Is it just me or is there something a tiny bit off-putting about the notion of a toilet roll called ‘Kitten-Soft’?
Kitten-soft.
I don’t want to get overly graphic here but surely, now that this product is really with us, there must be some very worried pussycats walking our streets.
It would certainly give me pause, (or even paws) to think that, at any given moment, somebody might grab me from behind and attempt to wipe their arse with me. Was that overly graphic? Sorry.
There might indeed be some worried punters around too. Suppose you were to reach for one of these wandering lavatorial felines and use it the wrong way around?
Those little suckers have claws you know.
It brings tears to my eyes just to think of it.
* * * *
Speaking of adverts, few things in life have confused me in recent times to the extent that a certain wide-eyed pubescent lad has.
Most evenings, he goggles at me from the corner of my living room, leans across his Hollandaise sauce and begs me to tell him, “who’s bringin’ the harse to France?”
What on earth is that gosawer on about?
The advert itself is obviously a conscientious attempt to rip-off that great institution, the Gold Blend ‘will-he-ever-get-around-to-bloody-shagging-her’ saga. Itself nothing to ride home about.
Apparently that series of commercials succeeded in selling enormous
quantities of unremarkable instant coffee to sex-starved yuppies.
I personally have met people claiming to have been emotionally forced to
buy the brand by that self same promotion - poor, sad, misguided bastards
that they indisputably are. It is only natural, therefore, that some
eager-faced marketing bod would eventually decide to apply that same approach
to another product. Butter... perhaps?
But at least with the bloody Gold Blend adverts you knew where you
stood. Man meets woman, man pulls woman, man defers coital attempts
with woman in favour of large mug of second-rate warmed-over chicory.
The new Kerrygold campaign opts for a blend of rural sophistication and knowing middle-class innuendo and succeeds only in coming across as pretentious double-Dutch culchie horse-shit.
This is not to say I don't like it.
Indeed, I sort of admire its nerve in attempting to cross ‘Upstairs-Downstairs’ with ‘Landmark’. Brave but misguided, I’d call it. It’s bad but at least it evokes a reaction.
With regard to the advert, my quibble is small but pertinent (just the way I like ‘em my dear!!). Namely, I do not have the first clue what the hell is meant to be going on.
Some people have told me there was a previous episode, which I missed, but they also rushed to confirm that it, too, was a load of unrelated old hooey. So I am no further ahead.
Perhaps we should examine the evidence and try to reach some sort of conclusion.
Ahem...
Man, boy, and classy French-crumpet eye up a horse. Said beast gives no hint at this juncture that he is planning any class of a European trip. They repair to the indoors where a miserable old crone is doing something with cutlery whilst issuing threats about impending food.
Disregarding her completely, the man of the house, who looks like a sort of Post-Immac Joe Dolan, sets about whipping up a bit of tucker of his own. The French wan slinks around the kitchen telling him he does it like a Frenchman, which to my limited knowledge precludes the risk of falling pregnant.
They fall to dinner with Joe blatantly flaunting his sauce as some sort of Freudian representation of his own rampant masculinity (my theory, take it or leave it). Then, just as order seems about to be achieved, yonder lanky youth pops in with the biggest non-sequitur since God knows what.
“Who’s takin’ the Harse to France?”
The End.
Nope, I’m still confused.
In my lack of enlightenment, I sometimes entertain myself by theorising
extravagantly about the true meaning of this little episode. Questions
abound. Why is the horse going to France? How will he get there?
Will he travel business class? Will the stewardesses be intimidated
by his horsey good looks? Will French customs ask him ‘why the long
face’? Will he exceed his duty-free quota?
Perhaps France is a person rather than a place? Aha! Perhaps Francis, or Francie as he’s known - is the local knacker (that’s horse-killer to you sir). This could be it. The young fella is going through this adolescent phase of fascination with all things morbid. He wants to be the one to take poor old Dobbin on his final trot, to grin heartily as the butcher’s bolt strikes home. But what kind of message does this give on behalf of the sponsors?
“Have some Kerrygold, before you kill a horse.”
I think I’d better think it out again!
Perhaps ‘harse’ does not actually mean ‘horse’. Maybe the little turd is asking who’s taking the hearse to France? The old biddy, suddenly aware that she is redundant because Joe has finally learned to cook for himself, kills herself by sticking her head in the oven - forgetting it is actually a range. The scene where she runs screaming from the scullery, head ablaze, is edited out in most rural areas and is only really ever seen in North Dublin dens of iniquity, where they need strong stuff to keep their minds off all those drugs. Granny’s crispy corpse is being taking to the continent where it is cheaper to bury people, hence the question “who’s taking the hearse to France?”
