I have today been browsing the Web since I have been unable to get in touch with any of my customers. They're obviously so tired after the Christmas and New Year break that they are taking time off to recover!

I have just happened on the site of my local Brewery, Pilgrim - http://www.pilgrim.co.uk/ - and just had to share with you their motto:

"Your thirst fought everyday".

I thought that was wonderful and so much better than some of the self-important puffery that many organisations seem to think will persuade people to think well of their products.

What are your own favourites (or most hated)?

I confess I have never wanted to go to Milwaukee once I heard that Shlitz was "the beer that made Milwaukee famous". With such a claim to fame...!

Richard English

There is a local sportswear company, Columbia Sportswear, that uses its president, Gertrude Boyle, a septuagenarian with a fierce scowl, in its adverts. The slogan is, "Tough Mother."

The advertising slogan of my local brewery - Banks's - has for many years been "Unspoilt by progress".

For many years it was also true. Sadly in recent years the quality has declined and since their takeover of the Marston's brewery both have suffered.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

The newish Banks's pub at Fiveways, Birmingham used to be called the "Unspoilt by Progess" if my memory serves me aright. The last time I went there, though, it had changed both its name and its ambience. Loud music, big-screen TV showing football; fruit machines...

Richard English

There are several good ones I've seen over the years but let me relate one of the most bizarre.

Screw magazine was (as in past tense; I don't think it's published any longer) a proudly trashy newspaper that each month dealt candidly (industry buzzword, there) with sexual matters, the kinkier the better. Early in their history, they canvassed the New York City slums looking for women who, to put it mildly, could have been considered pretty much the opposite of the famous Playboy bunny.

After hiring an unknown number of middle-aged, repulsively unhygenic-looking, horrifically dressed, "attractiveness-challenged" female winos (and I hate to sound insensitive regarding these poor souls but, honestly, they were a mess!) they gave each a stack of sample magazines and brought them to New York's Grand Central Station. There they were instructed to walk up to well-dressed businessmen and politely ask "Wanna Screw?" which was, at that time, the magazine's slogan.

What they were saying, of course, was "Want a Screw?" or, in other words, "Would you care to peruse a free sample of this fine adult literature?" as evidenced by the copy they extended to the individual. The expressions on the faces of the men had to have been priceless.

Don't know how successful the campaign was, though.

Richard, as a Wisconsiner myself, boy do I agree with you about Schlitz being the beer that made Milwaukee famous. Milwaukee has so many other redeeming features.

Interesting question. I found the following website online that I had fun with. For example, the motto of Nederland, Texas: A little bit of Netherlands in Southeast Texas. Now, have any of you been in Southeast Texas? I clearly doubt that motto!
Another: The coldest spot in Iowa for Washta, Iowa. That seems like a strange motto to me!

And do I really want to go to the "Furniture and Hosiery Capital of the World"?

Even if it were true (which I doubt) surely Thomasville NC has more to offer than tables and socks!

Richard English

That was the slogan for a local amusement park here for years. It made me ill after the first five or six times hearing a kid scream it, even worse after a couple thousand times!