Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse (10 page)

You must be familiar with the feeling, unless it’s all Radio 3 and the
TLS
round your place. You stick around for another couple of questions, and then a bit longer to see what the
contestant will win, because it would be very slightly interesting to witness someone’s avarice comprehensively slaked on camera. Real-time evidence of a deadly sin, a pre-watershed money shot. But no one ever won the million when I was tuned in. So when the credits rolled, I only had two or three uncontextualised pieces of trivia to show for the fact that I was now an hour nearer death.

Ageing is the key to this. Disposable TV shows of this kind are supposed to take our minds off the fact that we’re perpetually getting older – to make the time pass pleasantly enough without reminding us that it’s finite. But, as its last act,
Millionaire
has done exactly the opposite. It provided me with a stinging reminder of the elusiveness of time and it made me feel old. That’s what elegiac dramas are meant to do, not quizzes.

In my head, you see, it was a recent programme – an example of the “terrible crap that’s on TV these days”. That’s where I had it filed: as a contemporary example of media commercialism, of ITV joyously dancing on the grave of
The World at War
and the Jeremy Brett
Sherlock Holmes
adaptations. So hearing that it’s been axed after a decade and a half, that it’s been put out of its misery after a long decline, feels like getting news that Google has called in the receivers or Justin Bieber needs a hip replacement. I open my eyes after a short nap to see the jungle-choked ruins of the Shard being fought over by a savage tribe of super-evolved molluscs.

When
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
started, I was not yet working in television – though that’s not what I was saying at the time. If you’d asked me then, the very last thing I would have said is: “I’m a delusional waster with a second-class degree in a humanity and an inability to take an alarm clock seriously. I’ve been to the Edinburgh Fringe and done a lot of amateur dramatics, but basically I work as an usher for less than what the minimum wage will be when it comes in next year.” That was the inconvenient truth, but instead of telling it I would have
claimed to be a comedian and pitched the various hungover scribblings that I pretended to be convinced would soon conjure up a generous living.

Well, somehow, in the midst of my bullshit, a career germinated; I got lucky and so got paid. But, in 1998, I was still terrified and resentful of the vast and impenetrable media in which I aspired to prosper. And
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
seemed to represent all that – it was the thick and immovable taproot of my problems.

All the cosiness of the TV I’d grown up with, all that “Well, of course it has far too much sentimental value for us to consider parting with it!”
Antiques Roadshow
propriety, seemed to have been blasted away by this huge, frightening, mercenary format. The
Blankety Blank
chequebook and pen, the his-and-hers matching wristwatches, even the star-prize speedboat had been pressure-hosed off our screens with cash. The future of TV was a series of mediocrities hungrily grasping at unimaginable sums of money by the ghoulish light of a monitor – they might as well televise a trading floor. Censorious and broke, I took a dim view.

So my younger self would probably be pleased at the programme’s passing. But the demise of seemingly invincible entities of which you disapprove is not always reassuring. It can make you feel vulnerable – like nothing is safe. Of course, I can think of reasons for
Millionaire
’s downfall. Ultimately, its success depended on the suspense generated by ordinary people trying to become very rich. Someone genuinely becoming a millionaire on television is very watchable – for the first time. It’s not bad the second. But, after a bit, a contestant’s path to victory is like another
Jaws
sequel. We know how the story goes. The tension on which the programme relied was inevitably going to slacken over time.

The attempt to enliven the format with celebrities raising money for charities was deeply flawed. The crucial drama-generating
ingredient of a member of the public trying to transform their circumstances is removed. The celebrity stands to gain nothing personally and, even if they win a million, unless they’re campaigning for a fairly trivial cause, that huge amount will disappear into the bottomless pit of one or other of humanity’s insoluble crises. It’s not like, if they win, cancer will be cured or Africa will be fine or drugs will go away – that would have viewers on the edge of their seats. Win or lose, there’s no thrill – just an opportunity for someone famous to raise awareness of something worthwhile. It’s a good thing but it doesn’t stop you changing channels at the break.

