If I were Prime Minister…

In the run-up to the 2015 General Election, the Independent have been asking 100 people what they would do if they were Prime Minister.  These people include journalists, authors, sportsmen, musicians, political campaigners, and the like.  Obviously, I'm slightly surprised – and more than a little hurt – not to have been asked to contribute to this…  So, with exactly one week to go until Polling Day, I'm going to write my piece about it anyway, and publish it here.

If I were Prime Minister, I would introduce on-the-spot fines for anybody who lets a set of double doors close in the wrong order.  Y'know how lots of double doors have one door with an outer 'lip', and one with an inner 'lip', and they fit nicely together if closed correctly?  I can't understand how anyone can let double doors close behind them in the wrong order and walk nonchalantly away with nary a backward glance, so I propose stamping out this cavalier behaviour with fines of up to £150.

That'll be 150 quid, mate.

On issues of public health, I would make it a criminal offence not to use the tongs provided at a buffet.  I would also make it a criminal offence to serve buffet food without providing tongs.  Either of these could elicit a jail sentence of up to six months.  Further to this, it would be mandatory for all public buildings to include at least one basin with a foot-operated tap.

On education, I would ensure that university students pay twice as much for their drinks in bars and pubs as anybody else.  University is a place for learning, not just a three-year-long excuse to get drunk, and students get plenty of concessions in other areas – such as clothes retailers offering student discounts, no council tax payments, and free cheeseburgers at McDonald's.  I'm sure the rest of us would relish the opportunity to have a drink in a pub without a bunch of rowdy students shouting, doing 'shots' and having 'fun'.

Expanding on an idea I first proposed on this Blog several months ago, any business putting out their special Christmas-themed TV adverts or billboard advertising before the last week in November would see their corporation tax payments double as a result.  There is simply no need for companies to start ramming Christmas down our throats in mid-October!  While on the topic of advertising, I would ban all television adverts which anthropomorphise food.

No one would be allowed to turn right on the Ring Road; it causes far too many delays.  If you want to go right, you'll have to go left, left, and left again.

I would introduce standardised flavour colours for crisp packets.  It is far too confusing for some companies to make Salt'n'Vinegar packets green and Cheese'n'Onion packets blue, while other companies have Cheese'n'Onion crisps in green packets and Salt'n'Vinegar in blue ones.  These guidelines will be set down by a new Minister For Crisps And Snacks, who will also be in charge of ensuring even distribution of flavours in 'Multipack' crisps (except Prawn Cocktail, because nobody likes it).

Finally, I would hold a referendum on holding a referendum on Europe.  Opinion is divided on whether we should have a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union or not, and so I believe the best and most democratic way to gauge the public mood on this matter is have a referendum on whether or not we should have the referendum – however, this would not be in any way binding upon my government.

Obviously, these proposals are just a taste of the decent, common sense policies for hardworking men and women which my government would introduce.  A full copy of the UKIT Manifesto (no, that doesn't stand for anything – it's just a bit like UKIP but with my name in it instead, and much better policies) is available on request.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

This Conservative campaign poster for the upcoming General Election is already under fire.  Why?  Because, as correctly predicted by my brother, the road in the picture is, in fact, not in Britain at all – but is in Germany, outside Weimar.

Who cares?!  I can't, for the life of me, think why this matters.  Of all the things to get worked up about, is this really the one you would pick?  It's a stock photo of a road, and it could be anywhere in the world – adverts use stock photos.  There isn't really a 'road to recovery' which you can actually drive down at all; it's a metaphor.  The manufactured outrage surrounding this is ludicrous.

What we should be looking at is the claims which the Conservative Party makes on its campaign poster.  One of the boasts they make on 'the road to recovery' is that 'the deficit is halved'.  Is it?  Fraser Nelson described in the Spectator last month why this may not be strictly accurate – and yet people are more interested in foaming at the mouth about the location of the photograph being used in the campaign!  Isn't this akin to seeing a company's advert on television and being more angry about the fact they used actors in the advert than about the possibility they may be making false claims about their product?

In politics, facts matter.  Stock images don't.  The next few months are going to get pretty ridiculous if the criticisms levelled at this Conservative 'road to recovery' poster are indicative of the level of discourse we can expect from the General Election campaign.  Let's stop worrying about these trivialities and instead subject all parties' claims and policies to the kind of proper scrutiny required to make an informed choice about who to vote for in May.

What has Christmas become?

