February Is The Cruellest Month

I don't read much fiction but I admit some of it is quite good. Italo Calvino, Richard Brautigan,..., some others. The shorter and more fantastical the better. Calvino's "Invisible Cities" is an old favourite. You've undoubtedly heard of Calvino but many, many years ago after meeting a literary nun in a small mining town over lunch who sent me Brautigan's "Trout Fishing in America" I was hooked. His other books: "The Abortion", "The Pill vs the Springhill Mine Disaster" and "A Confederate General from Big Sur" sealed my fast love for his brilliant fantastical novellas. Fast because they only took about 2 hours to read (and I am a slow reader). I moved on. G.K.Chesterton's "The Man Who Who Was Thursday" is another. There was a Man. His name was Thursday. Something like that.

Other fantastical books which I enjoyed but which were much longer were Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and John Fowles' "The Magus".

But the book I enjoyed the most was Yann Martel's "Life of Pi" because it is one of the few novels whose message I, like, totally got: sometimes it is better to believe in something (God) even when you know it/He doesn't exist than to believe in nothing. Barack Obama has said of "Life of Pi" that it is one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God he has read, but, apologies Mr President, you got it wrong. It just says you should believe in God, not that He really exists. Invite me to the White House sometime and I'll explain the difference.

Which brings me to Shane Jones' "Light Boxes". A new and short, fantastical novella about a town in the grip of wintery "February" where flight is banished and innocence is stolen under the very (fake bird-beaked) noses of the villagers who are suffering from a crisis of belief. We live in an age where we idolise and demonise politicians like Obama and yet always deny our role in their deification, and the power we give them to hurt us personally when they inevitably fail. This is not a trivial book, despite its short length and apparently fantastical subject.

It is about America of course. And maybe America currently in the grip of an endless economic winter of their own creation. But a lot of novels are about America. If it was about Europe there would be an old bearded guy in a toga sitting in the corner drinking vodka complaining how things were so much better in the old days. But there isn't, quite.

The "light boxes" of the title are used by the residents of the damned village to temporarily escape their dour, wintery prison for one where the seasons are more ameniable. They literally immerse their heads in the light boxes to see their world in Spring and Summer. As a beautiful and apt metaphor for books I am frankly surprised it hasn't been used before.

Well that's all I'll say. Its message is very similar to "Life of Pi" - the truth that's out there isn't as important as what we believe in, but we should be careful what we believe (here he diverges from Martel) lest we misjudge the forces over which we have more control than we realise because...

But I've said enough. Jones name checks Calvino, Brautigan and ee cummings on page 69%(Kindle edition). You could have read "Light Boxes" in the time you've taken to read this review and I hope you do.

Shop Where The Miilionaires Shop

Maybe it's just a coincidence but there has only been one brief sighting of Coles' Coq Au Vin, Feed Your Family For Under $10 (FYFFUTD) on the telly. And even then it was just mentioned in passing. They didn't go through the farcical process of pretending Curtis Stone was actually picking someone from a crowd who just happened to be (a) married, (b) to someone of the opposite sex (sorry, this is Australia that's an oxymoron), (c) have two children, and (d) live in the right sort of home (more on this shortly). Can I just say the scripting for these ads is beyond terrible - whoever writes the dialogue has a tin ear. "Good, I need a Dad" sounds like a line from a movie about a needy orphan. But I digress.

My point in the previous post was that Coles had brought in the budget for this particular dish under $10 by ignoring the price of 2/3 bottle vin rouge (red wine to those Australians reading this who haven't been to France, or even Le Patisserie). They did this by saying that this wine was to be found "in the pantry". Sure we all have a bottle or two of almost finished shiraz lying around for a splash of red wine in the bolognese sauce but 2/3 bottle? This implies you were up late with your friends drinking (again) and against the best advice of your partner (or cat, delete as applicable) opened that fourth bottle only to find that after five minutes you were so drunk you fell asleep in each others arms only to awaken the next morning with a look of embarrassment and then relief that you had gone no further #weveallbeentheredontworry. You then poured the undrunk glasses back into the bottle and set it aside as "cooking wine". Maybe this happens in Curtis Stone's house all the time but not mine. I drug my friends if I want to have non consensual sex with them. But I continue to digress.