In essence, I’m sad because I realised, only when I heard the show was finished, that it wasn’t a symbol of the terrifying new world of the media at all. Rather it was one of the last successes of the old. It was the Mallard, not the TGV. Fundamentally just a quiz show with a prize, it predates the tsunami of reality TV – all the personal journeys and public votes, the singing and crying and testicle-eating and diary-room self-justification. It started before the internet and channel proliferation forced broadcasters to fight for their very existence. Its confidence sprang from ignorance of the tribulations ahead.

Lots of people seem to hate corporations, and I think that's unfair. Sometimes I sound like I hate them too, but I really don't. It's too emotional a response. In a complex economy, plcs are naturally occurring and they shouldn't be hated any more than bacteria, mould, weeds, rain or sunshine – or, more aptly since they were made by us rather than by whatever made everything else (God or general events, or perhaps a god called General Events), than robots. Like rain or robots, they can do good and harm. They're useful but they're to be feared. They can be great and they can be terrible. But they don't feel emotions, so we shouldn't feel emotions about them.

This section is full of our puny human dealings with them: the adverts with which they attempt to communicate with us, and our weird irrational responses; the things we unfairly expect of them; and the things we stupidly let them get away with.

I was puzzled by an advertising hoarding recently. It was for Courage beer and used their old slogan, “Take Courage”. I'm tediously antiquarian enough to have been interested and slightly pleased by that: a phrase I've grown used to seeing in broken lettering on the side of failing, flat-roofed pubs given a new lease of life, the inherent punning opportunity in the beer's name proving useful once again to 21st-century advertisers.

This pun is only acceptable because the beer's name comes from the original brewer's surname. If the name Courage had been a marketing invention, the motto would be no cleverer than if it had been called Indefinable Allure (“Enjoy your Indefinable Allure”), 2BHappy (“Drink 2BHappy”) or just Man Juice (“Swallow some Man Juice” – this one may be a bit niche). But the brewery's founder was called John Courage and so the fact that the same catchphrase can be taken to mean both “drink this beer” and “be brave” is serendipitous rather than corny.

Then I looked at the advert more closely. In case you didn't see it, it's a photograph of a curvy woman – not slim, but not obese – trying on a figure-hugging dress, while a man on a sofa, a can of Courage by his foot, regards her with a look of extreme apprehension. On the right is a picture of a pint of Courage, from which emerges a speech bubble containing the words: “Take Courage my friend.”

I didn't get it. I stared at it for several minutes and couldn't understand what was going on. I'm afraid I eventually concluded that it meant that the man would need a drink to generate the nerve, or possibly ardour, to jump the woman. By which I mean, make a pass at her, try it on with her or make love to her, nothing more assaulty. Associations between alcohol and sexual assault are rarely made by advertisers – it's not viewed as a selling point.

I realise now that it was depicting a “Does my bum look big in this?” scenario. I considered that possibility at the time but rejected it for two reasons. First, the woman didn't look sufficiently bad in the dress to make the joke obvious. She looked a bit tarty, but she had a nice face – she was in no way “a sight”. I imagine the advertisers toyed with making her the kind of image of nightmarish womanhood Bella Emberg used to play, but decided that would be sexist and they ought to go subtle – too subtle, I'm ashamed to admit, for me.

And second, I don't know why he needs courage in this situation. Saying “Yes, you look fat” is not an example of bravery but of tactlessness. Surely it isn't just fear that stops men telling women when they've made sartorial mistakes? They hold their tongues because there are some things it doesn't help people to know.

But when the Advertising Standards Authority banned the advert, I was surprised; it doesn't usually censure advertisers for muffing a joke. Then I heard the real reason. It was because the poster was deemed to be suggesting that the beer would give the man confidence. Apparently, adverts aren't allowed to imply that alcohol gives confidence (pro-drinking adverts, that is – the anti-drinking “booze gives you the illusion you're a superhero” campaign made it its central theme).

This is an advertising environment in which ambulance-chasing lawyers are allowed to imply that the main upshot of their services is useful relocation of bus shelters; in which make-up peddlers positively state that their products reverse the mythical “seven signs of ageing”; in which forms of words like “increases by up to a hundred per cent” (a phrase that has considerable overlap of meaning with “has no effect at all”) abound. In this world of, to put a positive spin on it, half-truths, it's not permitted even to imply the self-evident, undeniable fact that beer gives you confidence.

