The Voices in my Head

After a good Mass this morning, Jo and I decided that so much virtuous eating needed a little balance with the finest that the Golden Arches had to offer! 

It reminded me of the way that the voices in head have been exploited by the marketing men of this leviathan corporation. What I am referring to is the way that I have been tricked in into offering positive testimony on their food, quite against my will!

Now, before you call in the head doctors, let me explain further. You will no doubt be familiar with the little whistle-tune at the end of their frequent television ads, and I bet, I just BET that once you hear the little whistle tune, your inner monologue pipes up with 'I'm Lovin' It' directly after. This of course is the vestige of the marketting campaign about three or four years ago when the whistle-tune was actually suffixed by 'I'm Loving It', often in silly or accented voices. After a year or so of that, once imprint has taken place, they dropped the lyric and left our inner voices to finish the advertising slogan for them. They have used and abused my inner monlogue, and quite beyond my own control or will, I am making an (albeit silent) statement of assent to the salt-laden trough that they spill out by the nano-second. Then, won over by the need for internal assault, I wander aimlessly in and ask for a Big Tastey. A value-judgement using my own voice! Arrgghh!

But before I write to my MP, I discover that the leviathan corporation is not the only organisation doing it. I drove to the artery-clogger of my choice following a Skoda Superb! Good grief - them and all. I assume that if I wanted one of their cars, I would need to amble in and actually ask for a bloody 'Superb'! It takes me a little time to notice that this is a wide-spread phenomenon, and one that has haunted me all my life. I can still remember, as a young child, asking for a 'Nice Cold, Ice Cold Milk' on Oldham market in the summer! 

I am possessed by the marketing men! They have taken my mind prisoner, and I passively approve their output without even knowing it. Big Brother? 1984? Too late; already happened!

This all said, I am supposed to be a 'reflective practitioner', so I have to ask how it would be if they resorted to plain honesty - and in truth, that wouldn't be so good. Echoes of Ben Elton and Bill Bailey flood forward at the point, as I accept that asking for a pack of Durex 'Split' might not be so red-hot. Walking in and demanding a test-drive of the new Fiat 'Broken Down' might not inspire me. McDonalds might not sell so many of the 'Big Artery Popper with Shavings from the Butt of a Dead Bovine' - cheeseburger with bacon is perhaps better (even if 'The Sodding Magnificent' is overkill).  This even affects church life. I am sure that pews would be empty for services called 'Musically Manky Eucharist', or 'Morning Yawn Session', let alone 'Rhetoric Ministry' - people sometimes do want and need to believe [these are fictitous examples, with no slur intended or implied on any aspect of my real world]. 

Anyway, my point is this: stop using me as your unwitting puppet, please. I am too stupid to stop you! Now, off to cook some more of daddy's 'Excellent and Life Enhancing' for the girls. They hunger this very moment ...