Coronation St Emoticon Adverts for Tactical Pens

Had a million people in our house yesterday - period!

I  get a lot of messages, text or whatever, containing yellow smiley or laughing faces, yet I stick to the tried and tested ;o) - primarily because I don't know how to find the yellow ones and fear they are humungous eaters of data on a phone. However, I'm starting to feel that the younger generation no longer understand the old manual emoticons and I'm becoming a bit of an emoticon fossil. I've also noticed they're more a female thing, and used in excess by them in the same vein as multiple question and exclamation marks, which are needless.

For some reason or other I was looking up the Wiki page for Ena Sharples of Coronation St fame, as you do, and discovered she has a whole back-history which could form the basis of an excellent spin-off soap set during and after WWI. ITV is missing a trick here.

I keep seeing adverts on Facebook for the same daft things. One is a Norland Whisky glass at the princely sum of £42. Why anyone would want to spend more than the price of a bottle of whiskey on a glass to drink it from is beyond me. The other is a plasma lighter (a bit like a taser) that prevents you having to inhale the dangerous combustion gasses from lighter gas. Again, a bit pointless when your next action is likely to  be inhaling a lungful of carcinogenic, tar-infused cigarette smoke.

The piece de resistance has to be the advert for a Tactical Pen, probably instigated by yesterday's post on the Sheaffer. It converts very quickly into an offensive weapon, as if a pen can't already be offensive in the right, literate hands (ergo, the pen being mightier than the sword).