There are lots of bad things to be said about alcohol. It wrecks and costs lives, often because it boosts confidence. It gives people the confidence to argue, fight and rape, as well as to chat more at parties or enjoy karaoke. It makes people dependent on the confidence it gives, to the extent that they'll poison themselves to get it. But it definitely gives you confidence – I know, I've had some.

And the Courage advert is even admitting that there may be a downside to boozy confidence. Their beer, it's telling us, is
about to give the man the false confidence to say something that he shouldn't. They're not portraying it as lending confidence in a life-saving situation, like spinach for Popeye: “Let me have a quick glug of Courage and then I'll be able to save that coach-load of schoolchildren from falling into the volcano!”

God only knows the tearful, relationship-ending consequences of that man's forthcoming bout of Dutch courage. Rather than glamorising alcohol, I'd say it's a playful admission of some of its adverse effects, and rather more, in terms of candour, than the ASA has a right to expect.

Incidentally, advertising standards also forbid implying that alcohol makes you more likely to have sex. What? I know that teetotal cultures do procreate, but I've no idea how. I accept that saying that alcohol makes you more attractive is dishonest – it doesn't – but it certainly makes other people more attractive and, consequently, for better and worse, makes sex more likely.

Why, I wonder, does the ASA think people drink alcohol? The taste? I tell myself I like the taste of wine and beer, but it's impossible to separate it from the positive associations of feeling happy and confident and, very occasionally, getting off with someone at a party. Before I'd experienced any of that, I found it sour.

If the ASA believes that alcohol is so harmful that its manufacturers should be prevented from citing its demonstrable appeals, wouldn't it be fairer to ban booze adverts altogether? The current situation is like forcing car advertisers not to mention that cars get you to places quickly, only that they're a nice place to sit.

Some time in the 1950s, in a Kellogg's laboratory, some scientists eagerly gathered round a bowl.

“They're perfect!” the newest member of the team muttered. “Crispy yet indulgent, luxurious yet fun!”

“Let's just wait until we've added the milk,” replied an old hand. “They could still go the way of Malticles.”

The others shuddered at the recollection of the research dollars that had been squandered on those apparently delicious roundels – insanely moreish, tantalisingly frosted and loaded with B vitamins – but which, within 15 seconds of contact with lactose, set into a hard grey matter which you could only extract by smashing the bowl. The US military had briefly taken an interest before discovering that the substance – nicknamed Maltrete – was one of the many materials on Earth too hard for human consumption but too soft to repel even the most half-hearted of artillery bombardments.

“Hand me the jug,” the chief designer whispered. With trembling hands, he poured. They waited.

“Our friends Snap, Crackle and Pop seem to have been somewhat smothered,” quipped the head of the Flake Crispiness Retention team, who had slunk over to see what the fuss was about. No one laughed.

They watched.

And then, disaster! “The colour, it's not binding properly! It's running into the milk!” squealed a frosting risk assessor. He was right. As they watched, deep brown bled sickeningly into the pure white liquid around it. The scientists exhaled in collective despair. The head of FCR slipped tactfully away, this defeat too rich even for his blood. Funereal silence descended.

No one had noticed the head of marketing come in. “We can make this work for us,” he said …

That's how I like to imagine that Kellogg's came up with the Coco Pops slogan: “So chocolatey it even turns the milk brown.” Hiding a product's weaknesses in plain sight like that really takes balls. You've got to believe that the problem is so bad, so crucial,
that your only recourse is to pretend it's deliberate. They never pushed Corn Flakes with the tagline: “So filled with health-giving corn you can sling it at a wall and it'll stick!”

This sprang to mind when my eye was caught by a billboard advertising the new series of
Britain's Next Top Model
, the TV show in which young hopefuls compete for modelling contracts. It had a picture of one of the judges, model Elle Macpherson, with the line: “It takes one to find one.”