Of course this is all just silliness. The real image which the advert evokes is churned up by the juxtaposition of butter and French accents. The last time these two elements featured in such intimate proximity was in Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris”. Now I may be alone in this but the idea of getting hold of the butter, after Marlon is finished with it, is neither appealing nor particularly appetising.
No wonder the old girl died!
Finally, of course, the advert fails completely in it’s attempt to accurately reflect modern upper class rural life. If authenticity were the order of the day then it would be pissing raining, Joe Dolan would be moaning how he can’t afford butter and the lad would be asking “who’s taking the f***ing horse to France?”
Now that might have sold me some butter.
* * * *
For we, the compulsive people-watchers of Ireland, there is really only one television programme. I refer, of course, to ‘Winning Streak’, the National Lottery gameshow.
Millions watch it avidly each week but they are largely doing it for all the wrong reasons. They hope to see winners, they hope to see losers, they hope to see distant relatives who they can tap afterwards for funds. They are missing the true joy of the thing.
The simple truth which many fail to recognise is that this is the only programme on any station anywhere where the producers can exercise no control whatsoever over who appears each week.
Your name comes out, you’re on mate.
‘Winning Streak’ is the ultimate celebration of that most quoted of classes - ‘Your Average Punter’. Every week, five versions of ‘Your Average Punter’ are hauled from their oceans of mundanity to lie flapping and gaping on the imitation-leather chairs of RTE’s Studio One. This is any producer's nightmare and that is exactly what makes it is so compelling.
Most shows can withstand a brief moment or two of exposure to ‘Your Average Punter’. You see them on ‘Questions and Answers’ periodically, they ask the same question as the guy before asked and press for an answer. They phone up ‘The Late Late Show’ now and again in order to flash their bleary insights at passing celebrities. Gay always cuts them off before the Celeb responds. Gay is quite right to do so.
We may glimpse them in the wilds of the RTE schedule from time to time but ‘Winning Streak’ is their wildlife park. Here they can parade around, resplendent in their average-punterness. They can show how intelligent they almost are. We can watch them squirm.
Mike Murphy is the zoo-keeper and this article has no quarrel whatsoever with him. Mike is a consummate media professional, silky and unaging, and the only man in Ireland who can still carry off wearing a beige suit with grey shoes.
He fearlessly extends the hand of over-familiarity to the row of expectant
televisual virgins. He jokes with him. He shows them how to
push buttons. He gives them money to take home.
About the same time he is doing this on TV, Mike can be heard doing
something else on the radio. He is also the presenter of the countries
principal Arts review programme. This is Mike’s natural environment,
he discourses knowledgeably on Diverse subjects from Proust to Wagner.
He tells us what he’s currently reading. He mixes with the best of
them.
One listen to this programme will punch home to the unwary viewer just how far off his home turf Mike is with his row of hopeful scratch-card draftees. They think Proust is a washing powder. They believe that Wagner was married to Natalie Wood. They don't care, they want to get their money and then be allowed home.
Mike bridges the extraordinary gulf between his experiences and theirs by employing the sort of cheerfully encouraging manner one might expect from a Gonhorrea doctor. “Have you anybody with you?” he asks. “They’re a rough-looking bunch,” he says, “you’d want to stay away from them.”
On his radio show, Mike plunges in head-first. He delves into his guest’s deepest sexual yearnings and unconscious fantasies. On ‘Shoot for the Stars’, he treads much more tentatively. Lines of questioning like, “So, Dolly, do I hear that you’re a bit of lesbian?” simply will not go over well with the guest’s assembled well-wishers.
All the signs are there that the producers have no choice over who gets on. Not only are the actual punters a big indicator but the week-to-week mix is also a real give-away. Often you will get five completely similar punters lined up and rearing to go.
The very best weeks are when five likely lads all line out together. Always fresh from propping up the Donnybrook bar in search of gallons of false courage, they slouch aimlessly behind their buttons and grin as their idiot sons wave sloganed socks from the back row of the audience. One gets the firm impression that the studio air would be thick with the smell of farts on these nights.
The various competitions are all subtle variations on a complex little game called ‘Spin the Friggin' Wheel Missus’. Each season, the management come up with increasingly perverse angles on this limited theme. This year it’s islands... or something... who cares?
And when the money is all dispensed, the relatives all paid off, and the studio floor mopped dry of another weeks puddles of nervous urine, we wonder ‘what was it all about?’ But we shouldn’t.
It was about People. Real, honest, God-fearing, good People. People just like ourselves. People who should never be let anywhere near the front of a television camera because we are so ‘Real’ we will only look silly and be laughed at.
The people who look good on television are not ‘Real’. They are not ‘Your Average Punters’. They are neither like us or from us. They know nothing about us.
And still.... we always seem to vote for them.