Mayo-Nay-Sayers

(Note: I wrote this the other week, and then forgot to actually post it – hence the slightly dated Doctor Who reference. But I didn’t have the heart to leave it unposted. So here it is...)

First things first, did anyone see last Saturday’s Doctor Who?

Bloody brilliant, wasn’t it? Slightly mind-bending, in a Sliding Doors meets The Butterfly Effect kind of way, but absolutely awesome nonetheless. The concept that an entire, post-apocalyptic universe could be created on the back of a single decision to turn either right, or left, is something that has the ability to challenge the way we view our own decisions, and the implications and impact of the things we do is brought shuddering to the forefront of our minds.

Now consider this; Doctor Who is aimed at a family audience, deemed suitable for viewing by children, despite the often weighty themes of loss, death, revenge and retribution. I like to think that the reason these themes are allowed to exist so heavily in a programme aimed primarily at geeks (like me) and ten-year-olds, is that the average ten-year-old is not actually that thick, and is sufficiently equipped to deal with such concepts and emotions. It is because of this that I am filled with such apoplectic rage at Heinz’s decision to pull the ads for their new Deli Mayonnaise.

The ad, pulled as a result of over 200 complaints to Heinz, depicts a ‘typical’ domestic morning; kids and husband getting ready for school and work, while ‘mum’, played here by a De Niro-lookalike in chef’s whites and a, frankly shocking, white paper hat, prepares the packed lunches using Heinz’s new ‘delicious’ mayonnaise. The ad concludes with ‘dad’ planting a split-second peck on the bestubbled lips of poor, downtrodden ‘mum’ before leaving for work. Steamy stuff! Pass the bloody smelling salts.

Complaints have ranged from deeming the advert ‘offensive’, to the even more bemusing ‘unsuitable to be seen by children’, claiming that it raises the difficult problem for parents having to resultantly explain the issue of same-sex relationships to children. Aside from being ludicrous and knee-jerk-reactionary, these complaints are displaying a startling lack of understanding of the story the advert is trying to tell.

Forgive me if I’ve completely misinterpreted the ad, but the New York Deli Man in question is not actually supposed to be a man at all – the children call ‘him’ mum, and the husband reacts to ‘him’ as though ‘he’ (I’ll stop with the inverted commas, now – it’s doing my head in) were his wife, not his civil partner. So why on Earth does the question of same-sex relationships even need apply. If the basic premise of the advert is that the mayonnaise is so good that it has transformed mum from a bog standard cheese-and-pickle-peddler to a sandwich savant, then it would be safe to assume that the two little darlings are not actually coming home to daddy and daddy. As a result, the ad can be explained as simply as; ‘that’s not really a man, little Timmy, the advert is making a joke about the mayonnaise tasting the same as mayonnaise in New York, so they have changed the mummy into a New York sandwich man.’ It’s not rocket science, and it’s about as offensive as Les Dawson, dressed as a woman, hoisting his enormous padded boobies over a fence.

Moreover, if anything, surely feminists and women should be getting their knickers in a twist over the ad; poor old mum enslaved in sandwich hell, while her precocious little shits demand extra ham and two different types of mayonnaise, and her hubby neglects even to give her a cursory peck on the way out of the house. It could just as easily be an advert for Prozac.

The ludicrous irony of the entire storm-in-a-teacup is that the advert was already deemed ex-kid, as it promotes a product that is high in salt and sugar. Though I personally can’t remember ever nagging my mum to pick up some caramelised onion flavoured mayo on the weekly shop around Tesco’s, at least it’s slightly more valid to protect children from the evils of fatty mayonnaise than it is to protect them from the evils of a 70’s throwback comedy sketch.

The ad’s a bloody double-edged sword; don’t let kids see the fatty mayonnaise! Don’t let kids see the innocuous same-sex kiss! Don’t let kids hear the word ‘sweetcheeks’ before the watershed! Don’t let kids stay up after the watershed! Good grief. It’s over-sensitive hand-wringing at its absolute worst. But what’s worst of all, is that it treats children like idiots; as if they are totally unable to work out that most basic of concepts, that one person is pretending to be someone else. It’s not rocket science, and it certainly isn’t ‘the difficult issue of same-sex relationships’ sneaking through the back door (ooh err missus, etc...). It’s a mum, masquerading as a New York deli man, transformed by the e-numbery goodness of Heinz’s Deli Mayonnaise.

If we can trust kids with the notions of tri-sexual immortal Captain Jack Harkness, universe-hopping Rose Tyler and the double-hearted Doctor, then why can’t we trust them with a little same-sex peck on the back of a dated joke? In an increasingly over-sensitive and easy-to-offend society, the last thing we need to be doing is tearing apart innocent adverts, finding sex where it isn’t and preaching puritan values where they are neither valuable nor necessary. Adverts are adverts, they’re not real life, they’re not the News at Ten. They’re simply tiny little mindfucks designed to convince you to buy something. And if you’re going to allow yourself to take them too seriously, well, I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t cut the mustard* with me.

