Entertainment For Lively Minds
Warning: contains an opinion
Posted by Joe R on 17 January 2011 - 11:58am.
- "Save a tree - only print this email if you really need to"
- "Only boil as much water as you need"
- "Now wash your hands"
- "Please enjoy alcohol responsibly"
Messages like these drive me absolutely mad. I know their intention is honourable, but they're so incredibly patronising it makes me want to do the complete opposite.
So, my question is, who are these messages for? Who are the people whose opinions and actions are swayed by reading these notices? As a follow-up, seen any other good examples recently?
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Simpletons
and alt.middles.
I don't take any notice.
It's yet another example of the infantilisation of Britain.
I suppose...
...it's more a fear of being accused of not caring about the environment/hand hygiene/binge drinking that leads to this kind of shite. Obviously, they probably don't persuade anyone of anything, but companies are hugely paranoid about being *seen* to not be doing their bit.
I do love the Jack Daniel's adverts, though, with their whole "drinking JD is definitely a friendly, "heritagey", cultured thing to do" bit. It's like they're trying to appeal to Midlake fans, or something. I think the average JD drinker is probably ordering it at a shout, over pounding house, in some fucking horrible club, aren't they? Something tells me that they're unlikely to heed the admonishment of their "friends at Jack Daniel's" to drink responsibly...
May I recommend?
I've just finished a book called Big Babies by Michael Bywater, which I got from the library. It's all about this sort of thing.
It's an utter cracker, that book.
Love it. My favourite bit is where he talks about the co-opting and perversion of the word "discrimination", and points out that without "discrimination" in its proper sense, we're completely fucked.
I must seek that out - I
I must seek that out - I love Michael Bywater's writing. It's a telling point that it seems to belong to an earlier, maybe more civilised time.
Seconded, was going to
recommend this, especially liked his response to train guards who tell us to take our personal belongings with us when we leave the train - "but I haven't got all my personal belongings with me". What gets my goat these days - signboards in stations telling us to mind yourself if it it's been raining a bit. Christ almighty, you would have thought were all desert dwellers who have never seen rain. Who are these notices for, apart from maybe absolving operators of blame should someone indeed fall on a slippery floor ?
The messages are all for me sadly.
Drunk on Jack Daniels and WKD (how the fuck do you drink WKD "responsibly" anyway?), I regularly leave my tea urn on overnight as I pass out having used my unwashed hands to smear shit on my keyboard while printing out spam emails in triplicate.
WKD
I hate their ads. I can't think of any other company that deliberately sets out its stall to appeal to idiots. "Are you the sort of bloke that bursts in for a poo when your wife is in the bath? Yeah! Drink this!"
Maybe the message is...
"Drink this and it'll turn you into the sort of bloke that bursts in for a poo when your wife is in the bath"?
I think its message is slightly more subtle.
WKD will dull your senses and therefore alleviate the pain in your jaw from the left hook your wife will give you after you burst in for a poo when she's in the bath.
Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go
.
What should I do?
You just made me snort all over my keyboard.
"Save the planet"
The planet will do very nicely without our protection. It existed before we evolved and it'll exist long after we're extinct - however the extinction happens. Nothing we can do is going to stop the planet happily revolving around the Sun.
I presume what people really mean by 'Save the planet' is "Save the environment so we don't become extinct a tiny bit sooner than we would otherwise do so." which seems dreadfully selfish and homocentric.
If people really want to save the planet,
they might consider doing everything they possibly can to hasten our extinction.
well don't let anyone stop
you both you cheery pair I know it's " Blue Monday" but FFS
Well it's better than anguishing over global warming
and driving a Prius. In the great scheme of things, it doesn't matter - we'll be extinct one day. If the global warming doesn't get us, the next ice age will, or the death of the sun.
I'm organising a clog-dancing holiday
in the middle of Yellowstone National Park next summer. Tryin' to jog the bugger into action.
Hotels..
..urging you to join them in their planet saving crusade by spinning your towels out over the duration of your stay. And saving them a wedge on laundry bills too of course..
My goat was got
when I wrote to Pret A Manger to state my displeasure at them exchanging feta cheese and roasted red peppers for a bit of shredded beetroot in one of their salads (I was after a free voucher, never happened) they claimed that they like to experiment with their ingredients rather than admit that they were cutting costs.
I mentioned to them that I experiment with ingredients too and ditched all of their products for ever and now chow down on oats and milk for lunch (oats 67p per kilo, milk free at work)and save myself around £900 per year.
Idiot words for idiots to contemplate.
How to wash your hands
We now have a message attached to the mirrors in the toilets at work that shows you how to correctly wash your hands...
At my last place of work
a sign in the gents identified the difference between the blue paper roll (For drying hands) and the white paper roll (For wiping your nether regions). They felt this necessary as the blue roll was not in a dispenser.
I ask you.
