British Airways

No longer out to sell us ‘the world’s favourite airline’ claim, BA take us on a nostalgic flight of fantasy. If only one could again ‘skim the edge of heaven’ aboard a now mothballed Concorde, or relive those halcyon days when the impeccably elegant crew of a jet in the livery of BEA or BOAC (BA’s foreunners) would whisk one off to a Whicker’s World of previously unimaginable exoticism. While one isn’t quite old enough to recall the golden age of De Havilland Comets, flying boats, and before them, the pioneer aviators’ bi-planes; one imagines it was frightfully good fun and slightly less fraught than the delayed 1710 Gatwick to Glasgow. So really, BA, why flag it up?

Watch it here 

http://www.youtube.com/user/FlyBritishAirways?v=a4JdQi60an0&feature=pyv&ad=7178323097&kw=BA%20ad 

M&S Autumn / Winter 2011

Dressing for a hot date, a woman pulls on sheer black stockings to the sound of Billy Paul’s Me and Mrs Jones. Shouldn’t that be Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson? The opening shot of ‘The Rendezvous’ could be a scene from The Graduate. But this is Middle England’s favourite clothiers so, rather than sex-on-legs cougar Anne Bancroft, what we get is that nice actress Charlotte Weston. She can’t decide what to wear nor, unfortunately, can she hear me shout at the screen, ‘Forget it! Bin it! Are you joking?’ Luckily for Charlotte, M&S operates a generous returns policy. Swap those frumsy outfits - that’s Grazia speak for frumpy and mumsy -  for some cheese straws and a bottle of pink Cava, girlfriend! Mind you, as her date turns out to be a 1970s Grace Brothers’ window dummy, what she does eventually choose is spot-on. On another note, do the bods at M&S HQ have a dark sense of humour? How else to explain their choice of  soundtracks to push their gear, so to speak, through the years? Itchycoo Park; Get The Party Started; Me and Mrs Jones (about a man and his addiction to smack): druggy songs all. What next? J.J.Cale's Cocaine?

Watch it at http://www.marksandspencer.com/As-Seen-on-TV-Womens/b/1317573031 

Sourz Raspberry

I don’t know where they filmed this, but it bears no relation to life as I know it.  At 5.55 pm, what wage slave could hope to board an underground train whose carriages are a) pristine and b) totally empty? Come Rush Hour on the Northern Line, there's barely room to breathe, let alone play pole dancer while you change out of your office suit into something more suitable for partying the night away in the most happening bar in town. Therein, lies another discrepancy: would demob-happy drone’s pedestrian puce shirt, worn over a sludge green t-shirt, and boring black nylon backpack gain him admittance to such a hip establishment? About as likely as me hitting The Ritz in a violet velours babygro and ordering Sourz Raspberry, I say.

http://tinyurl.com/3dzjc99

Stella Artois Cidre

Dovetailing neatly with our current fascination with all things Mad Men and The Hour is this 1950s style infomercial. Hit by a reported 16% decline in lager sales en Grande Bretagne, le Président of le monde’s biggest brewing conglomerate waxes lyrical about their latest bright idée. Pouring fizzy apple-based alcoholic libations over ice cubes isn’t innovative of course; his rivals have long been at it, hoping to convince us the drink isn’t exclusively for mosh pit headbangers, cash-strapped students and street drinkers. Indeed, walk up to a bar and order not cider but ‘cidre’ and everyone will be wowed by your Continental élan. Now, how long before some marketing tossre tries the same with Tizre?   

Cravendale

Barely out of nappies, I was left, unchaperoned, to absorb Hitchcock’s The Birds on TV; my mother presumably innocently anticipating some tame documentary about fluffy puffins. Ever since, faced with more than one pigeon at a time, I turn into a trembling Tippi Hed-ren-case. With Gothic narration by Tim Curry, Cravendale’s commercial could well be this generation’s The Birds. Sleeping soundly is difficult enough as it is, so I’m avoiding this intimidating feline fright show, a massive YouTube hit, with all its dark implications about menacing moggies with thumbs taking over the world. In thought, if not in deed (before anyone calls the RSPCA), I’m with Mary Bale on this one - she who was infamously caught on camera lobbing Lola the cat into a Coventry bin. 

http://www.visit4info.com/advert/Cats-With-Thumbs-Cravendale-PurFiltre-Milk/89889 

Alfa Romeo

Having attended many Milan fashion shows, my conclusion is that high-flown concept too often translates as style over substance. Ditto Alfa’s vacuous ads. I imagine the hot bloods at HQ see Uma Thurman as all sleek sophistication and sexy edge, her CV a metaphor for their car’s performance. But for every full throttle Pulp Fiction there’s a rusty clunker: The Avengers; Batman & Robin; Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. Why ‘Giulietta’, a beauty doomed to a fatal car crash romance? Why the line from a different Shakespearean work, The Tempest?  Are the car’s qualities merely illusory? Why the Stephen King-creepy, back-seat mini-Umas? Don’t get me wrong: I love Italians dearly, even when the fanciful souls are coming out with a load of utter Bolognese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZI_91zpK0 

Totaljobs.com

‘Last Sunday, half way down Cholmondeley Road, one alarm clock was locked in conversation with another alarm clock’ narrates Children’s Hour TV man. The topic? Its new job. .A relic of the 1951 Festival of Britain, it has secured employment via TotalJobs.com which, given the fragile state of the economy and the sort of blatant ageism in the workplace that spurred on Botox-refusing dumped Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly to sue the BBC, is pretty impressive, all things considered. If you too are seeking work, log on pronto. Call it an educated guess, but if this particular company is so unloved it’s reduced to hiring ancient timepieces, Human Resources will surely be keen to hear from actual humans? A lorry driving alarm clock? Gotta be some kind of a wind-up!