I used to know quite a few clever youthfuls who worked in advertising. I had to be careful when drawing up party lists, because there could sometimes be ideological clashes between the bright young things of Adland, and people who thought it unacceptable to project a huge Coca-Cola advert onto the Moon. I don't really mind it much myself. I look at the pretty pictures and move on. Unless a really good new mascara seems to be promised. Advert people don't care for THAT attitude at all..it's as irritating for them as is the "pornography just bores me" school of thought. One of my dear friends who was something very important in a company with a string of names and initials once said to me "If you don't see the point of an advert, it wasn't aimed at you".
As ever, the best thing to do with an irritant is to move away from it, and I have a great many crossed-out "Home"addresses to prove it. However, sometimes one becomes exposed by ill luck or circumstance, to a television set which is not one's own and therefore it is not permissable to hurl it from a high window with a curse. Distressing items can accidentally swim into one's normally highly filtered limpid pool. I do find it difficult to love the Littlewood's Christmas Advertisement in the spirit of Christian charity which I realise is expected of me by the vicar. It's not the open exhortation to ALL Mothers to buy everything in the world from Littlewoods with credit cards that should have been frozen in the compartment bit of the fridge designed for that purpose, and the lack of male parents (WHY are Fathers For Justice not dressing up as Spiderman and storming Littlewood's HQ at this appalling slight?),and that perfectly foul little girl with glasses and facepaint. It's the rapping that gets to me. There should NEVER be children rapping, it must be confined to those with pubic hair or the whole point is lost.
But the one that really gets to me is the one with Linda Bellingham. Now I used to see this perfectly pleasant woman around when I was a Crouchender, as was she.She always dressed pleasingly,in a very North London Boho way. However, she has now sold her soul to a catalogue called "Isme". They have an utterly revolting commercial on the television, the burden of whose song is that mad menopausal crones get even madder at Christmas (grain of truth, there is always one..) and are therefore only too likely to hit the cooking sherry and stagger round the high street, buying sequinned leggings and midriff-throttling dresses in shiny red nylon. They can escape this fate, (and thereby,it is suggested, find themselves at the mercy of an unshaven toyboy who will glower darkly on their sofa and eat all their After-Eights in tractor-like, mechanical shovelling motions,by the way),only by purchasing matronly garments in "jewel colours" with suitable draped necklines and sleeves cunningly fashioned to accommodate the vast swoops of dinner-lady underarms that afflict us all when someone blows a whistle somewhere around our fiftieth birthdays.
Oh God spare us from A-line "fit and flare" and dipped hemlines. Did Joan Crawford slip into an easy-to-wear draped horror frock when she reached her foxy fifties? No,she did not;she ramped up the eyebrows and the tailoring. I met a picturesque woman the other evening, who had it seemed, recently turned forty and become invisible,or so she said.I could see her perfectly well, I reassured her. "No!" she ejaculated, almost causing me to loosen my grip on my Big Dirty Red. "Men! They just don't see you after a certain age". I have mentioned this before, but it is worth repeating. If someone ignores you because you do not fit in with their addled and poisoned idea of pulchritude, you have had a Lucky Escape, and should rejoice. I used to be whistled at by builders and van drivers and roadmenders. Now, I am rarely the object of that kind of attention. This is not due to my suddenly becoming a hag,it is because I now give every impression that I will stride up to these miscreants and shake their ladders viciously, delivering invective in crisp tones,rather than slinking away or blushing. And this impression is accurate.
Differing tribes see the same landscape differently. Another darling friend once pointed out that his teenagers saw threats, portents, hazards and landmarks in their own neighbourhoods which are invisible to the adult negotiating the exact same territory. We see a junction or a takeaway, they see a postcode boundary likely to end in a stabbing . And so it is with what might be referred to as street hassle, as Lou Reed called it.Although it would be a foolhardy builder who whistled at Lou these days. We are all invisible to teenagers, but charity collectors can see us several miles away. It is a matter of perspective. However, I will not be trussed up in stretch velvet with a "flattering" bolero at this time of year or any other. I shall wear what I damn well please and do as I damn well like. That is the divine blessing of advancing age, and I intend to get the maximum fun from it while I am still spry enough to dodge the ISME catalogue and run from a rattler of tins into the nearest Low Dive. Coming?