Now wash your hands simpleton
Something similar came up before and I mentioned about an NHS sign that irritates the hell out of me which we have at our work and that tells you literally how to wash your hands in 3 steps - as in put some water on them, add some soap, lather and rinse, with illustrations. Nothing more technical than that. I said it makes me want to not bother. Then I got a few comments more or less telling me off for being irresponsible and saying how important proper hygiene is - which I know and I wasn't actually going to stop hand washing. Still bugs me thinking about that. I know, I should just let it go, move on. Not sure if I can though.
Well, I sort of agree but
I'm sure I'm not alone in having seen kitchen staff have a pee and not wash their hands. The FPO used to monitor drug studies in hospitals and says that consultants don't wash their hands ever because they think that they're too important or one above the rankings from God or something. In Third World countries the most effective way to improve health and stop infections such as diarrhoea is to provide soap, pity this doesn't extend to your local food establishment here and just running several fingers under a cold tap doesn't really do it either The point about these messages is that the people they're aimed at won't take any notice while the rest of us already wash our hands, don't print emails etc.
6 steps
A hospital I visited a few years ago had this 3 step hand washing sign in the lav but also augmented it with a 6 step sign, with illustrations, on the best posture to adopt for having a poo.
I wish I'd had the forethought to have taken a photo of it. After washing my hands and cleansing my camera of course.
Sometimes
I don't see the point in washing hands when I've been to the toilet when I see someone walk in, have a pee then leave without washing his hands and putting those hands on door handles and probably other areas at work like the fridge, etc.
What IS the world coming too? tut tut
In our office kitchen
we have a big red sticker next to the kettle that says: Caution this water may be hot. Not much bloody use if it isn't hot.
Ditto
Except ours is over the hot tap. I'm not joking.
Hot Taps
A thorny issue in the public loo. Do you have scalding hot water to remove the chances of Legionella or risk scalding people with a seriously hot tap. Especially as there are no plugs in the sinks because oiks either nick them or put them in and leave the taps running.
There are two answers - mixer taps or a little 30p sign. I know it doesn't make it right.....
Seems obvious to me!
Our sign in the kitchen at work states "Please take care when using kitchen tap as boiling water is very hot"!!
Not sure if it is a warning or just a statement of fact!
The implication is that the water comes out of a kitchen tap
at boiling temperature. Can't be true, surely?
Doesnt this go back to the MacDonalds sign
Warning that the apple pie filling was hot (volcanic if I remember rightly) because somebody either sued or threatened to after burning their mouth. There was also a case in the US where a motorhome manufacturer was sued after the driver put the cruise control on and went into the back to make coffee thinking that the cruise control would do all the driving. Sometimes the safest course of action is to start from the assumption that everyone is very stupid and must be protected from themselves
That reminds me
of a story I read some years back about a guy in the States who was suing a bicycle manufacturer because they hadn't explicitly stated that at night he should attach lights to the bike.
He had a nightime accident. I never heard the outcome. I hope it got thrown out of court.
Another one from a few years back
and I recall it from radio whilst I was over there so it is not an urban myth; After the release of the latest Star Wars movie a bar in Fort Lauderdale,FL ran a competition with the prize being a Toy Yoda. The winning lady sued them because she had expected to win a Toyota. I assume the case was kicked out of court but maybe not.
HD TV
Both Freeview & Sky have been advertising their HD capabilities on the telly
In the small print at the end of the ads is the line: "HD TV required"
(I'm glad you told me that, I thought I could just plug the sod in and the power of magic would do the rest)
Also, whats the point of advertising how good HD TV looks by the use of pictures from "the shows you could be watching" on a standard format telly?
On a cake box
that someone had brought in to work last week, the 'instructions' were to take a long, sharp, serated knife and slowly, with a sawing motion, push the end of the knife into the centre of the cake...'
And so on.
It's as a result of wanting to be kind to idiots, that they've got the idea that they can sue organisations who don't tell them every last detail. And, the law being an ass, they win.
I believe the phrase is "lowest common denominator garbage". That's what most things are aimed at, because stupid people have money too. Briefly.
"If you are affected by
any of these issues..."
Blah, blah fuckin' blame culture blah!
Save A Tree.. Only Print This Email If You Really Need To?
Well I don't really NEED to print this Email, but if I pretend that I have to do so, I can save a tree?
Well I am gonna print of 299 of these Emails, and save myself a forest
Toilet quandary
A notice is pinned in each thunderbox cubicle in the Gents at work, 'Please leave this toilet in the condition you would wish to find it'.
Quite. It means, 'Be nice. These are for use by all so don't leave floaters and waft the ming away before you leave'
But to take the above literally I would like find a toilet carpetted in white fur, with a heated seat, a library, wi-fi connectivity, a decent sound system and a buffet. I really don't have the time or the budget to leave that behind every time.
I was with you
until "buffet".
In a loo? Nein Danke