Susan Hated Literature

We’ll begin with the vague; this morning, or possibly last night^[1] there was an ad on the radio. This of course is not a rare occurrence. There are many radios in the world, and usually they have ads. Every 15 minutes or so seems to be standard. But, getting specific here, I’m referring to a particular ad that I heard. It was a Cadbury ad.^[2] but I’m not sure exactly what it was for^[3] although it did mention Creme Eggs^[4] and something else. Cow related^[5] so possibly^[6] Dairymilk related. Then again, possibly not.

Whatever the products mentioned, they were advertising some product of some description, but that isn’t important. What is important is the method of advertising. See they were going on about the love affair between the Creme Egg producing chicken and the the creamy milk producing cow. Fair enough, I have nothing against inter-species love affairs. However I am concerned that they managed to produce an offspring.^[7] Let us call this offspring, cowick-egg, purely because I don’t think that that works as a snappy product name. So Creme Egg Chicken is female, cause only hens lay eggs right? And creamy-milk cow is female, on account of male cattle being bulls and producing a different sorta milk

Now this doesn’t mean they can’t get it together and fall madly in love. God no! Fair play to inter-species gay romances. The do tend to liven up farmyards and make them more entertaining places. So, fair play^[8] to those two crazy kids for getting it together. But the fact that their love resulted in this new product, well colour me disturbed. Either one of them has secretly been infected with frog DNA^[9] and so has gained the ability to swap sex and so has turned male, or, and to my mind^[10] much more likely, one of them has had an affair with a male animal. Now whether this was a rooster or a bull I can’t say, the ad didn’t go into detail about which produced the wonderful new creamy-milk-chocolatey-eggy-goodness that makes up the new product. But either way, for Cadbury to be promoting this is wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong! After all radio is just like telly, only without pictures and different, and we all know how influential The Television is on everyday lives. We all live our lives according to the high moral standards of The Television^[11] and the characters that live in that little box. Now, okay, radio isn’t quite a great as The Television, but still, with this example of non-monogamous behaviour, before you know it the world will be gone mad in an orgy of sex and partner swapping. And then it’ll be a short skip, hop or jump before we’re all murdering each other in our beds, for once you begin to step off the moral path, it is a slippery step slope all the way to the bottom.

Cadbury! I blame you for the moral decline of the world!

Either that or the cow or chicken have used some sort of genetic experimentation to produce their cowick-egg. And while, obviously not as bad as moral decline, messing about with the Natural World is never a good thing, and science is evil, and no doubt anyone eating this new chocolate goodness will die of some horrible, long-term, painful disease.

Or maybe the ad-makers are just stupid?

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While I was at the kino watching Rocky Balboa they showed a trailer for Danny Boyle’s new film; Sunshine^[1] which looks fairly interesting. But what struck me is how music can become so linked to one specific thing that when it is used for another it leaves you scratching your head.

Some of you may be aware that Ireland hosted the Ryder Cup^[2] and some of you who are Irish may remember the AIB “This is going to be epic” adverts^[3] Well, they’ve used the same music, Summer Overture by Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet in the Sunshine trailer. And as impressive and grand as that music is, I just kept waiting for some voice over man to witter on about titans clashing, and the sound of half a billion people holding their breath. All that epic tosh they used to market that golf yoke.

It is amazing how music can become so lined with a specific memory. Especially when you don’t want it to. Cause I quite like that music, but I really hate that ad. Maybe I should find it online somewhere and listen to it so often that all associations with the ryder cup have been eradicated?

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I had intended to write a really witty and entertaining post on the difference between the “Spray More, Get More” ad campaign from Lynx^[1] and the Impulse Tease^[2] ad. Cause the difference seems to suggest that all men want is to be sexified. While all women want is to be chased, but not caught. Cause female + sex = slut, much better to be a tease don’t you think? Where as male + sex = Stud. I wonder what the reaction would be if they reversed the Lynx ad, to show a woman being the object of hundreds of men’s attention?

But I’m not going to. Mainly because it would involve too much effort, and instead I’m going to moan about my sleep last night. Or lack thereof.

Went to bed, window open cause of heat. But that meant noise. Which at first wasn’t too bad. But got worse and worse and worse. And it didn’t help that I had a bit of headache. Nothing major, just a little one. But bloody cars sitting outside with their engines running at 2 o’clock in the morning didn’t help at all. And then the hundreds of people who left the building shouting about how sorry they were to keep the driver waiting. That wasn’t much help either. Nor did the alarm that then decided that now would be a good time to go off. And then stop. And then start again.

