Ok, what’s eating me today in a whole plethora of things which are not right with the world is the current advertising campaign for the VW Golf.
You will be familiar with this advert if, like me, you occasionally find yourself compelled to watch one of the commercial channels on the television. Rare as you may think it is that I would stray from the warm, cosy maternal bussom of “Aunty” Beeb and her licence fee funded programming, all of which meets the standards of excellence one should expect from the state’s broadcaster, I may shock some of you by admitting that I occasionally watch televisual output on such operators as Channel 4 and Five. I have heard that there is a programme which exists between BBC2 and Channel 4 but as yet I have not found any reason to investigate this as my copy of the Radio Times is edited by my wife with a black marker pen to avoid me accidentally seeing anything which may cause me to rage violently about the state of the world today, and the preset has a child lock to which I do not have the password. I understand that this channel is principally game shows and is watched by the sort of people who would probably struggle to join a decent golf club.
In spite of this I am still subject to television advertising. It is generally my habit to turn the television off for three minutes during advertising breaks however there are occasions where the naughty pixies hide the TV remote and I am forced to see commercial advertising during my viewing. Out of all the current banal and mind rotting filth and consumer brainwashing detritus by far the most rage inducing is that for the Volkswagen Golf.
This would be the one where the lyrics to the 1950s classic “do-whop” hit “The Great Pretender” are spoken over a slo-mo enactment of a day in the life of some overcompensating “fun” corporate shill.
Oh yes I’m the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Pretending I’m doing well (ooh ooh)
My need is such I pretend too much
I’m lonely but no one can tell
Oh yes I’m the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Adrift in a world of my own (ooh ooh)
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to dream all alone
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal
Ooh ooh yes I’m the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Just laughing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I seem to be what I’m not (you see)
I’m wearing my heart like a CROWN
Pretending that you’re still around
Yeah ooh hoo
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal
Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I seem to be what I’m not you see
I’m wearing my heart like a CROWN
Pretending that you’re
Pretending that you’re still around
Well the object of this fellow’s misery turns out to be his old VW Golf. Oh, he got rid of his faithful (and doubtless grey) Golf in favour of some red flashy sporty number and now nobody wants to go to the pub at lunch with him, nor down the gym for a highly competitive game of squash and a spot of willy waving in the showers and then on to brag how many “units” you shifted this week. Well my heart well and truly bleeds for you. Go get a real job, make a fugging difference to the world. Be a teacher, a nurse, an aid worker – then come back and tell me you have it hard. Dickwad. Lets turn ofn the tears for the guy with money who isn’t happy because he has the wrong company car. Oh dear, what a shame, how does the wrld keep on turning with tragedy like this in it? I can hardly bear the humanity of it all. Oh the poor man. Still, could be worse, he could be one of the 1 in 5 British residents living below the poverty line, perhaps one of the hundreds of thousands of low income households made poorer by the chancellors’ last budget, maybe he could be living in a cardboard box getting the curse word kicked out of him by drunken oiks after closing time. No, getting the wrong company car is obviously infinitely worse than any of that.
Oh, and then, the secretly yog-filled salty icing on this whole dog poo filled cake is the advertising strap line “Golf – The Power of understatement”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The power of balnd conformity more frikkin like, the power of being another corporate clone on the treadmill, you’re a blasting SHEEP. Let me hear you bleat boy, bleat boy, hit that perfect hit that perfect hit that perfect bleat bleat boy! Baaaahhhh… You care more about what other people think about you that what really matters to you, your family, the real world? What kind of scum are you anyway. The stupid dumb relentless unthinking dross kind. Buy a Golf then, see if I care, and while you’re at it get yourself down Kensington because that dumb bimbo from 1987 is still trying to get her flat keys out of the drain.
I don’t know about you but it certainly does not make me want to go out and buy a Volkswagen.
You will be familiar with this advert if, like me, you occasionally find yourself compelled to watch one of the commercial channels on the television. Rare as you may think it is that I would stray from the warm, cosy maternal bussom of “Aunty” Beeb and her licence fee funded programming, all of which meets the standards of excellence one should expect from the state’s broadcaster, I may shock some of you by admitting that I occasionally watch televisual output on such operators as Channel 4 and Five. I have heard that there is a programme which exists between BBC2 and Channel 4 but as yet I have not found any reason to investigate this as my copy of the Radio Times is edited by my wife with a black marker pen to avoid me accidentally seeing anything which may cause me to rage violently about the state of the world today, and the preset has a child lock to which I do not have the password. I understand that this channel is principally game shows and is watched by the sort of people who would probably struggle to join a decent golf club.
In spite of this I am still subject to television advertising. It is generally my habit to turn the television off for three minutes during advertising breaks however there are occasions where the naughty pixies hide the TV remote and I am forced to see commercial advertising during my viewing. Out of all the current banal and mind rotting filth and consumer brainwashing detritus by far the most rage inducing is that for the Volkswagen Golf.
This would be the one where the lyrics to the 1950s classic “do-whop” hit “The Great Pretender” are spoken over a slo-mo enactment of a day in the life of some overcompensating “fun” corporate shill.
Oh yes I’m the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Pretending I’m doing well (ooh ooh)
My need is such I pretend too much
I’m lonely but no one can tell
Oh yes I’m the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Adrift in a world of my own (ooh ooh)
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to dream all alone
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal
Ooh ooh yes I’m the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Just laughing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I seem to be what I’m not (you see)
I’m wearing my heart like a CROWN
Pretending that you’re still around
Yeah ooh hoo
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal
Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I seem to be what I’m not you see
I’m wearing my heart like a CROWN
Pretending that you’re
Pretending that you’re still around
Well the object of this fellow’s misery turns out to be his old VW Golf. Oh, he got rid of his faithful (and doubtless grey) Golf in favour of some red flashy sporty number and now nobody wants to go to the pub at lunch with him, nor down the gym for a highly competitive game of squash and a spot of willy waving in the showers and then on to brag how many “units” you shifted this week. Well my heart well and truly bleeds for you. Go get a real job, make a fugging difference to the world. Be a teacher, a nurse, an aid worker – then come back and tell me you have it hard. Dickwad. Lets turn ofn the tears for the guy with money who isn’t happy because he has the wrong company car. Oh dear, what a shame, how does the wrld keep on turning with tragedy like this in it? I can hardly bear the humanity of it all. Oh the poor man. Still, could be worse, he could be one of the 1 in 5 British residents living below the poverty line, perhaps one of the hundreds of thousands of low income households made poorer by the chancellors’ last budget, maybe he could be living in a cardboard box getting the curse word kicked out of him by drunken oiks after closing time. No, getting the wrong company car is obviously infinitely worse than any of that.
Oh, and then, the secretly yog-filled salty icing on this whole dog poo filled cake is the advertising strap line “Golf – The Power of understatement”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The power of balnd conformity more frikkin like, the power of being another corporate clone on the treadmill, you’re a blasting SHEEP. Let me hear you bleat boy, bleat boy, hit that perfect hit that perfect hit that perfect bleat bleat boy! Baaaahhhh… You care more about what other people think about you that what really matters to you, your family, the real world? What kind of scum are you anyway. The stupid dumb relentless unthinking dross kind. Buy a Golf then, see if I care, and while you’re at it get yourself down Kensington because that dumb bimbo from 1987 is still trying to get her flat keys out of the drain.
I don’t know about you but it certainly does not make me want to go out and buy a Volkswagen.