*apologies – I was desperate to make at least one condiment pun… so there it is.

What’s the Magic Word?

‘Can I get a 1664, a Jerry and Coke and a white SoCo?’

Don’t worry if you’re a little confused, boys and girls, so was I. Despite sounding like something barked over the crash trolley of a hit-and-run victim on an episode of ER, the pin-headed dickwipe who had so woefully neglected his manners was actually demanding a pint of Kronenburg, a rum and coke and a Southern Comfort and Lemonade. I’d just started my summer job, and, horror of horrors, I’d found myself in politesse hell.

See, the other day I read I really, really scary story, and it didn’t have a happy ending. It was my bank statement. Weeks of unpaid work experience to boost my fledgling journalistic portfolio had left me with a balance that would have Little Nell throwing coppers into my begging bowl. So I bit the proverbial bullet and got myself a job. I thought that a bar job would be a glamorous, responsibility-free way to finance my summer, get the bank off my back and meet lots of trendy, fabulous new people. Instead, it appears to be an exercise in anger-management and code-breaking, peppered with cocks, cokeheads and braying, empty-headed money-wells armed only with smug slang and a distinct lack of English good manners.

Am I the only one who failed to notice drinks suddenly developing new, trendy nicknames? Without my knowledge or consent, they’ve become the alcoholic equivalent of J-Lo, P-Diddy and M-Dolla, and it makes a mockery of the entire bar service dynamic. You want speedy, efficient service? Then bloody ask for what you want! I don’t go into McDonalds and ask for a B-Macca, with P-chippies and a D-Coca, do I? Then why is it suddenly appropriate for you to ask for drinks in some sort of wankers’ code? Was there a committee? Some Berks’ Fellowship that decided that, given the bad press drinking alcohol has had of late, booze needed something of an image change? It’s not big, it’s not clever, and I don’t like it.

And what’s worse, this same Cocks’ Committee have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that these new, too-cool-for-school nicknames are so hip, so now, that they must be allowed to stand on their own in spoken sentences, unballasted by courtesy or politeness. It must have been around the time that Southern Comfort became SoCo that ‘may I have’ became ‘can I get’, and ‘please’ became ‘right fucking now’.

‘Can I get’ has oozed its way into the national voice in much the same way that ‘like’ has replaced ‘erm’, and what’s most ludicrous about it is that it doesn’t actually mean anything. The phrase turns me into a tooth-gnashing grammar-fascist because it is so bloody STUPID! ‘Can I get’ is contextually inaccurate when requesting something, as ‘can’ queries the ability to do something, and ‘get’ suggests the speaker actually getting something themselves. What these pseudo-American tossers are actually asking is if they have the physical ability to get themselves a drink. Quite possibly they can, but the service industry doesn’t work like that.

It’s easy to blame American TV for this dissolution of good manners; Friends introduced us to the notion of going for coffee in much the same way as it introduced us to the act of demanding it rudely. The difference with American and British manners, however, is that American courtesy doesn’t depend on the pleasantries, it depends on the pleasantness; the logic being that you don’t have to say please if you ask for something nicely. In London, we’ve seen the bastardisation of this concept; you don’t have to say please if you ask for something. Full stop. And it’s an idea that doesn’t hold with me: My mum is a big advocate for manners. Saying please and thank-you in so ingrained on my psyche that it is almost an involuntary nervous tic, like saying sorry to inanimate objects you bump into by mistake or to people who have stepped on your foot. She’s always in the back of my mind when I deal with people whose job it is to provide me with a service. I ask myself, what would she think if I spoke to someone like that in front of her. Or worse, what would I think if someone spoke to her like it?

After all, ‘Britishness’, for whatever the term is worth, is built on manners. A stiff upper lip and an pre-programmed inability to be rude. ‘Politeness at any cost’ is a dying concept, and I for one will mourn it.

If we’re going to assimilate American service culture into our own, then fair enough. I don’t like it, but I’m just one man, campaigning for pleases and thank-yous as politely and unintrusively as I possibly can. But if this trend for pseudo-rudeness is to continue, then could we at least take on the whole shebang – including the American propensity for tipping? At least then when you speak to me like I'm a piece of sticky chewing gum on the sole of your summer flip-flop, I know at least I’ll be getting 10% for the privilege.

