Campaign Ruby, by Jessica Rudd, for our online book club Better Well Read Than Dead. She certainly loves name-dropping her labels.
Watching
The Plan, which reminded me that I haven't dropped enough hints to C recently about how much I want the BSG box set on Blu-Ray.
Listening to
The Pogues
Discovering
...to my great disappointment, that Jared Leto is in 30 Seconds To Mars. Why, Jared, why?
Eating
Mee pok at Coconut House
Matt Stone's fresh, Spring-y quinoa salad from this month's Australian Gourmet Traveller. (I decided that dinner was more than a "light meal", though, so added some fried haloumi for a meat-free Monday.)
Suckling pig rolls at Collins Quarter, which are on for another three or four weeks on Wednesdays (and at $5 a pop are a bargain). They will be followed by Spring lamb!
Baguette with pork rillettes from Le Traiteur - the crunchy, acid pickles go so perfectly with the rillettes
Ipoh Hor Fun (again!) at Gurney Drive. Perfect on a wet and steamy September Saturday. C had the Hainanese Chicken Rice and the rice was beautifully flavoured.
Some sticky ribs and fish-flavour pork from Fucshia Dunlop's Sichuan Cooking
Compost cookie batter, with Lanka mix, wasabi peas - thanks to Penny for that idea! - Twisties, Mars Bar, Clinkers and Oreos. Oh, and some Special K. That'll teach me to try to be super-organised for morning tea. (Some did make it to the oven, I promise)
There are many ads I hate, but some of the companies responsible are less than obliging when it comes to posting them on YouTube. The fact that I’ve found both the “I’ve made the right choice” McDonald’s ad and this Hungry Jack’s one on the web leads me to suspect that the respective companies are proud of their hideous campaigns.
This is not offensive in the same way as the Maccas ad (or its equally horrid “sequel”); it’s merely annoying. It seems that HJ’s are (is? I really can’t figure it out – what is the apostrophe in the name for, anyway?) trying to dress their junk fare up as “fresh”, but it falls flat. For a start, the bloke has to inspect his burger closely to identify the ingredients – I’d rather that, having tasted it, he’d be able to do that automatically. Then, when he tells the woman that it contains aioli, she breathes “Garlic mayo!” in wonderment, as a way of letting all us dolts in our lounge-rooms know what this exotic ingredient is1.
At least it’s given me another catch-phrase I can use inappropriately. Try it! It’s fun. Just interject a breathless “garlic mayo!” at meetings, in conversations… it’s truly versatile.
= = = = = = = = =
1. It bothered me that the writers were patronising the audience so much, but seeing Matt Moran in the Masterchef Masterclass teaching a handful of Straya’s best amada chefs how to make garlic mayonnaise leads me to conclude that I over-estimate the knowledge of the audience.
The McDonald’s advertising account executives are probably not aiming their commercials at me. I can’t remember the last time I ate McDonalds (possibly because it would have followed an irresponsible amount of drinking) and I can’t imagine ever being drunk enough to do that again (not because I’ve reached a higher plane of maturity, but because I tend to do my irresponsible drinking closer to home, far from the dubious temptations of a quick’n'dirty cheeseburger). There’s really nothing that could entice me to sample their product, so I am not surprised that the latest campaign leaves me cold. What I am surprised by is how confused I am by the ad. Perhaps I have inflated expectations of my levels of insight, but I had expected that McDonalds ads were too stupid for me, not that I was too stupid for them.
After I’d seen it the first time, I was gobsmacked. Stunned by the relentless pandering to the fragile male ego with the (professional, capable, career-woman) wife representing the (gorgeous, debonair, flirtatious) Simon as balding and spreading to her (balding, spreading) husband who smirks in his (misguided) confidence that he is a true prize. In “ad break” viewing, it seems as though the wife is perhaps deliberately bringing up her Simon story as a means of stoking her husband’s ego. She knows that he’s insecure, and that he remembers her dashing teenage suitor, and thinks that this re-telling of the reunion scene will banish the insecurities he’s carried throughout their marriage.
Then I watched it more closely.
Now, when she started on her little tale (“You’ll never guess who I ran into today!”) I think she had every intention of telling it like it was. Then, she registers his tone when he responds snarkily “yeah, I remember Simon from school” (notice the intake of breath, and her changed expression). Up until then, she had no idea of his simmering resentment of Simon, but now it’s clear. She decides – in the interests of protecting his delicate self-esteem – to reimagine the whole scene in a way designed to placate him.
Who is McDonald’s selling to with this? Surely not the “wives”, who might recognise this awful charade and would therefore be unlikely to respond positively to it being shown up in such a harsh light. Surely not the “husbands” who might start to question their wives’ sincerity whenever they are favourably compared with an unarguably handsome man. And it’s not the kids, who are embarrassed – and, quite possibly, terrified – by the revelation that their dad could be a similarly sad, pathetic, deluded little man.
Best possible scenario? The agency is deliberately white-anting Mickey Ds.