As ever, the best thing to do with an irritant is to move away from it, and I have a great many crossed-out "Home"addresses to prove it. However, sometimes one becomes exposed by ill luck or circumstance, to a television set which is not one's own and therefore it is not permissable to hurl it from a high window with a curse. Distressing items can accidentally swim into one's normally highly filtered limpid pool. I do find it difficult to love the Littlewood's Christmas Advertisement in the spirit of Christian charity which I realise is expected of me by the vicar. It's not the open exhortation to ALL Mothers to buy everything in the world from Littlewoods with credit cards that should have been frozen in the compartment bit of the fridge designed for that purpose, and the lack of male parents (WHY are Fathers For Justice not dressing up as Spiderman and storming Littlewood's HQ at this appalling slight?),and that perfectly foul little girl with glasses and facepaint. It's the rapping that gets to me. There should NEVER be children rapping, it must be confined to those with pubic hair or the whole point is lost.
But the one that really gets to me is the one with Linda Bellingham. Now I used to see this perfectly pleasant woman around when I was a Crouchender, as was she.She always dressed pleasingly,in a very North London Boho way. However, she has now sold her soul to a catalogue called "Isme". They have an utterly revolting commercial on the television, the burden of whose song is that mad menopausal crones get even madder at Christmas (grain of truth, there is always one..) and are therefore only too likely to hit the cooking sherry and stagger round the high street, buying sequinned leggings and midriff-throttling dresses in shiny red nylon. They can escape this fate, (and thereby,it is suggested, find themselves at the mercy of an unshaven toyboy who will glower darkly on their sofa and eat all their After-Eights in tractor-like, mechanical shovelling motions,by the way),only by purchasing matronly garments in "jewel colours" with suitable draped necklines and sleeves cunningly fashioned to accommodate the vast swoops of dinner-lady underarms that afflict us all when someone blows a whistle somewhere around our fiftieth birthdays.
Oh God spare us from A-line "fit and flare" and dipped hemlines. Did Joan Crawford slip into an easy-to-wear draped horror frock when she reached her foxy fifties? No,she did not;she ramped up the eyebrows and the tailoring. I met a picturesque woman the other evening, who had it seemed, recently turned forty and become invisible,or so she said.I could see her perfectly well, I reassured her. "No!" she ejaculated, almost causing me to loosen my grip on my Big Dirty Red. "Men! They just don't see you after a certain age". I have mentioned this before, but it is worth repeating. If someone ignores you because you do not fit in with their addled and poisoned idea of pulchritude, you have had a Lucky Escape, and should rejoice. I used to be whistled at by builders and van drivers and roadmenders. Now, I am rarely the object of that kind of attention. This is not due to my suddenly becoming a hag,it is because I now give every impression that I will stride up to these miscreants and shake their ladders viciously, delivering invective in crisp tones,rather than slinking away or blushing. And this impression is accurate.
Differing tribes see the same landscape differently. Another darling friend once pointed out that his teenagers saw threats, portents, hazards and landmarks in their own neighbourhoods which are invisible to the adult negotiating the exact same territory. We see a junction or a takeaway, they see a postcode boundary likely to end in a stabbing . And so it is with what might be referred to as street hassle, as Lou Reed called it.Although it would be a foolhardy builder who whistled at Lou these days. We are all invisible to teenagers, but charity collectors can see us several miles away. It is a matter of perspective. However, I will not be trussed up in stretch velvet with a "flattering" bolero at this time of year or any other. I shall wear what I damn well please and do as I damn well like. That is the divine blessing of advancing age, and I intend to get the maximum fun from it while I am still spry enough to dodge the ISME catalogue and run from a rattler of tins into the nearest Low Dive. Coming?
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