So, hey, let’s raise some awareness, yeah? With a groovy new campaign from Toyota which they claim will help reduce our fuel consumption while driving.

It’s called A Glass Of Water and all you have to do is drive around with a glass of water perched on your dashboard. Except that, erm, you don’t actually. Because that would be a bit messy.

The idea is to imagine that you’ve got the aforementioned glass of water on the dashboard, which in turn stops you tootling around the roads like a top-speed wanker, which in turn reduces your fuel consumption.

It all sounds a bit fishy to us – we knew a bloke who used to drive to work with a huge Pyrex jug filled with Stella wedged between his knees but he lost his pancreas in the end. Not the same thing really is it?

The Toyota recall of their vehicles following reports of sticking accelerators, while obviously a very serious issue raising grave concerns over safety, has also been good for a few laughs, too. For example, the unofficial Viz Top Tops account on Twitter has provided plenty in recent days:

• SPEEDING MOTORISTS – just put a Toyota badge on your car.
• PETROL HEADS – fool your neighbours into thinking you own a Toyota by driving at 80mph into the side of their house.
  
• WATCH OUT! The car behind is a Toyota.

Meanwhile, Toyota jumped on the new-fangled media bandwagon of pleading for forgiveness via the medium of YouTube. Director of operations in Blighty, Jon Williams, stares the camera down as if it spilt his pint, failing to realise that apologies look less convincing if you force yourself not to blink throughout. If you still haven’t found time to watch four and a half minutes of a global corporation apologising and pronouncing Toyota as Ter-rurta, here’s a quick summary:

• We’ve really quite sorry, but hey, everything’s ok. My family drives a Toyota so what’s to worry aobut, eh?
• Apart from there’s a chance it’ll kill you! Wahhhh!
• Here’s the science part – concentrate. Your accelerator pedal is screwed. There we are.
• New parts for your cars will begin arriving next week.
• If you don’t contact us willingly, we will utilise the DVLA to hunt you down like the dogs you are.
• The repair takes just thirty minutes and it’s free of charge for all Toyota owners. Assuming you live that long.
• Again, we’re really sorry. Sorry. Cheers.

Your Yaris, tomorrow.

Toyota have finally announced the UK-based cars that will be recalled due to a faulty accelerator pedal. If you own any of the following vehicles, you’d better start clearing out the glove compartment because it will soon be wrestled from your grip and pulped into a cube.

• Aygo (Feb 2005 – Aug 2009)
• iQ (Nov 2008 – Nov 2009)
• Yaris (Nov 2005 – Sep 2009)
• Auris (Oct 2006 – 5 Jan 2010)
• Corolla (Oct 2006 – Dec 2009)
• Verso (Feb 2009 – 5 Jan 2010)
• Avensis (Nov 2008 – Dec 2009)
• RAV4 (Nov 2005 – Nov 2009)

Obviously we made all that stuff up about the cars being pulped because we’re a bunch of scaremongering morons but if you do own any of the cars in question, Toyota have more info for you at their website, where they say they will be contacting affected customers.

Pedestrians, if you see a Toyota coming down the road in your direction, dive into the nearest hedge as it is almost certainly out of control and headed straight for your precious bones.

Sorry, more scaremongering there.

We’d hate to tar the psyche of an entire nation in one fell swoop, but this ahem, controversial new Toyota Yaris ad couldn’t really come from anywhere else than Australia.

In it, a young man picks up his date for the evening, before unsubtly informing her dad what a filthy old time he plans to have with the young lady over the course of the evening.

She then arrives and joins in with the double entendres as does the dad himself, which gives the whole thing a soupcon of incest (wow, what a great name for a band that would be – Soupcon Of Incest.)

But the bit that had us pissing ourselves with laughter comes right at the very end. It just does not make any sense at all, but it’s truly wonderful.

The ad itself came about following a competition for filmmakers and has been hastily removed from Toyota’s website following a barrage of complaints. But the surrounding publicity will do more for the fortunes of the Yaris than yet another ad showing the car cruising around a city could ever do. Hmmm… and maybe that’s the point…

So we read that Fiji had been shunted out of the Commonwealth because the superbly-named but unelected leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama is less than keen on holding democratic elections.

Plus, as it was the end of the day and we were gasping for a pint, it got us talking, something along the lines of: “Shit, we still haven’t found an ad for today’s Commercial Break yet. Wonder what an ad from Fiji looks like. Probably ripe for cheap laughs at some foreigners.”

And here we are – a Fiji-based Toyota ad, including a very excellent flying scene that probably wouldn’t make it past the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK. Saving the best for last, there’s also a great piece of jumping-for-joy right at the end too.

A couple of questions – one, why isn’t there more jumping for joy in British ads? It perfectly conveys the impression that a product is great. Two, do Toyota even know this ad was broadcast in their name? Commodore Frank Bainimarama must be removed from office NOW!

Breaking news – Google Earth might have spotted the Loch Ness Monster. More breaking news – it looks just like a boat to us. Or possibly a sea monkey that got on the Google Earth camera lens.

It’s certainly not the actual Monster, as Toyota got arguably the closest look at the mysterious beast in these two ads for their Tacoma trucks and Vios cars a couple of years ago.

Seriously, though, what’s become of us? Debating the existence of the Loch Ness Monster in 2009? We’ll be arguing about pizza toppings next…