No, it doesn't. While a great violinist might be good at judging other people's violining, it doesn't follow that being pretty in a way that is perceived to make the clothes you wear look good will make you skilled at spotting someone else with that attribute; or that someone short, plump or bent-faced shouldn't be equally adept at finding the malnourished and photogenic – in fact, Oxfam photographers are probably best at that.

This slogan isn't like saying that a top chef is a good judge of a soufflé but that another soufflé is. Still, if you're making a TV show about modelling, it's good to have a famous model in it, rather than just aspirant thinifers of whom no one has ever heard. So, in the spirit of Coco Pops, they've drawn attention to the flaw and made it look like a deliberate feature – the TV format equivalent of a beauty spot.

I like this kind of advertising. The motives may be dishonest but the technique is brazen honesty – to scream “This is the catch!” so loudly at cynical consumers that they perversely ignore it. Here's a glimpse of how some products may be marketed in future, if this trend continues:

Bendicks Mints: “Nobody would buy them to eat themselves, but they're easy to wrap and pricey enough to make a respectable present.”

Nestlé KitKat: “Pretend you care about babies in the third world if you want to. Just don't come moaning to us three bites into a Mars when all that caramel really starts to cloy.”

Online roulette: “If you're even reading this slogan, it appeals to you slightly, which means you're bound to piss all your money away somehow, so it might as well be on this.”

McDonald's: “Ever felt like putting on some elasticated jogging bottoms and really letting go? Why not today? Two years and 15 stone down the line, you can always bounce back via a fat-camp documentary on Sky.”

British Airways: “No one is actually going to save the environment, so you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”

Payday loans: “If you were the sort of person who was ever going to understand compound interest, you wouldn't be in this mess. We can literally put off the shitstorm until next week. I mean, next week! It'll probably never happen!”

Cancer Research UK: “Don't think of this as chucking your money away altruistically, like with Amnesty. Face it, you're never going to go to North Korea but, with your diet, bowel cancer is a very real possibility.”

The Royal Opera House: “For people so cultured they have literally lost the ability to feel bored.”

Channel 5: “It can't all be ‘appointment to view'. Sometimes you've just got to have something on in the background. And I bet you've still got an inkling that we might show some crafty porn come 3am.”

Pimm's: “It may be unrelentingly sugary but you can drink it outdoors without looking like a tramp.”

Twiglets: “OK, they're pretty unpleasant, but eat 12 and then tell me you don't want a 13th.”

Petrol station coffee: “Of course you're going to have to compromise on flavour! You've been compromising your whole life! You're at Leigh Delamere at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday night, exhaustedly looking for caffeine. Why start trying to live the dream now?”

Conservative party: “Because, deep down, you know that posh people are supposed to be in charge.”

Give blood: “Obviously you're not going to and this campaign is wasted on you – just don't go around thinking you're any kind of saint, that's all.”

Ferrari: “Drive a Ferrari and most people will think you're a dick – but in an envious way, like they feel about Richard Branson, not a dismissive one, like with the chairman of a pressure group trying to block a wind farm development.”

Pâté de foie gras: “Admit it, you always knew there was an upside to torture.”

Half of humanity has received some much-needed assistance from an unexpected source. Out of the blue, the makers of Lion Bar Ice Cream have leapt to the aid of men. Like maggots in a wound, they didn't know they were helping – they thought they were just garnering some desperately needed publicity in an ice cream-unfriendly year – but they may have contributed to saving the world's males huge sums of money and an even greater expense of time and effort.

Lion Bar Ice Cream commissioned a survey into what sort of men women find attractive, presumably in the forlorn hope that “a man with his face in a Lion Bar Ice Cream” or “those hunks made ripplingly obese by an ice cream-only diet” would be among the responses.

They didn't quite get that, but more than 4,000 of the 5,000 respondents claimed to prefer a slightly scruffy fellow, with messy hair and even a beer belly, to the toned, groomed, David Beckham type, although I imagine they wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating a Lion Bar. The media spin on it is that “Women have turned against the metrosexual look”, presumably because
there's something very unattractive about a chap running after a tube train with a hard-on.