LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
when I see couples or parents who are in debt up to their eye sockets and they themselves and their offspring have all the latest top of the range gear and they are always skint and have to keep borrowing or re-mortgage to maintain that lifestyle then I kind of have no sympathy.

I don't have all the latest mod-cons some of my belongings are as old as the hills, if someone is getting rid of an item, I will gladly give it a home rather than spend lots of money. I don't own a credit card or cheque book.

I have no debts, apart from getting behind with some bills.

I am happy, that is all that matters.

I like nice things too and even things that I don`t need. Advertising though does not sell you what you want. They try to make you want what they are selling. You might be happy with your old big box powder but they want you to want their new liquid. etc etc

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
I know what you mean. I complained to the head teacher when Sarah was at secondary school, because they seemed to be expecting the kids to learn subjects in their own time on their home computers (lazy bastards) and at the time, we didn't possess one. Well, not one that worked anyway. She kept having to ring her dad at work in the evening, and getting him to research stuff to print off & bring home for her.

He claimed he'd no idea that was going on, & he'd do something about it, but nothing changed.

i-baster wrote:
Well you're right, but again, if so much advertising weren't based on sheer lies, I'd say fair play to them for that. I need a product to get my family's clothes clean, and have a budget for such a product. So if I can get one that's genuinely better, or better value for money, they yep, I'll give it a go, & thank you very much.

The problem with that is that they say anything at all to try and persuade you to buy, and a lot of what they say is BS. Which isn't supposed to be legal. But they do it, and get away with it, and bump the price of their products up to cover the cost of advertising.

And the campaign I found most ridiculous over the years was Flora - "The margarine for men". W.T.F! Surely to heaven people don't truely watch crap like that and make a mental note to go and buy it on that basis!

Gilly wrote:
Yeah, they have to print homework out to take to school and do powerpoint displays for homework and stuff like that. The secondary school is a technical one, which basically means that they specialise in IT rather than sports or something of that ilke. It's not like it was back in the olden days, schools have gone all high tech!

silvershine wrote:
Tbh I think borrowing money is just normal to some people. Many people are in debt to start with, as they are probably paying off a student loan, paying a mortgage, paying for their cars or for home improvements, none of those are frivolous imo.

bugger, I meant to edit my post and posted a new one. Sorry.

The problem is that the law is not specific in most cases. For instance I was reading how there is no rule about what "natural" means. It is a vague term. I also recall Mark Thomas expose how much "organic" produce was getting contaminated. So like you said the claims of adverts and indeed the companies behind the products are illusions based on lies.

As for the Flora campaign, which I don`t recall personally, it is often about subliminal effect. It gets your attention or gets people talking in the office, playground whatever. Like the Yorkie ad "it`s not for girls". Of course girls probably made a point of buying them after that. It is all very clever marketing. i used to want to do it because I thought I could be quite good as an ad man. I think Bill Hicks is what stopped me.

Everybody should watch Mad Men btw which is a really good show about ad men on madison avenue in the fifties and sixties. I would also suggest The century of self. It covers how they started marketing Cigarettes to women etc and pretty much covers this threads topics.

This appears to be it in full

Yes, but the Yorkie one was (slightly) humorous, playing on its size & chunkiness, and obvious reverse psychology thing. The flora one was just stupid, and had the oaf Terry Wogan in it.

I am truly horrified to read what you ladies have to say about secondary schools these days...I had no idea.

The contents of my school bag consisted of a pair of plimsolls, a few ropey old pens and pencils, a rubber (or an 'eraser' to our American cousins) and towards the end of my school career, one of those new, fancy-pants 'Casio' number combobulatorthingymajigs.

I also had a compass which I only really ever used to scrawl abuse about my teachers on toilet walls.

However did I manage?

Ahh, the trusty compass. Crudely rendered cocks with big balls, curly pubes and spunk drips etched into school desks for posterity.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
Indeed...or 'creative drawing', as it was known in my school.

Do you all reckon most kids have I-pods and whatnot these days, too? I feel a bit like I've been asleep for the past ten years and missed something.

I am officially 'old'.

Isn't a compass considered a dangerous weapon these days?

Just kidding - they still take those too.

In my day, we weren't allowed calculators - and before you ask, we did not use abacuses - we had to use a book of logarithm tables.

Ab Origine wrote:
G'day Ab Origine.

Divine intervention.

You copied off the kid sitting next to you in the exams.

You went to a 'special' school.

They wanted to get rid of you from the school so they refused to fail you.

Gilly wrote:
A book of whatarithms now? I just used to use my fingers if I got really stuck.

I AM ALL I AM wrote:
Quite possibly all of the above, iaaia. I also used to use the public library quite a lot...though where you'd find one of those these days, I don't know.

Gilly wrote:
G'day Gilly.

Did they at least use different colours on the cave walls ?

Ab Origine wrote:
Google maps mate.

I AM ALL I AM wrote:
Mine is now a drug rehabilitation centre...ironically, given what we used to get up to there.

I don't go to the new place. It has those weird looking borgs guarding the entrances and there are very few human beings in there most of the time. What if I trip and impale myself on a book? It's happened before. I could be there for weeks before anyone found me.

Just thought it was worth including this excellent segment from the really good documentary The Corporation. It explains the Nag factor and should be viewed by all who have not seen it imho.