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"...Atheists! Atheists? Over here please. You must be feeling a right bunch of charlies.
Okay, and Christians! Christians? Ah yes, I'm sorry, I'm afraid the Jews were right..."

Have you noticed heaven is always defined by who is left out more than who is let in... allows for all sorts of abuses...

And in other news, a British humourist was imprisoned for hate speech today by the French government.

It made references to using a visa card numerous times.

Of course it's obviously based on the character in Barclaycard commercials played by Rowen Atkinson himself, and for which he was awarded a Bafta for Best Actor. The series of adverts in which he plays a British special agent was basis of the characters and the setting for the entire episode, it wasn't as if it taken out of context. I think everybody who's seen the adverts understood the reference and got the joke.

The fact that the millenium dome was supposedly a celebration of life and culture, to see product placement in arguably one of britains finest comedies of all time ruined the experience for me.

I enjoyed the Dome though the episode of Blackadder, which is now on public release, was very weak indeed and is easily the least of all the episodes filmed. Sponsorship or nae, the references to the adverts still provide humerous unspoke reference in the form of a very inclusive 'in joke' (inclusive, as it's an 'in joke' that around 95% of British public who saw the episode understood). I would have been equally as amused by them had they not been sponsored and written in entirely for humerous purposes by the writers (as well the might have been).

I belive that appropriate sponsorship in media is actually something to welcome. Having real logos on racing cars, cola adverts on bill boards, sports apparel advertising in sports stadiums actually adds to realism and adds to the level of immersion the game can offer. It's certainly superior to seeing repeated copies of publisher/developers logo where the adverting should be (as with the older FIFA series by EA) or poorly done parodies (though I do appreciate the small number of genuinely amusing parodies I've seen).

It's also of note that many in the modding community illegally use adverts and images from real world products in their mods (Coke, Pepsi and DrPepper vending machines, Pizza Hut boxes, packs of Malboro, cans of Budweiser are all things I recall seeing) purely to enhance the atmosphere of the level/total conversion - they are of course not being paid to use these images (and as mentioned potentially breeching copyright by using them, though I can't see many companies objecting).

If at the same time as adding appropriate, unintrusive advertising that adds to the level of realisim and enhances the overall experience we can also bring down the cost of games, that's entirely to be welcomed in my opinion.

The level of advertising is dependant entirely on what the market will bear, so I don't think there is any cause for fear that the level of sponsorship will get out of hand. Games publishers are not so desperate for cash they would repeatedly jepordise sales and therefore their existance by completely butchering their games.

Rowan Atkinson did a great comedy sketch based on a premise a little like that:

Rowan Atkinson plays of course the lead role in BlackAdder and Mr. Bean.

...Something smells fishy about this.

(ouch. Sorry, had to be said).

Made me think about the Dr. Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death, though.

I've heard he was originally an engineer. Is that true?

He was trained as an electrical engineer.

Triv

Reminds me of that devil sketch by Rowan Atkinson ("Mr Bean") in which he tell the atheists in the audience:

You must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits!