Mike’sMusings

Mike is back with a tall tale and a punchline that will have you wincing! Enjoy!

Mike is always glad to hear from you at : mike.musings@outlook.com

They’re not what they used to be!

The delightfully attractive lady who looks after me enjoys watching typically British detective/murder mystery type dramas like Midsomer Murders, Vera, Morse, Endeavour etc. So much so, that whilst I’m often doing something else while she watches, I’m familiar with the dialogue and plot lines of many, as she never tires of watching them again and again.

NB – to illustrate the point, whilst I’m typing this, in the far corner of our living room, I know that right now Inspector Morse is listening to some opera music (and probably supping a whisky), as he pontificates on the latest Oxford murder.

I’m digressing a little here to give you a bit of background, because it’s modern-day TV adverts that have got me ‘going’ recently.

Some of you may be too young to remember – but I reckon most of you aren’t – the likes of these from days gone by: -

• Cinzano Bianco with Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins.

• The fisherman fighting a bear over a salmon to get the ‘the best for John West’.

• The guy trying, but failing, to take a passport photo in a booth who ends up consoling himself with a Hamlet cigar.

• The posh lady who needs a drink of Heineken to enable her to adopt a cockney accent and say, “The water in Majorca, don’t taste like it ought to”.

• The guy getting up in the middle of the night to slake his thirst with R White’s Lemonade.

• The German sentry who acts like a goalkeeper to save a dam from bouncing bombs and is then praised by the British pilot saying, “I bet he drinks Carling Black Label”.

The one thing they all had in common, of course, was a bit of humour.

Now, and I accept that advertisers are well aware of their target audience, all I hear on ITV3 whilst repeats of Poirot, Lewis, Maigret etc., are being watched for the umpteenth time, are people enthusiastically encouraging me to: - a) Pay in advance for my cremation. b) Take out life insurance with a ‘Guaranteed Over 50 Plan’. c) Buy products like stairlifts or mobility scooters. d) Redesign my bathroom for ‘assisted bathing’. NB – they always have attractive female models who are a long way short of receiving their free bus pass, to illustrate just how convenient these products are. e) Release the equity from my home. f) Give generously to various charities.

Now I’m as charitable as the best of them, but when I’m being repeatedly asked to donate money to save bears, wild horses, monkeys, tigers, pangolins, donkeys etc., never mind cats and dogs, and no matter the offer of a free pen, fridge magnet, £100 M&S voucher or even a ‘cuddly toy’, I do tend to switch off.

Is it me, or do the companies using ITV3 to promote their product/service think that typical viewers are warm hearted and generous (or gullible) and/or about to ‘kick the bucket’?