In fact the enthusiasm is so real that it has actually resulted in at least one fatality so far. Like something out of a failed satire from South Park or The Daily Show, the radio station KDND-FM in Sacramento, California, offered listeners a chance to win one of the prized games consoles by asking contestants to 'Hold your wee for a Wii' - drinking as much water as possible without urinating.

As many would have heard last week, Jennifer Strange, 28, a mother of three, died of water intoxication after drinking 6.5 litres of water in a bid to win the prize.

She called in sick to work after the contest and was found dead in her apartment several hours later.

Now 10 staff members have been sacked for "violating the terms of their employment agreements" with the station.

Worst of all, DJs involved were heard to joke - during the contest - about people dying from water intoxication. A 21-yearold student died two years ago in the same part of California after drinking too much water while trying to join a fraternity.

Normally we'd like to defend our fellow Fourth Estaters. In this case, sacking seems too lenient. The local prosecutor might agree.

IS THIS TOWN BIG ENOUGH FOR HALIFAX?

PUBLIUS is proud to award the January 'Ad of the Month' to Halifax and its agency Publicis QMP for their ad, 'Fight'.

We know January isn't over yet but frankly we can't wait. If something knocks it out of the top spot we'll be amazed.

But we've frankly watched it enough times that we should by any standard be sick of it by now.

The setup: bad, besuited bankers up to no good strut into the Halifax branch on Stephen's Green looking to cause trouble.

Ominous music starts up in the background. Halifax employees - actual employees - look up nervously in their open-collar uniforms.

The bad bankers square up, Western villain style, to the threatened locals as the music fades up into the 1973 glam rock anthem 'Ballroom Blitz'.

The money shot: Five bad bankers surround a Halifax employee of what looks to be Chinese origins, who - naturally - knows martial arts. Next thing you know a bad banker has crashed through the plate glass window onto the pavement.

The Chinese employee crashes a sign over the bad banker's head. The sign is advertising the new low Halifax mortgage deal. The bad bankers scarper.

The message: given explicitly in the Colm Meaney voice-over at the end - "not everybody is happy about our arrival".

There are too many great Western references in this spot to count. The bad banking posse come into the nice, bright, tidy new homestead establishment where decent folk are here to offer us good deals on financial products.

This is easily the best start to a new campaign since Permanent TSB hired Sopranos actor Frank Vincent.

The promise is that Halifax, formerly Bank of Scotland (Ireland), is going to shake up the banking market in Ireland.

It certainly is off to a good start with headlines that include the words 'mortgage war', which is more than ably supported by this execution.

When the bank introduces its personal accounts later this year - including Ireland's first Visa Debit card, which we think will spark the beginning of the end for Laser if rolled out properly - we'll have a better idea of whether the marketing and operations are as tightly in sync, but it's hard to imagine a better start.

ANOTHER YOUTUBE CLAMPDOWN Last week we discovered that judges can actually cause whole portions of the internet, like YouTube, to be turned off, as happened briefly when Brazilian judges ordered ISPs to block access to the videosharing website.

Now another nugget of conventional wisdom about the internet - that it has different rules from traditional broadcast - may also be about to go out the window.

In the US, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus - the investigative arm of the advertising industry's self-regulating body there - said that ads on YouTube must meet the same standards for truth and accuracy as advertising in other media.

It may become a precedent for other advertising bodies worldwide.

TIPS, BRIBES & ABUSE all welcome at rdelevan@tribune. ie