Misunderstanding?
I hate not knowing stuff and I hate not understanding stuff. I don't like enigmas, I dislike it when people hint at stuff but won't give you any details, I'm almost pathological in my need to always Know What's Going On. It goes a long way to explaining what a terrible nosey parker and gossip I am.
Don't get me wrong, I like puzzles. I like teasing and suspense, as long as it's resolved at some point. I love films and books where you have to work out what's going on. As long as I find out before I leave the cinema / switch the telly off, I'm happy.
This is why I hate those adverts where things aren't explained. This is why I have developed something of a buzzy honey-making stripey creature in the old whimsical headgear department over a certain Twinings advert currently on telly.
I may just be thick or not paying proper attention. This happens. I am a scatter-brain and a bit dim sometimes and occasionally it is my fault. If this is the case and someone can explain it all satisfactorily to me, I will be happy.
So here's the thing: It's Stephen Fry. In some kind of tea cupboard. Drinking coffee. Twinings coffee. And then a younger really-rather-gorgeous man comes in and looks at him suspiciously, and Stephen Fry looks all guilty and hides it behind his back, but finally he has to 'fess up. He is - gasp - drinking coffee, not tea! But then he reveals that it was made by Twinings, and he is forgiven. And then he says something about getting a dog to help with his accounting.
Wtf?
Where are they supposed to be? Why does the younger man care what he's drinking? What context is it that means he may only ever drink tea, and not coffee? What is his relationship with the younger man? Are they lovers? And WHAT THE FUCK HAS A BLOODY DOG GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING? Not to mention dogs and accounting which have never been two things I've thought of as being connected.
I need it explained. I need it explained now, because otherwise it makes no sense. And I seriously disapprove of things that make no sense. I've been ill this week which means I've spent most of my time in a rocking chair watching telly, and the Twinings conundrum is spoiling my enjoyment of Deal Or No Deal.
Thank you. That is all.
___
Don't get me wrong, I like puzzles. I like teasing and suspense, as long as it's resolved at some point. I love films and books where you have to work out what's going on. As long as I find out before I leave the cinema / switch the telly off, I'm happy.
This is why I hate those adverts where things aren't explained. This is why I have developed something of a buzzy honey-making stripey creature in the old whimsical headgear department over a certain Twinings advert currently on telly.
I may just be thick or not paying proper attention. This happens. I am a scatter-brain and a bit dim sometimes and occasionally it is my fault. If this is the case and someone can explain it all satisfactorily to me, I will be happy.
So here's the thing: It's Stephen Fry. In some kind of tea cupboard. Drinking coffee. Twinings coffee. And then a younger really-rather-gorgeous man comes in and looks at him suspiciously, and Stephen Fry looks all guilty and hides it behind his back, but finally he has to 'fess up. He is - gasp - drinking coffee, not tea! But then he reveals that it was made by Twinings, and he is forgiven. And then he says something about getting a dog to help with his accounting.
Wtf?
Where are they supposed to be? Why does the younger man care what he's drinking? What context is it that means he may only ever drink tea, and not coffee? What is his relationship with the younger man? Are they lovers? And WHAT THE FUCK HAS A BLOODY DOG GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING? Not to mention dogs and accounting which have never been two things I've thought of as being connected.
I need it explained. I need it explained now, because otherwise it makes no sense. And I seriously disapprove of things that make no sense. I've been ill this week which means I've spent most of my time in a rocking chair watching telly, and the Twinings conundrum is spoiling my enjoyment of Deal Or No Deal.
Thank you. That is all.
___
Labels: Silly
6 Comments:
Oh, dear lord! I hope someone comments and explains this soon, for now I also have a "buzzy honey-making stripey creature in the old whimsical headgear department" about this ad. And I haven't even see it yet...
Well, I've not seen it but surely having to drink coffee in secret is just a jokey exaggeration of an Englishman who is always extolling the virtues of tea as the one and only hot beverage of the civilised and cultured? (From the other ad I've seen the black man is an employee and from that jumped up fomer colony of America where they drink coffee all the time and don't know how to make a proper cup of tea. Which is true.)
A dog needed to do the accounting? I don't get that. Which is probably the most important answer you want. Sorry.
I wish you could edit comments!
scrap "a jokey exaggeration of" and replace with "a jokey suggestion of the shame that may be felt by" - like he was caught being a Lib Dem MP or something.
Anyway - the dog. I've just thought get a dog to do your accounting for you instead of employing a human being as the dog won't be shocked when they catch you behaving like Mark Oaten. Or drinking coffee.
anonnymoose, I like your dog theory. But as for the rest...
The thing is, British people love to drink coffee. They drink it all the time. So the suggestion that coffee is frowned upon in Britain would only work somewhere other than Britain. But this is a British advert, being shown on British TV!
And anyway, if it were true that coffee were frowned upon, then I simply don't buy the suggestion that if it were made by a tea company that would make it all right. How owuld it make it all right? It just makes you think the coffee might taste of tea, which is quite frankly a horrid idea.
But I have since looked up Twinings and Stephen Fry on YouTube to see if I oculd find a clip of the advert. I couldn't, but I did find clips of some others. It turns out it is a whole series, set in a tea shop. So they assume you've seen the others, and will therefore know they are in a tea shop. I guess the idea is that since they sell tea, they must only drink tea. Unless it is made by Twinings. Which is, if you ask me, a stupid idea. And anyway, what if, like me, you ain't seen the other ads? In that case it makes no sense WHATSOEVER, instead of VERY LITTLE SENSE.
Harumph.
wrath, I am glad to have passed my bussy stripey creature onto you. It's a small achievement, but a significant one.
I agree it will only make any kind of sense if you've seen the other ads. The tea shop is in America, I believe, so the ads are perhaps hoping that we laugh at the idea that yanks may have of us as being tea fanatasists while at the same time acknowledging that there is perhaps some truth in that and it is being exemplified and exaggerated by a stereotypical stuffy old fashioned English man played by Fry who only drinks tea. Some of the earlier ads are supposedly set in Twinings HQ in the UK - big old fashioned building with solid oak doors - with Fry commenting on Twinings Everyday tea as being "something you wouldn't be ashamed to give to your builder" (rather than Earl Grey or Lapsang souchong). Maybe shame is being played on as a particularly British trait too?
In reality we might drink lots of coffee in dear old Blighty as well as tea but tea is still a much more important drink here than it is in North America or Continental Europe. We drink way more of the stuff over here and offering a cup of tea in a crisis is still a very British thing to do. (But it will more likely be served in a mug these days, not a cup. An enamel mug for soldiers in a British war time movie. A cup for Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter). So if the stalwarts of Britsh tea, Twinings (as they would like to be percieved through their ads) make some coffee as well it must be all right then.
Anyway, a horror story for you, I know an American who makes tea thus: puts a tea bag in a mug with cold water and milk and heats it in a microwave. A microwave! And cold water! Not even hot, never mind boiling!
It might be interesting to make tea in a microwave, as if the water's fairly still (not on a turntable) you can briefly zap it up beyond its boiling point and hence make tea with superheated water. It might taste cruddy, or might be marvellous. But not with a tea bag. Or milk.
Post a Comment
<< Home