So I contacted Coles and the FBI (known as the Consumer Complaints Council in Victoria) about the ad pointing out that claiming 2/3 bottle wine as being free was deceptive and they should withdraw their ad. My reply from the CCC thanked me for my communication and pretty much pointed out they were legally obliged to ignore it. Coles said nothing directly. But, like I stated up front, they have only mentioned the Coq Au Vin FYFFUTD in passing and it didn't form the centre of an ad where they go through the ingredients and all the kids at the end go "tarf, arf" making vomiting noises, least that's what I do when I see these inane ads. The digression is about to end, bear with me.

So perhaps Coles read my email and realised the cat was out of the bag (Cat in a Bag - there's one for Continental) and pulled the ads. But here is my point. All those families in these ads have youngish parents in their late twenties or early thirties and they all live in houses with enormous country kitchens that open onto enormous lawns. And, according to Coles, they have pantries. Pantries! Houses like this cost well in excess of $1m in places like Melbourne and Sydney.

So here's my question: why the fudge are they trying to budget a family of four meal for under $10?

Coles Coq Up on the Price Fixee Menu

The Masterchef juggernaut lumbers on and in an attempt to milk the franchise for all it is worth Masterchef Inc. cross promotes every dish with Coles (the place you "shop where a Masterchef shops") frequently using Curtis Stone who appears both on the program as an occasional judge and fronting Coles' "Feed Your Family For Under $10" ads.

Last week two of the contestants on Masterchef were in a "fix the dish" competition using "Coq Au Vin". This week (Herald-Sun pg 8, July 8) there is, not suprisingly, a FYFFU$10 promotion using a recipe for "Coq Au Vin". To demonstrate that it indeed costs no more than $10 they list the ingredients (eg. 1 medium red onion, diced - $0.26). Included is "500mL dry red wine (from the pantry)" with nothing added to the total cost for this ingredient. 500mL is hardly a dash, it is 2/3 bottle wine FFS. Even a bottle of cheap cooking wine would cost $7-8. If anyone knows a restaurant that considers 2/3 bottle of wine to be not worth adding to the bill please let me know.

Why do this? Well without including the wine the cost of the dish is estimated at $7.59. With the wine included it would be at least $12. So to keep it under $10 they just ignore the cost of one of the two main ingredients (chicken & wine, the clue is in the name). Is this a deliberately misleading ad? It sure is, and it also shows how desperate the Masterchef franchise is to wring every last $ out of its viewers in increasingly dubious cross promotions. Fix the Dish? More like Fix the Price.

Update Oct 26 2010: Choice Magazine have just announced their annual "Shonkys" for deceptive advertising and guess who topped the list? Yes, Coles for their FYFFU10 campaign that's who. And the example they used was the Coq au Vin. Yay for the truth! Sadly the response of Coles was to deny there was a problem (the first mistake when you get caught out - always admit you were wrong and seek forgiveness).

They're Back!!!

Who's back you say? Caught up in the frenzied excitement of me running around the room screaming "They're back!!!", as if I could run, which I can't.

"They're back!!!" I scream again like a middle aged gay man at the reunion concert for Spandau Ballet.

"They're back!!!" I scream like a Sydney Swans supporter surprised by my team's sudden ranking #1 at the top of the AFL.

"They're back!!!" I scream like an ageing Olivia Newton-John fan retrieving her leggings from a box at the back of the garage marked "80s exercise gear DNR"

Who's back? I hear your exasperated (is that even a word?) pleading.

Well only the Continental ad family. That's who. Not that I ever gave up hope. Though to be fair they've lost their old sparkle. It's like they're just going through the motions in front of the cameras. Maybe it's a contractual obligation. Or maybe the father's straying to the Telstra family Xmas ads has lead him to tone down the paternal bonhomie. But I hope he's just bowed and not broken.

Roast Chicken in a Bag. Genius. They're back!!!

