The Merciless One Speaks!

A public service announcement on behalf of Zaltor the Merciless

All hail!

Have you been watching Taskmaster? You should’ve. It’s brilliant. Especially this series, courtesy of one of my favourite comedians. Andy Zaltzman, aka Zaltor the Merciless.

I assume he won the series finale last night. Not that I write these in advance.

Anyway, Zaltzman is infamous for his incredibly torturous pun runs, a linguistic masturbation session so tedious that it moves podcast co-hosts, radio producers and paid-up gig-goers alike to agonised groans.

BEWARE. ONLY PRESS PLAY IF YOU ARE OF SOUND MIND.

Zaltzman is my muse. My inspiration. My hero. He’s responsible for me starting my wedding speech with this immortal sequence.

“The bridesmaid me promise not to do a pun run here. But it’s too late to altar things. If she bridals at this and boos, don’t worry. I’ll usher.”

This might come as a surprise to those of you who’ve paid me to write for your businesses, because I’m on record as saying that punny headlines don’t work, and punny calls to action work even less.

So imagine my grim disgust when this popped up on my feed.

There’s not an oof big enough for that one.

Proof - if any were needed - that puns, like stand up comedy and task-themed Channel 4 game shows, should be left to the merciless one.

Something mint - social proof that you shouldn’t die intestate

I butt heads with a certain compliance spod who works for one of my clients. She says there’s some reason or other we can’t use people’s names in testimonials without some kind of baroque contract signed in blood.

I counter with the fact that an anonymous piece of social proof lacks credibility, and not having a name undermines the point of having it.

She bats back with something about regulations, I zone out and do something else. Having to submit work to your wife has its drawbacks.

But this month, as I flicked through Leeds United fanzine The Square Ball, I saw a lovely way around this regulatory elephant trap.

A solicitor can’t really go naming the kinds of people who’ve hired them to write wills or handle a divorce. It opens up cans of worms. But they can lean on the credibility of the editor of popular football fanzines.

Elegant. Effective. Well worth trying if you can’t get customers to use their own names in reviews. Tell them to name-drop an influencer of some kind instead.