Friend Magnets

Quite some time ago I had a few postings about Roger Coghill, who sells magnets that are supposed to have various medicinal powers, spreads alarm about power lines, and offers a large prize for an experiment on a human infant, in his ethically alarming eponymous 'Challenge', a caper with no scientific merit. My mate Dave had one of those generically pointless correspondences with him, which are covered in the earlier postings. (And here.)

Dave now tells me that he's received a friend request, via Facebook, from one Roger Coghill. Torn between curiosity about what jollies might be found in the Dodger's status updates and posted items on the one hand, and lively aversion on the other, Dave asked Roger to 'jog his memory' since he couldn't seem to place him. I wonder what if anything will come in reply?

Anyway, here's the request:

Lint? Or one more bastard?

I suspect this one of being an amatuerish piece of fakery.

Dr Jose Buba - all the way from Mauritius

Here's one more mad ad before the week is done. I hope to set the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (see earlier post) on a few of these next week if I can find the time to prepare complaints.

This time we've got Dr. Jose Buba. Here's another guy who can apparently do divination with a 'mirror and water' (although unlike the good Dr. Raju he does not claim he can 'sit on a crocodile and lion skin while floating on water and communicating with the dead'). And he can supposely organise you the usual things like a large penis, a job, winning the lottery, not to mention less common services like treating epilepsy and sorting out any hassles you might have with "bewitched people".

Note, if you can be bothered to check out the small print, that this guy gets his leaflets printed by the same establishment as Dr Raju, and Dr Mama Simba, not to mention Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf and Dr Jadhu (and associates). This print shop is getting the lions share of the trade in quack flyers, at least the ones that have come to my attention. The phone numbers for the quacks are all different, though. And the indicated places of business differ too. So it seems as though the number of quacks is large, but for some reason they're using one print shop to do most of their work. I'd be interested to know more about what that is about...

Here are the two sides of the flyer - one in isiZulu, the other in English. Notice the AIDS ribbon in the top left corner of each version. (Larger versions display when you click on these ones.)

Brown-nosing

Not long ago I posted Study in Brown, noting some of the bold claims made about the services of one KS Brown, one of Durban's merry band of peddlers of services including supposed penis-enlarging personal problem solving. Those services were, like most of the competitors who I'm documenting in this series on mad ads, promoted by means of a fairly crudely designed pamphlet. (Many of the pamphlets are strikingly similar, a matter that deserves further investigation.) But KS Brown seems also to have an eye on a somewhat more upmarket crowd of gullible and supersititious types, as the bit of advertising below suggests. I also had it handed to me at a traffic intersection, but the original has the dimensions of a business card, it's printed on card (not low grade paper) and in full colour. Wow.

Otherwise it's pretty much the usual stuff - larger penises, treatment for chronic conditions, fixing relationships. All, of course, 'guaranteed'. And she or he will do 'ancestral problems'. Also, this one has a proper address. Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa here we come!

Advertising standards and mad ads

In one of my mad ads postings I mused about the state of advertising standards in South Africa. Michael Meadon over at Ionian Enchantment sent me a link to a bit of good news. This is that the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa ruled against the makers of the herbal supplement Revivo, requiring that the product must be withdrawn in South Africa, because the advertising makes unsubstantiated claims that the product works as a treatment for HIV. You can read an article about the ruling on the website of the Treatment Action Campaign.

Apparently it is possible to complain by email. I suspect that the operators I've been publishing about are moving fast and light, and may change premises regularly, making it more difficult to deal with them than a formal business with a proper address. still, I'll try to find time to write in, and then post updates about what ever happens here. In the interim, I'll keep on scanning and posting mad ads, because they aren't running out just yet.

The less awesome Dr Jadhu

After some of the recent mad ads in my series, I have to say Dr Jadhu is initially something of a disappointment. OK, he uses the title 'Dr', and claims guaranteed results, using 'spiritual powers and astrological charts'. But the list of promised therapies is rather short. No direct reference to enlarged penises, no specific mention of diabetes, AIDS, etc.

Then again, some of the more general claims are still rather impressive. For me "achieve and do whatever you want with the one you love" stands out. This compares rather favourably with the claim by Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf that they'll organise you a penis of "any size you want". And is actually very creepy indeed, given a moment's thought. (What about whatever the one you love might want?) I suppose if you get your monstrous member from the first lot, and your intended doesn't respond as you'd hoped, you head on down to Dr Jadhu's place to deprive them of any say in the matter. How very romantic. And 'Kings of Tokoloshe' would be a pretty good name for a band.

Study in Brown

So, maybe your penis is still too small. Maybe you have financial problems. You want a job, or to pass and exam. You might have AIDS complications. You need to win a court case, ovecome an enemy. Perhaps you want to go 'more rounds' during sex, or have more sexual power (hardness, and strength). You might be married, unmarried, or divorced, or getting divorced and want to switch to one of the others. You could be paralysed from a stroke. Or maybe you just have a cough, or swollen feet. (Or other things I can't be bothered to list.)

But don't worry. K S Brown, who interestingly does not use the title 'doctor' can help. With a belt, braces and who knows what combination of 'God, herbs and ancestors' offerring a range of 'guaranteed' services, including the '4 in 1 sexual gear', and they'll work within 3 to 7 days.

This pamphlet (handed to me at two different traffic intersections last week alone) arrives folded, so the first image below is the front and back cover, the second the inside. Click on images for larger versions.

































This is the most recent in my mad ads series. If you see ones I haven't covered, as long as they're recent and from South Africa, please email me scans. Once the pile has grown enough I may stop this lazy blogging and write something considered about them.