Christmas is changing.  I don't think I really recognise it any more.  There are so many things that it wouldn't be Christmas without – but half of them have only come into being at all in the past five years (or so it seems)!

Today is Black Friday.  I don't really know what that is.  It's like the after Christmas sales – but, weirdly, before Christmas.  I remember people talking about it last year, and I'm pretty sure somebody died (really?! Somebody check that for me…), but before last year I'd never heard of it, and I'm still not sure where it came from.  There are so many sales, seasonal events, one-day brand events, or whatever, now that the really special occasion is when the products are full-price – most products spend more time on special offer than at full price, and shops should really give up the pretence and just admit that the 'reduced' prices are actually the real prices.  Whatever the price is, though, it's pretty unedifying to fight someone in a supermarket over who gets the last George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Grilling Machine on the shelf.  What are you people thinking of?!  It's madness!

Christmas adverts have evolved until now there's an obligation to make an advert which doesn't just shamelessly flog worthless tat to Christmas shoppers but is practically a miniature motion picture with a raft of characters with complex backstories, an unexpected plot twist and an uplifting yet thoughtful moral message.  A few years back, adverts were just a thing which happened when you were watching TV – a good opportunity to get up and make a cup of coffee or find the cat.  Now, people eagerly await the smug, kitschy Christmas adverts the way they look forward to the next episode of their favourite television programmes.

For some reason, supermarkets have now entered into a competition to see who can stuff as many animals one inside the other.  The lower budget the supermarket, the more different animals they try to cram in there.  When I was growing up, you had your roast goose or your roast turkey, with potatoes, vegetables, gravy, whatever – these days, you can head down to your local Nisa Today and pick up a gorgeous roasted goat stuffed with a monkey stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a chicken stuffed with an otter stuffed with a partridge stuffed with a shrew (serves 4) for only a tenner.  I suppose the next step is to start doing the same thing with vegetables?  Roast potatoes stuffed with parsnips stuffed with carrots stuffed with sprouts stuffed with peas?

We don't even call it Christmas now, do we?  It's the holiday season – or, worse, the party season.  Y'see, we have to give the impression that the entire period of time after the end of the Bonfire Night celebrations up until the bitter, throbbing regrets of New Year's Day is one long string of end-to-end parties and social occasions – each filled to bursting with laughter, jollity, scintillating conversations, exciting sex, memories to cherish forever, and tiny little cocktail sausages which other people have touched.  The party season, where everyone always look incredible, and no one is ever unhappy.  Yeah, right!

Christmas used to be a time of worship – for those of a particular religious bent – or else a time to see family, catch up with old friends, relax, and enjoy yourself.  Recently it seems to have become a parade of saccharine clichés, each rooted in hollow, mindless consumerism instead of anything meaningful or personal.

The changes I've written about are all very, very recent.  But Tom Lehrer summed up the spirit of it all, long before 'Black Friday' or any of this other stuff existed:

Christmas!  What happened to you?

#MontyThePenguin

I've just watched the new John Lewis Christmas advert.  If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:

According to the response on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, people have actually been crying at this.  Genuinely shedding real life tears.  Can you believe that?  It's a television advert.  And you're crying at it?!  Pull yourselves together!  You'll find you get a lot less emotional watching it if you bear in mind that it's been cynically calculated to make you spend as much money as possible.

Even worse, however, is John Lewis' appropriation of Christmas.  This article in The Telegraph declares that "today sees the start of the countdown to Christmas: the launch of the John Lewis Christmas advert".  No, it doesn't.  We already have a 'countdown to Christmas' – it's called Advent, and it begins four Sundays before Christmas Day (this year, that's 30th November).  And with its traditions of lighting candles, singing songs and baking cakes, Advent is considerably more festive and more community-spirited than an unashamed attempt to squeeze more money out of consumers by tugging on their heartstrings.

I shall be expanding on this at a later time, but when my political party sweeps to power next May in a landslide election victory, our flagship policy will be to double corporation tax on any company who puts out a Christmas advert before the last week of November.  If John Lewis decide to pass that increase on to their customers, they may find their Christmas marketing campaign doesn't bring it quite so much profit any more.

The best hotel for me

"I want to find the best hotel for me…"

So says the implausibly smiley (replete with cute dimples and twinkly eyes) woman who stars in the latest television advert for Trivago - a website which allows you to compare various prices for hotel rooms, and book a room straight from the site.

But what does that even mean?