I Heart You, I Heart Me, Hiatus

It is almost 12 months since my last posting on Madbreak (well, 5mins if you include the three below). There is a good reason for this. On April 2 2009 I went into hospital, with a slight cold, where I stayed for about 8 months. Since then I haven't really been that interested in blogging, but I feel it is now time to unleash my medication fuelled insights on the media on an unsuspecting world.

I have just added some posts I put up on Posterous which I will include here for continuity. I watched a lot of television in hospital (at $4.50 a day that cost me over $1000 for a dicky CRT that only showed free to air analog channels, thank God for morphine based pain killers). The most notable development in the advertising world was the appearance and then sudden disappearance of the storyline Continental family. I miss them. I blame the networks. I blame the advertsers. But mostly I blame the drugs.

Continental Drift

You know who I miss? That family from the series of Continental ads from 2009. He was some sort of tradie/subcontractor and she was from the right side of the tracks. It was an Uptown Girl/Downtown Guy romance. There were two kids. Dad & son were always out playing cricket or footy. The girl, Emma, had "her (favourite tv) show" whose title we were never told, presumably because the ads were shown across different channels. I'm guessing it was Idol. In the end though things were falling apart, her mother "The Dragon" thought she had married beneath herself. Despite cooking her heart out with dishes like Continental Past Bake (just add water and bake) there was something wrong. Things were tight money-wise.The ads stopped suddenly and we weren't told why. And then we saw the father in Telstra ads over Xmas. In an even more upmarket house/family. No wonder he was broke supporting two families.


He'll only be happy though with a girl from his own socioeconomic class - maybe a barmaid from Rooty Hill RSL where I'm guessing he drinks after work. Or with me, I like 'em a bit chunky ;)

What does all this prove: Continental, you can't sell Cup-A-Soup to the middle classes (except when they're at Uni).

Side Effects Include Incredulity

Ads in Australia for pseudo medicine are rife. Three that spring to mind are an ad for lemon detox that claims to aid weight loss, another for a mattress containing magnets for back pain and a third claiming to “support” IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). In all cases no medical information supporting the claims is given (apart from vaguely described “surveys” in the small print) and it’s fair to say there is none. The term “support” seems to have been invented when, in a rare moment of action, the AAS banned companies from unproven claims for their products as “cures”. There are also products claiming to “support” female and male fertility. A product either increases, decreases or has no effect on fertility, it does not support it. The only time you support your children is after they are born, not before they are conceived. Unless you have a fertility problem that needs addressing by a doctor then eating healthily is all you need to support your fertility. Supplements such as folic acid already address specific prenatal risks such as spina bifida. Similarly the liver and kidneys are superb detox organs that have evolved over 100s of millions of years. Liver and kidney failure are serious diseases that need to be addressed by a doctor, not a sippy, lemony drink.

In the US, frequently and unfairly derided for being a litigious society, no company would dare make such claims. Indeed in advertisements for anything vaguely medical they must list honestly and in detail any side effects noticed in studies or tests. This can sometimes have an unintended hilarious consequence where, for example, an anti-nausea medicine might possibly induce nausea or fat replaced chips lead to “anal leakage”.

Sadly in Australia no such requirements exist and while genuine medicines and treatments are exempted from full disclosure, let alone bogus ones, I can still lie in a magnetic bed sipping lemon detox. Who knows, the weight loss from sipping the latter may help reduce the back pain I seek relief from in buying the former. But I doubt it.

Disclosure: The author is a doctor. But not that sort of doctor.

A Tale of Two Books

Consider the opening lines of two books written a century apart about the Italian Renaissance. They vigorously demonstrate how the style of popular historians has changed from pseudo-academic lecturing to one that seeks to involve the reader with the sights, sounds and smells of an era, albeit one that is largely manufactured in the author's own imagination. The other difference between the two books is that only the former is available for the kindle, perhaps because it is an out of copywrite "classic". I know which one I want to read.

Jacob Burckhardt "The Civilisation of the Renaissance"
"This work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the
the word. No one is more conscious than the writer with what limited
means and strength he has addressed himself to a task so arduous...zzzz"

JH.Plumb "The Italian Renaissance"
"The face of medieval Europe was scarred with the ruins of its past. In
Rome itself, the Colosseum housed the barbarous Frangipani and their
armed retainers, greedy, lawless, destructive; the Forum provided a
quarry for churches and rough pasture for the cattle market, and
beneath the broken columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux the
bullocks awaited their slaughter."