So please, London, can I get some manners, right fucking now? Thanks. Sorry. Thanks…

No Man is an iLand

Not being a crotchety old naysayer, it’s not often that I find myself warning others to be careful what they wish for. Unsurprisingly, it’s even less infrequent that I warn myself – after all, unless what I’m wishing for is a poke in the eye or some sort of debilitating brain disease that makes me soil myself sporadically and without warning, what harm could come from a little wishful thinking? My wishes tend to be small, obtainable, pocket-sized wishes; a gold card, for instance, or world peace, and yet, when I am confronted with exactly what I think I want, it often comes as a surprise just how bloody unsatisfying satisfaction can be.

I was having a whinge the other day, over some fridge-chilled Corona in an air-conditioned Soho bar, how our lives were becoming increasingly dependant on technology. Having some time earlier received a text message informing me that my friend would be late, (seven minutes, to be exact) I thought it prudent to ponder how the mobile phone had taken the place of good timekeeping and, more importantly, good manners. Before mobile phones made almost every social faux pas bar adultery and murder acceptable, when you made a plan you stuck to it; meeting at eight thirty did not mean meeting at nine and bringing Pablo from the post room with you, it meant arriving at eight twenty-five and liking it. Nowadays, lateness doesn’t even enter the equation; the mobile phone has become the electronic get-out-of-jail-free card, and the text message the king’s pardon du jour. Don’t fancy turning up? Sod it, send a text. After all, at least you’ve let them know, right?

Being something of an old romantic, I waxed lyrical about a time gone by when preparing to leave the house meant not forgetting your keys and your bus fare: The halcyon days when cash wasn’t viewed as a relic and not every phone box was a makeshift urinal seemed somehow blissful in the comfortable neon half-light of my temperate London boozery. Growingly increasingly indignant about society’s dependence on technology to excuse good old fashioned rudeness, I reminisced, ignoring for a minute the fact that were it not for my laptop, my mobile phone and my oyster card my little Soho soiree would not actually have happened, of a time before inter-personal contact was so immediate, relentless and detached. And then I told a great big fat stinker of a lie: I could live happily without it all – no mobile, no laptop, no internet. Nothing.

Imagine my surprise then, when, deprived of my broadband connection for a mere eight hours, I was plunged into, not only total social isolation, but also something resembling blind panic.

Dependency is a frightening enough concept when we apply it to people. We all like to convince ourselves that we are strong, independent and driven; standing on our own two feet, after all, is one of the pivotal moments of our early development. It’s even more terrifying when we apply it to things. While I, like most people, am essentially a creature of habit, it came as something of a shock to realise how isolated and, more worryingly, how deprived I felt for the simple fact that I could not access my email. Not having been denied food, water or fresh air, my indignation is retrospectively embarrassing and petty; all I’d really been denied was the ability to sit on my arse having my brain assaulted by a limitless wave of easily accessible nonsense. And yet indignant, to my abject horror, I remained.

No one likes realising what a hypocrite they actually are, or, indeed, what a mindless drone they have allowed themselves to become. Despite my earlier protestation that such technology had made us lazy, isolated and rude, without it I felt quite astonishingly ineffective, isolated and rude. Emails went unanswered, plans went unmade and gossip when unspread. And perhaps worst of all was the fact that I felt the need to justify my withdrawal; claiming that a lack of internet was preventing my from working from home (work which had neither arrived, nor had I any intention of actually doing) was my only means of legitimising what is, essentially, a rather worrying internet addiction.

Three hours and four phone calls to an automated recorded voice telling me that the problem ‘would be sorted later today’, I decided to pull myself together and reacquaint myself with the real world. Sipping a lukewarm hazelnut Americano in an artificially-lit jazz-pumping Starbucks with an old friend might not have been exactly the return to a simpler time I’d been pining for, but it was a distinct improvement on trying to connect with an inanimate, unresponsive grey box.

Going through the seven stages of grief for what is essentially a gateway to donkey porn and videos of women falling off of ladders is something I don’t want to repeat in a hurry. We may live in an increasingly secular and distant society, and emails, text messages and Facebook pokes may be the only way we communicate with people we’d otherwise drift apart from, but at what cost does this maintained electronic contact come? The realisation that my social life still existed beyond a rickety broadband connection was hardly a eureka moment, but it was necessary nonetheless; it reminded me that every second spent exchanging electronic vodka shots with vague acquaintances was a second that could be far more valuably spent cultivating and maintaining real, tangible relationships with real, tangible people. And so I closed the lid, flicked off the switch, and went outside to play.

Technology is undoubtedly a wonderful thing, but a little disentanglement was just the thing to blow the World Wide cobWebs away…

The Name Game

Moses supposes his toeses are roses
But Moses supposes erroneously
for nobody's toeses are posies of roses
As Moses supposes his toeses to be.

