"If I had my way, there'd be no such thing as pigeons"

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"Bob Marley would still be alive,
Things would, like, tidy themselves,
I'd ban beards,
and cats, cats would get even with dogs."

Is this what is wrong with society today?

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:00 (twenty-two years ago)

BUT BOB MARLEY HAD A BEARD YOU FOOL!

Nicole is this advert you? :)

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

i h8 cats.

― michael wells (michael w.), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

No, I don't intend to advertise -- I intend to take over and ENFORCE a beard ban. Subtle persuasion through advertising is a total dud.

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Cats are GREAT! But, this idea that they're kind of CLEVER is terrible. They're moronic. They possess a sense of embarrassment (and so a sense of "pride", I guess) but that's about it. They're very funny, of course. Pigs are far smarter. To a SCARY degree.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Hence Animal Farm.

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

To contextualise, this is an advert for Orange mobile phones who claim that with their current packages you can have it "your way" (like Burger King usta - though you still had to have the bloody burger). A ginger, freckly girl with a vaguely scottish accent slouches over a park bench in some sort of idealised Mediteraneanesque plaza whilst running through her very selfish, negative manifesto as above. Its about a minute long and plays before every film shown in Britain.

I have seen it about forty times and want to kill her. Especially for her me generation selfishness.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

And she is a racialist.

― Emma, Friday, 10 January 2003 13:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Big time. (Though she likes Bob Marley so that's alright!)

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah taken without the sound the bit where the black guy sits down next to her on the bench and she mouths to the nearly cop to take him away is Trent Lott-tastic!

It is a terrible advert, it makes previous orange adverts seem magnificent. Does N like this one too?

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks Pete. I hate this kind of thing too- "don't worry, we'll do what YOU want!" ie, YOU want things that don't really do any good for anyone apart from you, yr immediate friends and yr CD collection. I don't have any examples (there are a lot, but I'd be misquoting) but this assumption that BASICALLY we're all completely selfish, if we're given an opportunity to admit it, pisses me off quite badly.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

pigeons heads move funny.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm still scared of this one pig I know. I sort of think she knows what I'm planning.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:34 (twenty-two years ago)

i like pigeons. i like tube mice. i like rats. i like cats. i am indifferent to beards (in real life). it is a rub ad. there are rubber.

― Alan (Alan), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not planning anything nefarious, I just don't like PRUDENCE the PIG knowing what I'm about to do. She has scary teeth. And she laughs a lot, which doesn't seem right.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

She's not only an evil ginger, but she stole my friend's lovely Office shoes (well, maybe not precisely that pair, but you know), and now M is traumatised when she sees the advert.

Anyone (particularly mobile phone service providers) offering to tailor something precisely for you (ho ho) at presumably little added expense to themselves invariably expects you to (a) be immensely grateful for their condescension and (b) pay through the nose. And then they go and undertake RUBBISH advertising campaigns. The buggers.

Orange ads used to be atmospheric and nothing else. Now they are just bad content with very little style. Sucky.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not planning anything nefarious, I just don't like PRUDENCE the PIG knowing what I'm about to do. She has scary teeth. And she laughs a lot, which doesn't seem right.

Pigs are scary - my husband used to live on a block where an old lady got attacked by a pot bellied pig that had gotten loose. It knawed on her leg!

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

What's worse, they're actually vegetarian, so if they bite you they're just being mean! She honestly does laugh, by the way.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I am always v depressed at seeing M's shoes in that context too. I have no problem with people in adverts expressing selfish desires (I mean, that's what advertising is all about) but she is soooo moronic and miserable while clearly being supposed to appeal to 'quirky' youth arrrrghhhh!

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and on another advert tip - the picture of Carrie in the Sex And The CIty bus adds, she is obviously eating a pizza thats bottom is vcovered in mould. Ugh. Fungus and the city more like.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha I've seen this ad, the slick thing about it is that there was an ad for the Irish lottery almost EXACTLY the same except the girl was saying shit like "and I'd live with horses, just running free" and then it said "The National Lottery, play now or it could be her".

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:55 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought horses *did* roam free through town centres in ireland. ;)

― michael wells (michael w.), Friday, 10 January 2003 13:59 (twenty-two years ago)

did i see a pot noodle ad that was a pisstake of the financial services talking baby ad the other day?