Three's a Crowd

Estimating the number of people at any march or event with political overtones is a thankless task for the police who these days usually just give into the organisers inflated figures to keep the peace. After all does it really matter if 10,000 people or 30,000 people attended a rally? I once considered setting up an company which would independently estimate the numbers attending rallies and marches and charge the organisers for being able to provide reliable figures. Then I realised the flaw in this plan. The organisers have no interest in a reliable estimate. From their point of view the more the merrier.

In fact ever since Jesus claimed to have fed 5000 people with enough food for 50 the controversies have raged. The organisers of the Million Man March in Washington DC in 1995 estimated that 1.5-2m people attended whereas the D.C. Park Service estimated 837,000 (+-20%) based on aerial photographs. Amid claims of racism and threats to sue the Park Service never provided estimates of marcher numbers ever again. But they stuck to their original estimate nonetheless.

One such figure I have been a bit obsessed with for years is the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardis Gras. The attendance figure at the parade has been variously quoted as between 300,000 and 1 million people (the latter in the heady days of the pre-Howard government Gay-B-C). It seems to have settled down to 400,000 this year.

I happen to think its relatively easy to come up with a ball park figure in this case. The Mardi Gras Parade route is about 1500m long. If you allow 2 spectators per metre (remember gay people are thinner so can more easily bunch up) on each side then this is 6000 people at the front of the parade. Based on photos I have seen in the thickest parts of the parade (in terms of numbers, not where the people from Newtown stand) the crowd is about 20 deep and about 10 deep in others so lets say 15 deep on average on both sides. So thats 15 x 2 x 2 x 1500 = 90,000 people. Allowing for various late arrivals and a generous margin for error lets say 120,000. Far less than the 400,000 claimed by the organisers. In fact for the organisers figure to be accurate would require the crowd to be over 50 deep on either side.

Of course it would be churlish of anyone to play into the hands of the bigots and contradict the official figure. Even the police are avowedly on the side of the participants. Yes it would take a brave blogger indeed to stand up, to count and be counted (even a gay one like yours truly).

Omerta and a Question of Loyalty

Loyalty Cards are a modern plague. I remember years ago working on American Express's loyalty program and thinking noone would be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious ploy. After all why would they give something away unless they expected to get more back and if everyone had identical loyalty programs it would be the consumer who would foot the bill.

How wrong I was and loyalty programs infect all levels of commerce now. Supermarket loyalty cards are particularly pernicious as it not just possible to avoid them by not getting one. Everytime you shop you will be asked if you have one. In the UK (but not yet Australia) it is not just enough to fail to answer: "Do you have a Tescoes card?" in the affirmative (Surely if you ask me a question unrelated to the commercial transaction we are undertaking I have a right to ignore your personal questions and you can take that as a "no" if you wish). They will continue to ask you even if you try any of the following (which I have) (a) ignore them, (b) pretend your iPod is on high and you cant hear them, (c) really, really ignore them. I wondered about this and eventually asked one of the regular cashiers at my local Tesco whom I had been in a war of attrition with for several years. Sometimes he took my prolonged silence as a "no" and sometimes I gave in after repeated questioning and aswered explicitly. I am sure it was wearying for both of us. And the answer: I was shocked to discover that the cashiers are paid a (derisory) bonus of a couple of hundred pounds a year to try to get customers to sign up and Tesco sends in secret operatives to check that they dont just take silence as a no.

Why would they care so much? Because saying "no" everytime is a negative response and most people prefer to avoid being negative. The ironic thing is that supermarket loyalty cards arent actually designed to increase loyalty through rewards. As I correctly surmised all those years ago this is a zero sum game. What the supermarket really wants is a database of your shopping purchases so they can target you with offers aimed at increasing your share-of-wallet. What is wrong with this you ask? Well like any private data is it is yours to give freely and coercing you into signing up for a loyalty program by harassing you at the till everytime you buy something is extremely unethical.

