I’ve just been watching a show on prime-time ITV1 (the station for chavs, basically) all about ‘celebrities’ in an ice-skating competition (my excuse: I am forced to be sociable by/for/with my offspring).
You can tell a great deal about a show by the commercial breaks with which it is infested, and what follows really is, or should be, the antapotheosis not only of my nadir, but of anyone else with any shred of self-respect.
The commercial concerns a slab of sugary brown yuck purportedly made of chocolate (pronounced: chok’lit, which is, actually, the past-tense of chik’lit).
The viewer is invited to believe that the best thing one might aspire to achieve in a day which one might be granted as uniquely one’s own, is simply to indulge oneself by eating aforesaid rectangular slab of emulsified, condensed, saturated, resublimated, glop. Chemists willl correct me if [oh no they won’t – Ed].
Not only does this illustrate the poverty of aspiration of millions of people (advertisers being the best indicators of the mood of their particular … er … demographic), it also shows their selfishness. Consider: if you had an extra day, all to yourself, to do what you liked with, you might … ooooh, I don’t know … engage in some useful voluntary work; save whales; do guerilla gardening; make someone happy (someone else); tell someone you love them; do that long-neglected job of DIY around the house; attempt that tricky experiment; make that painful confession; or, at any rate, if one insists on being utterly selfish, try, in so doing, to achieve something (anything) of lasting value.
But no, we are encouraged to tell everyone else to get knotted while we gorge ourselves silly on chok’lit.
Sign O’ the Times, Brothers and Sisters: Sign O’ The Times.
I had a day to myself, dear reader, and ate some chocolate. Does that make me an ITV viewer?
Hi Henry,
“guerrilla gardening” – brilliant !!
To this day, my worst experience of commercial TV was as follows. (I stopped watching ITV1 aka “independent television” probably as a result).
Scenario….
Round the world trip in 2001 with my Mum to visit my sis-in-law and Nephew in C’Church – NZ. 3 weeks we will never forget.
During our adventures of the South Island, I remember one night when we sat down to watch a film on TV.
For every 60 mins TV, 30 mins was devoted to ad’s. Thank you R Murdoch et al. (this was my first experience of watching TV outwith the UK).
EVERY 5 mins of the film was rudely interrupted with commercials.
My Nephew (5 at that time) was trained by his Uncle Graham to bleat out ”bla bla bla bla bla bla” (as per a classic Terry Gilliam Python skit) during commercial breaks. I hope he remembered that…..
I have nothing against advertising, but certainly don’t like it being force-fed as illustrated as above by myself and Henry.
—
In the end, did my 50 min video montage of our trip to NZ contain any adverts/commercials ? Nope. Just edited footage of guerrilla discovery of a marvelous country with so much natural beauty.
Henry – surely you’ve answered your own question with the chiklit remark: you aren’t qualified to comment on choklit, as you aren’t female. But then I’m not either, so maybe this comment should disappear up its own chocolate fountain. (I really wish I hadn’t thought of that.)