Lies, Damn Lies

On adverts and racial slurs

I really quite like the new lynx ads (thats axe, for you yanks and canucks). It's the same kind of idea as the normal ads- Ben Affleck goes around with people giving him looks, and clicks every time he notices a woman, or, in once case, a man, giving him a look. At the end of the advert, he shows off his figure of several hundred to the liftman, who has several thousand. You see... he used lynx.

What I like about it, is that while it still has the same basic premise, "this product will make women be attracted to you", it has stopped implying it's some kind of magical date rape drug that will force women upon you. Instead it's kind of clever. Also, I'm probably the only person in the world who still kind of likes Ben Affleck. I'm not entirely sure why, I guess I just thought he was funny in the Kevin Smith films and also the commentary.

Earlier, I mentioned yanks and canucks, random bits of racial shortenings. As far as I know, yank is not offensive. Or at least intended to be offensive anyways- in the US itself it refers to the more northern states, I believe, but here it just means an American. Canuck is slang I read somewhere, and I suspect it doesn't actually refer to canadians. I'm not sure there is offensive slang directed at canadians, because let's face it, who hates canada? I might even go as far to say that it's probably one of the nicest nations around. Apart from the whole seal pup slaughtering thing. Whats up with that Canada? Do you not want to be thought of as nice anymore? I have a suspicion that meanwhile America is probably the most hated nation, which is no mean feat, although probably a rather unfair one for all that I might disagree with US foreign policy. I guess the Iranians aren't high up on many people's lists right now, but Russia and China still seem to think Iran is A-okay, so they've got a wide range of holiday options. Well... two. But those are damn big countries.

I quite like America, from my one time visit there, although I'm not a big fan of US custons. I mean, I feel guilty at most customs (and actively scared at some european ones, where the assault rifle wielding police wave their weapons around with gay abandon), but the American customs? Jesus! I'm probably spoilt by being a citizen of the commenwealth and the EU, giving me relative ease of travel, but is there such a big problem of British people immigrating to the US? The amount of forms, you'd think there was a regular goddamn exodus of British people just trying to spend the rest of their lives in the US, while pretending they were on holiday. Maybe they do, and it's a big problem, it just seems a little unlikely to me.

On a random anecdotal note, on that holiday we stayed most of the time in cottage in conneticut, which had it's own pool. It was quite deep, so you couldn't really touch the bottom, and had to tread water or stay at the sides when not swimming. Along the bottom of the pool there were lots of twigs fallen from the tree.

On the very last day, I realised that these weren't twigs at all. They were dead worms....

posted by Mr K @ 5:38 pm