Plus it was too hot under the duvet, and too cold without it. So eventually I rolled out of bed, looking for some headache tablets, which I knew I knew I had, because I remembered buying them in Boots a few weeks ago. But they weren’t in the bag where they should have been. There were plasters there. And savlon. And blister plasters. And Beechams. And an empty box of Hedex. I wasn’t happy. But headed back to bed, after grabbing a light blanket. Which was still too hot.

Eventually I slept. And woke. And slept and woke.

Until finally my alarm went off at ten to 7, when I snoozed it for my vital extra 15 minutes. Only for another alarm, much closer to go off. And that was almost worse than the whole night of interrupted sleep. To have my final ten minutes so destroyed. I was not a happy camper, let me tell you. So I got up. 15 minutes early. And headed to have my breakfast. Only to discover that the full litre of unopened milk sitting in the fridge is out of date today. Whatever, I still used it on my breakfast. But must remember to buy more this evening. Remind me before I leave work won’t you?

And before leaving for work I did find those headache tablets. Sitting in the Boots bag, by the bin. Where they’ve been for almost a month now. Memo to self, check all those 5 billion bags this evening and then throw them out.

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I can’t make up my mind whether or not the new McDonald’s ad is a piece of subversive genius, or just a really bad ad. Either way I loves it.

It isn’t really for McDonald’s, instead it is advertising MDs as a great place to have a career^[1] But the reason I love it is because it achieves the exact opposite of what it sets out to do. It should make you think that being a manager at a fast food shop is not all “fries and grease”, shouldn’t it? But it doesn’t. It highlights and points out all the negative aspects.

Now I don’t think that there is anything wrong with working for McDonald’s^[2] I’ve worked in my share of fast food joints, and being a manager there is presumably quite like being a manger anywhere else, albeit with more chip smells.

They start off the advert with our hero^[3] telling all his mates he’s got a new job. “Working at McDonald’s” And straight away the jokes begin. Jokes that take up most of the ad. At a football match his team-mates throw in the ball, asking “does he want fries with that?” Late at night his friends coming home ring his buzzer, giving an order for chips^[4] and burgers. The ad is all about how easy it is to take the piss out of working for those happy shiny golden arches.

So you’re sortof expecting some reversal. I mean, why on earth would MacDonalds make an ad pulling the piss out of their own job opportunities unless they reversed it, successfully at the end.

But they don’t. They make a half-hearted attempt by telling you all the positives, flexible hours^[5] erm, ehm, there were others, I just don’t remember them^[6] and it ends with one of dweeby-hero-boy’s mates asking a customer “do you want fries with that” and hero-lad giving him a self satisfied “nyah nyah now you too must suffer this indignity” look^[7] And then a voice over, from a clearly bored and distraced girl asking you “D’ye wan’ a career wi’ that?

So, what are McDonalds thinking? And to spend €500,000 on an ad like that!

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I listening to an radió^[1] and one of those anti-drink driving ads. Now radio adverts have a problem in that they can’t show the horrific scenes that work so well in making people sensible.

So instead they have this fella giving a funeral oration. Telling everyone what a great lad yer man who died was. Only then he stops. And begins to rant about how everyone knew he was too drunk to drive. That they tried taking his keys away but couldn’t. And if he wanted to kill himself fine but he murdered the girlfriend too. And then we get the voice-over^[2] with I think Ray Darcy saying “Don’t be a fucking eejit, don’t drink and drive”

And you know what I think they should use this example in other “public service announcements”

Instead of “Please don’t make your own sound effects” requests in the cinema we should have “Shut up, you shower of shits, or we’ll kick you out and if you even consider using your mobile you’re an ignorant moran.”

To illustrate my point I’m going to take a photo of some graffiti in my apt building. And maybe post it tomorrow, maybe the next day.^[3]

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D’you know what I hate? Do you?^[1] Well, never fear, I shall reveal all.

What I hate is having a topic to blog about on the way to work, or way back from lunch, but then getting distracted by utter nothingness and forgetting what that topic was. Isn’t it weird the way stuff can just fly out of your head, yet it requires so much effort to get new stuff in there? So I intend to keep typing until an idea either returns, or a new one is born^[2]

Also, fuckers who can’t mute their laptops so I get to hear that lovely windows start-up and shut-down tone over and over and over again. Thats lovely that it. Gorgeous. Do you know what they should do, they should release it as a ring tone.