Part of the trend of big companies trying to 'humanise' their image in adverts and in their branding in general, Trivago are trying to speak directly to me, personally - and to you, and to everyone.  They're trying to tell you that you're special, you're unique, and that they're looking out for you.  You're not; and they're not.

The "best hotel for me" is simply a nice hotel.  I am not such a special and wonderful individual, so set apart from the rest of the herd, that my requirements from a hotel room differ wildly from what the rest of the population would choose.

I want a hotel room which is clean, and has a bed and a shower and a television and towels provided and one of those tiny kettles (but no way to fill it, except in the bath).  And so do you.  And so does everyone.

Please, Trivago - stop trying to make me feel like I'm one-of-a-kind.  It isn't working.

The Twelve Adverts Of Christmas

These are twelve of the television adverts you are guaranteed to see this Christmas; here I have distilled the essence of each one's message, so you don't have to.

One

Buy a console game which 'all the family' can play, so none of you actually have to look at each other over Christmas.

Two

Fool everyone into thinking you can cook by spending a whole £5 on a mixed platter of bland, nondescript 'party food'.

Three

Create a personalised calendar with pictures of your family on it, in case you're in danger of forgetting what they look like as well as when their birthdays are.

Four

Can't think of anything to buy for someone?  Get them a turgidly predictable stand-up comedy DVD.

Five

Enjoy a plastic tray of chocolates in the shape of something which loosely relates to Christmas - the gratification is fleeting, but the shame stays with you.

Six

Buy a tiny amount of a very expensive perfume, and instantly make yourself the most attractive person in the world with the most glamorous, exciting, edgy lifestyle imaginable.

Seven

You may have coped for the other eleven months of the year with a vastly inferior sofa - but everyone knows Christmas is the time when a sofa really comes into its own.  Buy one now.

Eight

Convince yourself you 'couldn't possibly live without' some totally unnecessary piece of plastic tat.

Nine

This item of food is better than a similar, but much more expensive, item of food from a different company.

Ten

Become so hopelessly caught up in the misty-eyed nostalgia of ersatz 'home video' footage (made to look like it was shot in the '90s) of a stereotypical family smiling and laughing together as they create Christmas memories to cherish forever that you can't help yourself but buy something from our shop.

Eleven

Instead of sending meaningless platitudes to people you only talk to once a year in a Christmas card, send meaningless platitudes to people you only talk to once a year in a personalised Christmas card.  Nothing softens the blow of being only a casual 'Christmas Card List' acquaintance like the 0.3 seconds of extra thought it takes to 'personalise' a Christmas card on a website; if you personalise the card with a picture of yourself, maybe the recipient will even remember who you are!

Twelve

Become easily the most hated person in your neighbourhood with an ostentatious display of decorative festive self-aggrandisation.

Enjoy the season of giving, everyone!

Guess the glasses advert

I've started playing a new game, when I'm watching television…  It's called Guess The Glasses Advert…

I thought the point of advertising was to make your company stand out from the competition…  This doesn't actually work, though, if all the major competitors in one field seem to be using the same advertising concept to sell themselves!

There are several major chains of opticians in the UK, and these days, all their adverts seem to go along the same lines…

They go something like this -

• People in a normal situation
• Comic confusion obviously caused by myopia occurs
• Embarrassment and awkwardness ensue
• Optician's logo and slogan appear on screen

If you can guess whether the advert is for SpecSavers, Boots Opticians, Vision Express, or whatever, before you get to Step Four, you win eleven points!

When is it not the time to go on a diet?

So, it's the middle of June, and the smell-o-vision is full of adverts encouraging people (more commonly women) to get slim "for summer"...  The insinuation being that summer is the time when it really matters that you have a slim, svelte figure...  (To look good in a bathing suit, I presume?)

OK, fair enough...  So, now's the time to go on a diet, if you're going to?  Well, yes, but, so's any other time - if you believe the adverts!

I remember, only a few months back, when people were being encouraged to get slim for Christmas...  Or, "the party season" as advertising agencies seem to prefer to call it...  I s'pose the jocular, merry connotations of such a phrase help shift more worthless "tat" than a more down-to-earth moniker like "season of depression and divorce" would...!

So, when's the best time to be on a diet?  Summer, or Christmas?  Or maybe spring?  Or late autumn?  Well, with Bonfire Night at the beginning of November, you're most likely to be seen in silhouette with all those lights going off - and, in such a situation, you can't rely on having a pretty face, so you'll need to be thin!  (To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't actually seen an advert that takes that line yet...  Maybe this November, somebody will finally capitalise on this hitherto unsullied opportunity?)

