Skip to main content

Bad Language

In the world of advertising there is a whole vocabulary that is rarely, if ever, used outside advertising: "fragrance" means chemical perfume, "indulgent" means fattening, "sensual" means sweet, "enter a new world" means buy, and so on.

So in the rather saccharin coverage of the Royal Wedding, it was easy to spot the journalistic bullshit too. "curves" means body, "crafted" means expensive, "fairy tale" means has carriages, "magical" means expensive, "informal" means very formal indeed, and "our future King/Queen" means we are prepared to tempt fate.

I did watch it, although it did not impress me in quite the same way as I remember the ill-fated first wedding of the Prince of Wales. Is it uncharitable to say that it all seemed a little formulaic? Even the music- "I was glad" and "Guide me O thou Great Redeemer" was such that we have quite literally heard it all before.

The journalistic cliche was that this marked "a new beginning", even a "relaunch" of the Monarchy, as though it needed such a thing. In fact it seemed the same script with a slightly younger cast of characters. I wish no ill to the Happy Couple, yet it was hard to watch without a slightly cynical "Oh Yeah?" intruding at certain points.

It was also all too noticeable that the highlights of the fly past were planes that date from the Second World War. Some might see this as the Monarchy tying itself ever closer to the national myth of the Second World War. Yet it would not do to mention that our overstretched and underfunded Armed Forces simply do not have planes to spare.

So after wading through the wall-to-wall coverage what have we learned? The Monarchy retains its popularity, but it as with much of the rest of the fabric of the UK is fraying slightly. While I can feel a certain schadenfreude that the Royal Family can deliver a fairly obvious snub to Blair, whom they clearly loathed, and Brown, who -perhaps- they only pitied; it injected an unwonted spite into the occasion- and was unworthy. A previous Royal generation might have gritted their teeth, but by inviting Douglas Hurd, but not Tony Blair, the Royal Family strayed away from their supposed political neutrality. If it becomes a trend, it may quickly be the case that the position of the Royal House becomes controversial, which could make their position quite tricky, quite quickly.

So after the rather emetic coverage of the "magical day" [sic], I guess we can return to the usual cliches of advertising bullshit, not too mention the cliches of politics where "brave" means foolish, where blaming "Europe" means failing to explain or take responsibility, where "investment" means spending and where "cuts" are evil and must never ever happen.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop
Post a Comment
Read more

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo
Post a Comment
Read more

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas,
Post a Comment
Read more