A series of rants - No.4

Rant #04

WAR.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again.
Most of us (?) remember the original incantation of this pop song, but many of us have missed the underlying humour in the poetic lyric. The irony here is that an American sang these words as if they meant something. Recent years have seen the good old U.S. of A. getting embroiled in an increasing number of skirmishes around the globe.

Unfortunately for them, they have either lost (badly) or have only performed the task half-arsed. War, therefore, is not good for Americans.

Irony is often dispensed with gigantic dollops of sarcasm, but it is deeper than that. Irony is dark humour, or more commonly labelled Black Comedy; there are hilarious examples throughout our daily lives.

Advertisements provide us with a mug's gallery of ironic statements; for example take BUPA.

In a recent campaign they warn us to look after our bodies and they 'will last a lifetime'. Well excuse me BUPA, but if I decide to bombard my body with an array of carcinogens and genetically-modified cow blubber, my body will still last a lifetime, only that lifetime may well become shorter!

Or how about Domestos? Kills all known germs. Dead. Can you kill germs and not be putting them six feet under, so to speak?

The irony in 'Fresh Frozen', or 'Vegetarian Sausage Rolls'; have we really considered these?

Now. I can hear you all saying: "That is merely bad English." Well, there is something ironic about this too: the Better English Campaign produced a significant amount of advertising in daily newspapers, hardly the place for proper English - nobody could read the adverts anyway because we're all illiterate. Ironic, eh?

Of all the examples, the Widget is, perhaps, the most sardonic of all. Why? Because of three wonderful paradoxes:

1. The widget takes up an inch in the bottom of the can, thus the consumer is receiving less beer.



2. Less whimsical, but just as important, is that the widget enables your beer to 'froth' as you pour, designed to give the recipient a 'pub-feel' to their pint. Instead you get a half pint of wasted froth. Now, if this were a pub, the drinker would simply ask for a top-up. No self-confessed beer monster will put themselves in the ignominious situation of marching down the off licence and demanding another can. Free.



3. Finally, and most importantly, the widget has removed the recyclability of the can; plastic and metal cannot be recycled together as the widget is difficult to remove, as market research by Elastoplast will no doubt show. The solution is landfill.

How ironic.

So, drinking is not good for the environment, nor the body, so joining BUPA is not now an option. With food now containing genetically-modified extra-terrestrial lunacy, war will seem like a Godsend. If the Germans invade us we will give them all bleach. It kills all known Germ[an]s. Dead.