if I see one more advert or poster campaign featuring some silly little animal puppet or alien character whom you're encouraged to then follow on Facebook or go directly to their internet page in the hope that a nationwide love-in of Meerkat proportions gets off the ground, I will carry out my threat to run through a country town in a see-through latex bodystocking and footless tights.
I noticed one this morning as I was going up the Tube escalator. This was something called 'Hector'. There was no info, except a URL where we can, if we are so inclined, follow the adventures of this cartoon dachsund who no doubt is meant to be a character we're all meant to find hilarious and fall in love with. Enough already.
Those meerkats have a lot to answer for. That particular moment passed a long time ago. I don't want to see them building up their part in little stories about wars or family history. It's not funny. It was never funny. But now TV is full of these wannabes.
I noticed two in swift succession just the other day, but so tedious were they I don't recall anything about them. It just registered with me that here once again was some shameless bandwagon jumping by marketeers with an eye on the main chance. Well, that is their job I suppose.
There have been many hateful creatures over the years: flat Eric, those Vauxhall Corsa things, the Comfort family who look like they were created out by Clothkits, etc., and they all have their Twitter accounts and their Facebook pages. I mean really, what kind of nutcase actually checks these things out? Kids? Educationally stunted adults with an under-developed sense of humour? Probably.
Or is it you?