― Alan (Alan), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

a friend complained abt this ad to the itc, on the grounds of its horrible racism — do i mean itc? anyway the appropriate body — and thus discovered that he was one of only 23 people actually to speak up

(i *think* he also said the marley bit was added after his complaint)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Funny you should say that Michael, there's a farmers protest today and all the muckchuckers have brought their tractors to Dublin. I was tempted to go drinking in the city centre this afternoon and hurl some abuse but I just don't have the money.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that companies that run advertising campaigns saying how you can have things "your way" ultimately shoot themselves in the foot, because they then give you reasons to complain about them when they don't meet up to your requirements in terms of flexibility, unlike a company that merely talks about its product's superiority over the opposition or low price. As for the frecky ginger in the ad, she was clearly in the Z stream in the biology class, or else she would REALISE that there have to be such a thing as pigeons or else the whole ecosystem would just go fubar, dammit. Maybe it was her biology techer's beard which distracted her, who knows?

Sex and the City is one of the dullest programmes on TV.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

They are nice shoes, though

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah but to be fair to the evil witch she does replace the pigeons with budgerigars (sp?) not realising that they would be equally verminous and twice as annoying with their tweeting.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I was tempted to go drinking in the city centre this afternoon and hurl some abuse but I just don't have the money.

you were going to hurl *money* at them??

― michael wells (michael w.), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:15 (twenty-two years ago)

"but to be fair to the evil witch"

WHY????

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:15 (twenty-two years ago)

What the hell is the music in this advert? I don't particularly like it, but it's been the source of much head-scratching every time we go to the pictures.

Enough with the ginger baiting already - surely the last refuge of the closet bigot.

― Tag, Friday, 10 January 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

No Tag that's beard-hating.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

you were going to hurl money at them?

No I'll leave that to the EU

Sex In The City is a silly programme but then so is almost every other programme I can think of on TV at the moment.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

The ITC verdict on her racist filth. I have to say Mark, I think your friend has let political correctness go MAD. The gut with the beard just happened to be a bit dark.

I love the girl in that advert and one day I will marry her.

NB. this was not me.

Tag - Future Sound Of London's 'Go Tell It'

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Gut = guy, rather than some new racist term I have invented.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

N. is spot on, we seem to have found another crossover girl, a rare thing. Mind you he can have her...

― chris (chris), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone ever eaten a pigeon? i imagine they taste like seed.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

"gut" is like the Irish Countrywomens Associations version of "cur".

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Wood Pigeon, gamey and tasty. City Pigeon tastes of carbon monoxide & dirt.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

pigeon is nice, sort of doggish and beardy, if you know what i mean

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

i imagine they taste like seed

as do budgies, presumably. Maybe we should conduct a new versh of the eighties Pepsi Challenge (is Joe Brown still alive?) to see if blindfolded members of the public can tell pigeon from budgie.

re the beard thing: is the frecky ginger's Dad on the board of Gillette? Or Remington? maybe she has her inheritance in mind.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 10 January 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Its that, "cats will get even with dogs" line that really gets me because it suggests that she lives in a cartoon where dogs are constantly being chased by cats rather than the real world where if they are together in a domesticated situation the cat nearly always gets the upper hand (casually batting the dogs nose with claws outstretch). It'd be alright if she want cats and dogs to get along, but she still wants it to be opoositional, she wants a loser.

The losers to make her happy are Men with beards, pigeons, dogs, street cleaners and Bob Marley (who I'm sure is happy in heaven).

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The girl in that ad is *so* cute, I just love those freckles! Is it true though that they dub her voice to suit the different localities it's screened in cos she sounds Scottish here (in Scotland). As for pigeons, I think they're cool.

― Gordon (Gordon), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:07 (twenty-two years ago)

SHe's Scottish down here, but that is a voice-over as the evil witch is actually French. (Follow Nick's linx above).

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

This is all deeply distressing to my troubled mind. So why haven't you found the director of this piece and wreaked some bodily harm?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound has to be muted in Mentality Towers when this ad comes on, or at the very least a vocalised outburst.

― Sarah (starry), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like the ad much (I saw it again last night and winced accordingly), but gingerism - zzzzzz. I'm also not oblivious to her cuteness.

― Tag, Friday, 10 January 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

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