Which in turn, reminds me of something I don’t hate, but do in fact love. That ad for Amstel beer. Not the one where they are sailing to the new world, cause that’s a bit pants. But the Trojan Horse one. Coupla lads, sitting in Troy’s battlements hear a funny noise from outside. So they take a quick look. Nothing there but a big giant horse^[3] In a not-too-strong-but-very-recognisable dublin accent, one turns to the other and says “D’ya know what we should do? We should bring it inside.”

I swear, that fella has the best possible delivery of that line ever. This big grin on his face like this is the best idea ever. Strike that, it is even better than that So all look at each other. Cut to them having a pint, when one of the others repeats the line, in a tone of voice that says nothing but “you fucking daw you”, and we see the horse stuck in the gates. It isn’t the best advert ever made, but I just love the delivery of that line.

And, no. I still haven’t mernembered what it was that I was going to post about. Must be old age.

And now I’ve gone and said that I’ll type til I think of it. This threat might have backfired. I’m still typing, but the inspiration, she be going. then again, I never said my typing had to be words, did I? Maybe I’ll just type random letters, I’ll be like one of those monkeys trying to come up with the works of Shakespeare. Chained to the keyboard for all eternity. Still, I suppose, if that happens I’ll never actually hit publish, and none of you will ever read this…

Oh, guess what. I’ve remembered. Numfar, do the dance of joy.

Course if you are still reading after all that pointless crap you’ll be expecting a big old payoff won’t you? Well, sorry to disappoint, but unless you lower your expectations I can’t help you. My original topic was The Kingdom of Heaven, yes, the silly film with Orlando Bloom and many many more big names.

Flatmate bought it over the weekend, and we watched it last night after Life on Mars. Well, we watched part of it. I was only going to watch until Lamb^[4] died, but then I got distracted by Brendan Gleeson’s great mad bastard character. But, back to the dot beside the point, wasn’t that a terrible, terrible film? In what world did it make sense?

First off, why exactly were we supposed to empathise with Balian^[5] as he killed the priest for saying bad things about his dead wife? Surely it was a hell of a lot worse to actually burn someone alive no?

And how in the hell did Balian become such a gorram weapons expert? Maybe all that sword practice he did as a blacksmith in Pirates of the Carribean paid off?

And yet, despite all that shite, it is quite watchable. I mean, I wouldn’t go out of my way t turn it on, but it does have Gleeson’s mad dancing murderous soldier, and I could listen to Jeremy Irons anyday^[6] and of course lovely Lamb.

You know what, they should remake that film, only remove the Orlando bits. Oh, and the pointless love story. just keep the mad bastards. It’d be so much more fun don’t you think?

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I knew there was something I wanted to post about. Last weekend I was home and de mudder was watching a Time Watch programme on the BBC called The Bog Man. Which, incidently was narrated by Robin of Sherwood. Anyways twas quite interesting, in a creepifying way. All about these two bodies found in bogs in Ireland in 2003. And because of being in the bog these two bodies were very well preserved. So well in fact that they could figure out that the one with a head actually used imported resin as hair gel. I think it came from Spain, or maybe France^[1] .

But the reason I am posting about it is because of the way a lot of the news peoples reported on these bodies. A week or so before the programme aired the news was full of stories about how these two fellas were sacrificed in order to ensure the land remained fertile. Now this was not reported as a theory, but as a fact.

So I was a little interested in how exactly they knew this. Afterall, unless they can go back in time over 2000 years and ask someone then they can’t very well discover the reasons behind their motivations now can they?

But it turns out that the show never stated “these men were killed as human sacrifices”, instead that was one of an number of options. My favourite was the theory that they had committed some sort of crime, and part of their punishment was the manner of their death, torture and then after death rendition to the bog for burial. The reason being that a bog isn’t really land. And it isn’t water either. So it is an in between place. The historian/archeologist who suggested this theory said that he believed it was a method of ensuring that the souls of the dead^[2] never got to go to the next life. The crimes they had committed were so heinous that death wasn’t enough, these people deserved to be punished for all eternity and by placing the bodies in the bog they were ensuring that they wouldn’t decay, wouldn’t let the spirit free.

And, unrelated to that stuff I’ve just written, I was following some fish earlier in the week, when Carroll’s Beware the Jabberwocky was mentioned, which in turn reminded me of that advert that was on a few years^[3] back, anyays, found an online version, so does anyone else remember the Judder Man?

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