For UK watchers of commercial television

[Glen]

I have a specific question and a general question.

Specific question, for watchers of commercial television in the UK. I've been listening to Radio 4 comedy podcasts, and on a couple of occasions Ive' heard reference to what I think is a TV commercial in which someone is calling for a dog - Benton. Is this for real, have I got it right - because if so it has utterly destroyed a serious short story I wrote ages ago. I suppose it doesn't matter because all attempts at publishing have failed, but still. I'll post a bit below so you can see what I mean - Benton is a (red shirt) character who is lost and folk start calling for him.

Ho hum.

General question. How often do your ideas get overtaken by reality before you have made enough money out of them to buy a luxury yacht?

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Excerpt from now useless short story:

Hauling endlessly up through this blizzard. No-one is fit for this but we do not want to sit in the shifting dust of the plain waiting for the radioactive fallout from the ship. The wind changes direction from behind to ahead to down from the mountain. We are lost in a world of white noise. I cannot see more than five people ahead of me on the line, nor the jeep behind. We have the jeep upended now, sledding on its roof. Our boots are sinking in the snow, people falling down and taking an age to recover. Everyone is threaded to the two ropes we pull on, or tied to the jeep itself.

We lost Benton. We stopped to find he was simply not with us. We stayed too long burning flares that could not have been seen, searching and nearly losing two others. Cathcart was distraught, howling like an animal. She is to my side now on the other rope so I can watch her. Cerise is in front of me, her little body dead beat.

We are doing most of the hauling at the back. The people up front have enough to do tramping a path through the drifts. It would be good to change over but we cannot afford to stop again. We were too long in getting started last time. Everyone is stupid with cold, fatigue and grief. I thought we would never be moving again after we lost Benton. We may just have stayed there and died. I think now we may never stop.
***
This lighter will not seem to work. There are a couple of tents up now. Cerise is in a bag in one of them. I have to make her soup. Someone has made repairs to the vehicle speakers and Mozart is playing loud down the mountain. People call out, ‘Ben-Ton’. A flare goes up to paint the scene in red. This lighter will not work.

[Vladd67]

It wasn't an ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsbvL7Bctjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU

[Bowler1]

I think Benton was a dog chasing deer in Richmond Park. If I have this right it is a video clip firstly of a small herd of deer running across traffic followed closely by a big black dog. After a small pause the dog's owner runs on screen clearly out of breath shouting for his dog (Hence Benton). By this time deer and dog are getting well ahead of the owner, and the owner has to be bleeped a lot as I think he starts swearing at his dog. All carry on running to end of clip.

That I think is it. It is a funny clip and went viral here for a few weeks.

[Vladd67]

Also it was Fenton not Benton

[Glen]

lol.

Fenton not Benton.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, however, its too close for comfort. The red-shirt Benton will have to be expunged from the story before he even gets the chance to die in it.

[Warren_Paul]

I love the episode of Equals Three that reviewed that video, hilarious - for the most part.

[MemoryTale]

Is there any reason you can't just rename Benton?

[Vertigo]

I don't think I would get too worried by it, these things are rapidly forgotten and I would imagine few people outside the UK have heard of it. I'm in the UK and I hadn't heard about it until I saw this thread

[AnyaKimlin]

Anyone that thought it was a reference would probably just find it funny.

[chrispenycate]

And there was me thinking it was the termination of the limerick about the young lady from Trenton…

[James Coote]

Incidentally, the BBC doesn't have adverts (except for BBC World Service) as it is funded by a TV license

[Gary Compton]

Originally Posted by chrispenycate

And there was me thinking it was the termination of the limerick about the young lady from Trenton…

I used to live in Kenton till we moved to Longbenton which is just round the corner from Benton

All true places tee-hee

[Mouse]

They play the clip of the dude yelling 'Fentooooon' on Radio 1 all the time.

[AnyaKimlin]

Originally Posted by chrispenycate

And there was me thinking it was the termination of the limerick about the young lady from Trenton…

Is now concerned about the nine-year-old Trenton in her story lol

[Glen]

Originally Posted by MemoryTale

Is there any reason you can't just rename Benton?

No, that's what I'll do. If it was in my usual style I'd leave it there for comic effect, but as the story was supposed to be serious there will have to be deed poll change.