Day 15: I was going to create a supergroup...

Mobile phone companies excel when it comes to whipping up advertising campaigns which consist solely of heart-warming dollops of absolute fluff. Rhetorical questions and inspirobollocks collectively hell-bent on informing us that we're not using our mobile phones properly. It's not meant for making phone calls, silly, it's an inspirational device for reaching out to touch the hearts of those around you, to make their lives better. To make your life better. To make everyone better.

Judging by the depressing Youtube figures surrounding Vodafone's flash mob japes, it appears that most people are happy enough to accept the notion that meeting up to have a dance with a bunch of other pricks in a train station is somehow both brilliant and amazing. If you've got a handful of braincells however, it was evident that the whole affair was as mechanically engineered as a Cadbury's Creme Egg'n'Cheese Slice.

Slightly more recently, Orange also left me particularly cold with: "I am who I am, because of everyone else" - which always struck me as being a fairly depressing statement that seemed to indirectly belittle individual achievement. More importantly, I can't really get over the fact that it's clearly the kind of phrase you'd expect to find obsessively scribbled all over the walls of a serial killer's secret underground rape-bunker.

In 2009 however, we've been struck in the face by one of the worst offenders yet. Joshy Joshy Text Text Text and his T-Mobile Super Band; a campaign more insipid and transparent than a shit jellyfish.

So what would you do with free text for life?

I get about six hundred a month, which to me seems like fairly ludicrous number to begin with. If I was to take full advantage of my tariff as it stands, I'd be spending roughly ten hours a month writing text messages, which does seem a tad excessive considering the fact that I'm not a fourteen year old girl.

I don't think I'd need unlimited text messages to start a supergroup though - I'd probably need about 12, and even that's accounting for a couple of additional back and forth textage. I don't have that many people in my phone book to begin with, and not many people I know are musically talented. But why has josh cast such a wide net looking for a band? Does he not know many people? Has he run out of friends willing to put up with the lead-singer tantrums he repeatedly threw in his mum's garage? Has Josh actually just twisted the innocent opportunity T-Mobile has gifted him to create a vaguely sinister Polyphonic Spree-esque regime of terror?

But then Josh also had 'unlimited internet' too. On his phone. Imagine that. Of course, you could use that to set up a supergroup I suppose. But of course if you're going to do that, you might as well just do it on a computer- it would be much easier. Maybe Josh doesn't have access to a computer. Maybe he's very poor. Maybe he's homeless. Maybe he's only going along with this whole charade because T-Mobile are putting a roof over his head whilst he carries out the band's UK tour, rightfully terrified that when it all ends he'll have to drag his pay-as-you-go handset back to the makeshift ditch hut he calls home, shuddering in the harsh rain of the night as he remembers the brief glimmer of warmth T-Mobile injected into his awful existence. Actually thinking about it, maybe they should have just done the whole thing with a tramp - that would have been brilliant, probably.

Or I suppose I could stop being dark and cynical - maybe he's just a guy going along with the whole thing for a bit of a laugh? But if that is the case, what the fuck is Josh going to do when all this is comes to an end? I mean, if the band doesn't end up making the big time, what are his backup options? The guy must be spending about 20-30 hours a week using his mobile phone to organise all this stuff - it takes long enough to organise a band practice that only has three people in it for fucks sake. It might be fun now, but when a potential future employer asks why he failed his A levels then "I was travelling the UK finding strangers to join my super band" is roughly on par with "I went travelling around India to find myself" on the Oh-My-Lord-I-Hate-You-O-Meter.

But I guess it's easy for a lot of people to just look at Josh's band and happily soak up the feel-good factor. Hey you! Have a crazy idea, and then JUST DO IT, MAN! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, JUST DO IT!

As a motivation, this might be enough to kick off the first project. To carry an idea into planning requires a fair chunk of commitment to begin with, and from then on it requires a huge deal of motivation to keep pushing it forward. You need something that these invented television characters lack: genuine, believable, observable motivations. I honestly think there's a vast amount of people out there who've never had the bravery to try and execute any of the crazy ideas they've had, and realise just how fucking easy it is to give up halfway through.

I can happily say that if I was Josh however, I'd have given up on the super band idea months ago - half the country calling me a twat would be enough to kill any motivation I could have mustered, and I expect I'd have long ago given up on the tour and called it quits.

Oh, unless you pay me.