I often fantasised about wearing a t-shirt I could point at when asked that just said "No I dont have a fucking Tescoe's card".

Pump it Out

Coca Cola Amatil has a new soft-drink called "Pumped". I can't quite reproduce that since the "Pump" and "ed" are in different colours. I saw this on the side of a bus which beats surgical cancer scars for a change. I also read the smallprint which was that CCA had trademarked the words"Pump" and "Pumped". Given that this flavoured lolly water is hardly likely to revolutionise the densely packed space of soft-drinks it is safe to assume that all the cost will go into advertising and legal battles to rightfully reclaim the word "pumped" from unliscensed general usuage and return it to Coke - its now rightful owners.

Sitch Bank?

Which bank released one-page ads in the weekend press stating that they would suspend interest payments for householders affected by the Victorian bushfires?

So why then did the ads appear in the national press if they were aimed solely at Victorians? To maximise positive coverage out of a natural disaster. Surely not.

Bushfire Survivor - Who Stays and Who Goes - You Decide.

Commercial news coverage of the bushfires in Australia have all the hallmarks of a branding exercise based on reality tv production values. I wouldn't be suprised if the following are happening:

• production assistants interviewing survivors and firefighters for suitable stories
• survivors auditioning to have their stories told
• editorial meetings where potential stories are discussed and shortlisted
• in depth interviews arranged with network talking heads
• test audience to provide feedback to select final stories for evening broadcast

The purpose of news programs is not just to provide advertising revenue but as a platform for brand loyalty by emphasising the fake values of the monolithic corporate behemoth like "trust", "reliability", "family values" and "entertainment". Disasters and celebrity funerals seem to provide the perfect platform for reinforcing these values and building brand loyalty during the long lean times of the early stages of the football season.

Foxtel Drops the Ball

Foxtel are tailoring their overpriced cable packages to fit these straightened times. An ad on tv last night showed a Foxtel person appearing at the door of a couple.

He: you know Lucy we agreed to tighten our belts. [holds out oversized trousers, cue laugh track]
She: [looks sheepish] well it's not as much as you think, Ricky
He: [getting angry] Well how much is it?
She: The first month is free and it's only a 12 month contract. [recoils from expected slap]

Now wait a darn minute - how is that an answer to his question? It reminds me of an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball buys a new sofa without asking her husband, Ricky's, permission and he is understandably apoplectic that she has done something so transgressive and emasculating so when he asks how much it costs she replies "not nearly as much as the golf clubs you bought last month" at which point he, predictably, flies into a rage, and threatens to kill her thus subverting the dominant masculine/submissive female discourse through the use of performative clowning, a laugh track and the ironic use of the phrase "why I outta...". Maybe the Foxtel ad writers are paying homage to this classic feminist 50s sitcom.

Or answer (b) it could be because of the confusion that reigns in the Foxtel universe. The small print at the end of the ad said $440 which is $40/month for 11 months. On the other hand a flyer which fell out of my Sunday newspaper said $800 for 12 months. Their website says $440.

This Blog Could Seriously Damage Your Health

Smokers in Australia are confronted with photos of diseased limbs and organs on the packets of their luscious devilsticks. Like most smokers I have learnt to ignore them so I question their value apart from making a few sanctimonious "health care professionals" feel like they have a role in life telling other people what to do. [Takes deep drag on fag to calm down].

In reality the purpose of these pictures is not to educate or warn but to associate negative images with smoking. To this end the images don't need to be of cancerous lungs or emphasymic children or anything related to smoking but could just as well be images of anything a bit sick and gruesome. And since diseased organs no longer have the same impact they need to up the repulsion factor to get us smokers to take notice. Some possibilities:

1. a large pile of vomit
2. dismembered kittens
3. Julie Bishop

I know, I know, that last one is a pretty extreme but they need to think out of the box (or packet).

