I am not affected by television advertising but I have had a great weekend lugging sacks of my broken and unwanted gold jewellery to the post office. There was piles of it! I have sorted out all my financial problems and now don’t have to call that other company who can organise easy and affordable loans which I never need to worry about or pay back! As for meeting the payments on my mortgage next month, I still have three fillings to flog! And then on the news we hear questions on about why this country is in the crapper…..watch the beedin’ adverts! Had a trip or slip at work? Don’t worry, you’re unlikely to have a bloody job soon so that will remove the danger!
Wasn’t it Napoleon who said England is a nation of shop keepers, well if he came back and started to watch our commercial television system now he could be excused for thinking we are a nation of scrap metal merchants. If he flicked through the channels today he would get the impression that the British are a people of ballroom dancing, amateur vaudeville singing, Meerkat fanciers. And as for the adverts…..back in my day ad’s were for washing up liquid which made your hands soft, for fish fingers the colour of road workers reflective jackets and lip smacking, thirst quenching, ace tasting, motivating, good buzzing, cool talking, high walking, fast living, ever giving, cool fizzing drinks! Now its all no win no fee, had an accident at work… so borrow thousands to pay your debt by calling a directory inquiry service company in Finland. And what is this sudden obsession with how your house smells? Every other advert rams air freshener down your throat. What happened to the good old smells of family living. In the sixties and seventies it was Vim and Frey Bentos meat pies. That’s what houses smelt of, not ylang ylang and rare Javanese Orang-utan dung pot porrie. The enemy, the good lady wife, bought one of those automatic scent dispensers and placed it in the bog without telling me. Apparently this thing is triggered by movement so as I sat down I was greeted with the sound of a cat backfiring and a sudden smell of the Alps! Frightened the living ‘wot not’ out of me, no wonder we need a scent dispenser.
One of the first ad’s I do remember was for frozen pizza, a revolution in my childhood and duly my dear mother trotted off to buy one from Gateway’s. It came with Green Shield stamps! Anyway, home and into the oven and after a short while I was presented with this delicious new treat just before The Magic Roundabout came on. After several rather chewy mouthfuls I discovered that ‘mother dearest’ had left the polystyrene based on and had cooked it.
My mother passed away at the age of 88. She has left me with some great memories and a life long suspicion of pizza bases.
Fitz