I think the answer is that companies who sell products which help you to lose weight want you to believe that every season is the best time to diet...  The best (or worst?) example of this would, I believe, be Kellogg's...  A company with an hilariously wide range of products designed to aid weight loss!  How many different types of "Special K" bars, cereals, snacks, etc, are available to buy, these days?  Lots!

And, of course, there are year-round adverts for "Special K" - always goading the viewer into trying a "two week challenge" or a "thousand steps challenge" or something equally galling...

So, why would you need to keep on doing "the challenge"?  Why the need to get slim for summer, for winter, for your birthday, for washing the car, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer?  Because the product doesn't work, I guess...

I could go on ranting for a long, long time about the apparent need constantly to be dieting...  But I shan't!  I shall just continue to hope that somebody, somewhere, has the sense to produce an advert saying "you don't need to get slim for summer - aren't you already slim from spring?!"

Tellyrant the Third

Am I getting older and grumpier?  Or are adverts on TV getting rubbisher and rubbisher?

To be honest, I suspect a healthy dollop of both...  So I'm going to talk about a something which has been particularly proficient in the caprine attainment area recently...

Babies...  Is there anything creepier?  OK, babies, at any times, are slightly unsettling - but in some adverts, it's grudgingly acceptable to use babies...  Adverts for nappies, particularly, have a certain claim to legitimate use of babies...  But the Pizza Hut advert where the baby comes downstairs on its own and shouts at its parents?  Yes, that is the stuff nightmares are made of...!

It's the same story with that Evian Mineral Water advert, with the babies who are on roller-skates, or skateboards, or something...  Generally, it's babies acting like adults - or at least older kids...  And that's supposed to make me buy bottled water??  How?!

Please, all companies - whatever you make, whatever you sell - take note...  Talking babies do not a good advert make!!

Some adverts use older children - it's not so scary when they talk, of course, because most children can actually talk, in real life...  But why do they always pick children with the most irritating voices?  I remember being a reasonably articulate child - and I remember hanging out with other reasonably articulate children...  So how come these companies, and advertising agencies, pick the kids with the most child-like, "I only learnt to talk half an hour ago" voices?  It's actually quite painful to watch, and, indeed, to hear...

On a more positive note, there is one advert I've seen a few times recently which I think is fantastic...  (Obviously, I rarely, if ever, think an advert is any good at all, so this is quite exciting!)  It is the latest offering from opticians Specsavers - the one which cleverly makes you think it's going to be advert for Lynx deodorant sprays, right up until the last scene...  Here it is -

Ed Baines

Ed Baines, get off the TV, until you've learned to talk properly... Your Philadelphia advert should be suspended until you've been taught the correct pronunciation of "tagliatelle"...! I'm surprised you don't enunciate each "p" in "Philadelphia" too!!

Tellyrant Two

Something that's very irritating about commercial television is the type of advert which tries to make out that the product it's advertising is more exciting than it actually is...

You know the type... But because I'm supposed to fill up this space with my "thoughts" I'll give some examples anyway...!

Sensodyne Iso-Active, with that annoying woman talking, going on and on and on and on and on... Her over-enthusiasm is so obviously fake, and the kind of things she says make me want to try the product even less! "I'm excited about trying new things" - yeah, so are lots of people, but I doubt they mean toothpastes when they say that! Like anyone's going to leave the theatre early saying "I'm sorry, but I really want to get home - I'm so psyched about trying this exciting new toothpaste!" or anything like that...?! And then she says "it's like, where is the product going wrong? Nowhere!" Well, they certainly went wrong when they commissioned that advert...!

OK, another example... Perhaps it's the obvious one, but the whole Kellogg's Crunchy Nut series of ads aren't even bordering on the ridiculous - they've sped right through the ridiculous and across the border on the other side without even stopping for Customs, and are now in some Land of Truly Unbelievable Stupidity... According to the advert, it's "Ludicrously Tasty" - such shoddy work, whoever came up with that must've been ludicrously hasty! [groan] In a hurry to rush home from work, perhaps, to have a lovely supper of cereal and milk...? Only to get up in the middle of the night to snack on more cereal and milk, this time straight out of the garishly branded box? Yeah right! Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is that crazy about a BREAKFAST FREAKIN' CEREAL! Another product I avoid...

I think that's enough ranting for now... Tellyrants will continue, of course, as there are many more forms of irritating adverts out there, just waiting to be slandered on a small-time blogular in the middle of Cybershire... Fab-yew-lous!