Rupert Murdoch Lies To His Mother

In an interview in The Australian Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the centenarian and mother of newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch, revealed her misgivings about some of the family's more salacious publications like the UK based News of the World or New of the Screws as Private Eye calls it. It has been described as having small words, big headlines and even bigger tits. No wonder Dame Elisabeth, a woman of undoubted grace and civility is loath to be associated with it. But to spare his mother's blushes Rupert explained to her that it was practically a social service as it's readers had nothing else in their lives to do. Presumably except for watching illegal satellite football while smoking toxic weed on sink estates. The Lowest Common Denominator and Rupert is happy to drag even more people into it by lowering their expectations. Of course Rupert himself came from a humble background and dragged himself out of poverty to become a self-made billionaire. Except he didn't. He could hardly lie to his mother about that.

Obama - the Speech He Should Have Made

...and when our childrens' children look back on us in their own times of trouble, for as surely as this one must pass each generation faces anew its own struggles, let us be sure that we are an inspiration to them and not a lesson, a beacon of light and not a bonfire of the vanities, the shoulders on which they stand and not the feet beneath which they were crushed.

And let us no longer ask "Can we do it?".....because of course we know we can. But let us decide "Will we do it?" And I say to you here and now "Yes we will!".

Godblessyallnmerca

A PR Disaster? No such thing.

The number of viral marketing campaigns seems to be increasing exponentially. A couple in Sydney in the last two weeks involve planting fake stories in the media Here. This is more like PR than advertising. PR agencies aim to get their client's as many mentions in the media as they can. Having seen this as a client I can say they appear equally as proud if that mention is in "Grain Financier Monthly" as "The Wall Street Journal". They even get excited about unattributed quotes. Strangely enough the NY based PR firm I used spent a lot of time bitching about each other. Maybe they subscribed to Oscar Wilde's aphorism "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" and were just doing each other a favour.

Spoon 4 U

"Are you between 40 and 45?
A white male weighing approximately 110kgs?
Do you live in Australia?
Are you a Spoonlover?
Then we have the perfect gift just for Valentine's Day.
A limited edition spoon for lovers."

This type of advertising is increasingly common on the web, particularly in Facebook where they steal your personal details to make it look like personally targeted advertising when the personal details about age and background are irrelevant. I mean who doesnt love Spoons?

The Real Thing on Reality TV

Product placement as a form of advertising remains controversial. Ad advertisement is seen as a very specific thing designed to coerce the viewer to buy a product. A not so discretely placed can of coke in a movie seems to be break faith with the movie-goer who has already paid for their ticket. In some countries such as the UK where the amount of advertising per hour is strictly limited product placement in tv shows is banned. But the law of unintended consequences will out. What about imported shows from the US? The hugely successful US version of the global franchise "American Idol" is shown in freeview channel ITV2 in the UK. I am a huge fan by the way and watched in the UK for the last three series. It has produced such stars as Jennifer Hudson and the improbably named Fantasia Barrino. It is probably not a coincidence that a program which trawls through the fame aspirations of 300m Americans and Canadians will throw up a much higher standard than the same franchise in the UK and Australia where the singing is of such a poor quality that they don’t bother making comments like “that was a little pitchy for me”.

In America the three judges, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell (why doesn’t this man get more exposure?) have in front of them what appears to be tumblers of some refreshing liquid, occasionally sipped, probably water (maybe not Paula, the well known lush). In the UK transmitted version the obviously branded receptacles have been digitally blurred. Even when they pick them up to their lips or the cameras move they remain obscured. No doubt this is simplicity itself with modern digital technology. Yet I found myself absolutely fascinated by them. Who was the brand they were advertising in the US but were required by law to remove in the UK to protect us from accidental advertising overload? Well here’s a clue. The logo appears to be red and white. In a large tapered glass. Could it be Coka-Cola? So a large part of my viewing time in series 6 and 7 was taken up with trying to see if I could just, just work out the lettering (in a similar way I am always, but not quite able to work out the wording on the Simpsons supermarket lettering in the opening credit. No don’t tell me I’ll get it one day). Given the enormity of this program it was unlikely to be anything other than Coke and this was confirmed when I lived in the US in 2008 and was able to watch it live.

I am sure I have drunk more coke since becoming obsessed with this attempt to obscure the product placement. It was actually a bit of an anti-climax to see finally the judges sipping from clearly branded Coke tumblers. So much so that I almost instantly stopped noticing them and went back to drinking Pepsi.