When it comes to the naming of things, there seems to be something of a literary pre-occupation with the rose. If it’s not Moses supposing his toeses are roses (supposing, of course, erroneously), it’s Shakespeare’s Juliet pondering ‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.’ But whether we’re talking about roses, toeses or posies, names continue to be problematic; while they are little more than labels for things that are exactly the same without them, without them we are left in something of an existential identity crisis. Without names, all that distinguishes roses from toeses is the very fact of them being distinct, their physical, tangible difference. Without them, things are just that, things. Perhaps this is why we are thrown into such a quandary when names get changed.

I can still remember the nationwide sense of unease when Marathon bars became Snickers, when Jif became Cif and when Opal Fruits suddenly became Starburst. There was sufficient outcry when Coco Pops were inexplicably re-branded as Choco Crispies that Kellogg’s were forced to make a u-turn (perhaps Coup-Coup Pops may have been an appropriate rename in this instance). If Gertrude Stein is right, and a rose really is just a rose, then why do we get so worked up over what things are called?

I ask this in the light of a recent lobbying campaign taking place in East London that seeks to rename the soon-to-be-reopened Shoreditch High Street station ‘Banglatown’, in honour of the Bangladeshi cultural influence in the area. Despite a similar aborted campaign to have Aldgate East station renamed Brick Lane in 2006, supporters of the proposed change are arguing that such a change will make the area more accessible to tourists and serve to cement the cultural identity of the area. It’s a campaign with noble and understandable intentions, and one that poses the question of how important a name is to the cultural identity, or indeed the social relevance of the location it describes. If the clothes make the man, does the name really make the place?

You’d be rightly quick to point out that Chinatown in Soho does just that – labels a place unequivocally with the cultural background that it serves to represent – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a trend that ought to be unquestionably followed. Sure, renaming Shoreditch High Street station Banglatown would make it easier for tourists to locate Brick Lane and everything that comes hand in hand with this particular area in East London, but aside from setting an uncomfortable precedent for labelling locations with such definitive racial and cultural boundaries, doesn’t it also smack slightly of dumbing down? Are we in danger of turning London into one big theme park – a huge reproduction of the ‘it’s a small world’ ride at Disneyland? And if we are, why stop with Banglatown? Oxford Street is confusing enough, so why don’t we just call it Shopland? Soho might literally be dripping with connotative implication, but it could be clearer – Gaytopia, perhaps, or Shagsville?

The labelling of places might be problematic, but the labelling of people is, unsurprisingly, even more so. Somewhat further away, the Greek gay rights organisation The Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece has come under fire from campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos for their use of the term ‘lesbian’. The campaign, spearheaded by Lesbos publisher Dimitris Lambrou argues that the ‘international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.’ Lambrou insists that the worldwide sexualising of the term causes daily problems to the social lives of Lesbos’s inhabitants. Now, far be it for me to trivialise the embarrassment of 100,000 people, but with all the problems currently facing the world today, is that really the biggest thing they have to worry about?

The term lesbian entered the English vocabulary at the start of the 20th Century, and originates from the poet Sappho, who expressed her love for other women in her 7th Century BC poetry. This in mind – and all fatuousness aside – doesn’t it seem that the Lesbians have taken rather a long time to be offended about the lesbians? I mean, a really, really long time. I’d try to defer my offence next time someone calls me a dickhead for a hundred years, except I’d probably be dead, and that would be really, really quite petty.

Perhaps the most ludicrous part of the entire campaign is the reported intention to combat the use of the term worldwide if their campaign is successful. Talk about keeping your eyes on the bigger picture - Mary Whitehouse must be positively spinning in her grave that she never held such ambition.

It takes some stretch of the imagination to believe that insurmountable confusion arises from the duality of the term, even more so to believe that this duality brings the people of Lesbos disgrace. Are the Lesbian people really so soft-shelled? And if a capital letter isn’t enough to distinguish the terms (Lesbian referring to someone from Lesbos, lesbian referring to someone from Channel 4), shouldn’t some degree of maturity, acceptance and the common sense to rise above what is, frankly, puerile schoolboy humour provide sufficient defence against this perceived embarrassment? Frankly, if the Lesbians think they’ve got it bad, they should probably give some thought to the people of Fucking, Austria. They may find that the grass is actually greener on their side of the fence.

There is a fine line between using names as a means of identification and using them as a means of implication; I’ll concede that Shakespeare and Stein had something of a point, but I’ll venture that were roses in fact called shitblossom, we wouldn’t be in so much of a hurry to shove our schnozzes into them. But the responsibility must be placed firmly at our own doors – words only have as much power as we let them; the continued taboo surrounding the word c*nt is evidence enough of this, so perhaps if we just remember that a word is a word is a word, just as a name is a name is a name, we’ll be better defended against the damage the labels we create can do.

After all, sticks and stones may break our bones, but names will never hurt us.