Comments for AllConsuming.org.uk

Comment on The Landfill Prize – the award for Britain’s most useless consumer product by David Floyd

David Floyd — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:40:33 +0000

Surely several of these – such as The Sat Nag – are novelty items that are meant to be useless.

And I’d imagine the point of Guitar Hero is that it’s an easy and enjoyable way to waste your time, whereas actually learning to play the guitar takes some effort.

I’d have difficulty entering the competition because I’m not sure that I agree with starting point that uselessness is necessarily a bad thing in a consumer product.

Comment on That Mary Whitehouse Experience by David Floyd

David Floyd — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:10:06 +0000

Well, I wait in eager anticipation for a political comedy show called The Neal Lawson Experience.

Comment on Sod off bankers by Alex

Alex — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:21:21 +0000

“Content is king” as adverstisers have it (esp digital ones). This is quite an amusing ad, althtough to be honest, I thought your description of it was better. You don’t mention how ageist it is: the bankers are seen as being old whereas the reality is that the big bonus makers are much younger – they’ve burnt out by the time they look like the ad’s bankers. So the agency are really taking no chances to alienate their customers. Just attack OLD bankers.

I’m not a marxist or communist. Or even socialist. I see nothing wrong with inequality, per se. The ad could have added plumbers (but they’re Polish) or all sorts of other people. You’e be surprised by how much some of them earn, and how little a lot of people earn in advertising. The agency I worked with worked incredibly hard and long hours, never complained and I am sure were paid poorly compared to all sorts of people – especially if you took an hourly rate into consideration.

I have no sympathy for bankers. But remember that most of the people who work in banks are not involved in derivative gambling or the recipients of million £ bonuses. God, gneralisation is easy isn’t it? But that is often what makes great humour. Unfortunately, it makes poor politics.

Comment on Micro-hard by Alex

Alex — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:08:58 +0000

Neil, you are making the same error so many marketers make (I know. I am one). You are assuming that the population is cultured like you or me and wants to read poetry. It doesn’t. It wants to buy things and watch Big Brother. It’s very sad, but panem et circenses has been what the masses have always wanted, from Tyburn lynchings to reality TV.

Until the Green movement comes up with making eology fun, exciting and sexy, headway will be slow.

As for the Victorians (and I wrote about them on Gliddofglood.com in this respect) granted they had civic vision, but it was being bankrolled by Empire: they didn’t need mass advertising (which in any case had barely been invented) to pay for it.

Comment on Send me your worse shopping excesses by vdofisdpofi

vdofisdpofi — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:47:37 +0000

I recently wrote a review of your book for my blog. Here’s the link in case it’s of any interest…

http://bowskill.wordpress.com/category/books/consumerism/

Comment on About Neal Lawson by All Consuming « vdofisdpofi!

All Consuming « vdofisdpofi! — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:25:53 +0000

[...] http://www.allconsuming.org.uk/about-neal-lawson/ [...]

Comment on Sod off bankers by Andy Howell

Andy Howell — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:37:13 +0000

Hmm. I haven’t taken cider drinking seriously for a long time but maybe it’s time for a reappriasal!

Comment on Micro-hard by editor

editor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:09:00 +0000

we could have poetry, great art etc – it doesnt have to be dull just becasue its not commecial. Most of the tube was built by the Victorians – they didnt have adverts to pay for it. They knew it was important. Lets have GPs, hospitals and schools full of adverts on that basis Alex

Comment on Micro-hard by Alex

Alex — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:04:28 +0000

Re tube advertising: I imagine it brings in substantial revenue for London Transport, which should be keeping fares down. That will be the theory in any case. It would be interesting to note what the fares would be on a tube with no advertising.

Ditto the price of your newspaper, magazine, TV channel, website – pretty much any media. Only the price of your road would probably be unaffected if hoardings were taken down – and that is something I could quite easily live with.

Comment on Micro-hard by Alex

Alex — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:49 +0000

I lived in Liverpool for a couple of years in the mid-80s. They have a very small tube system there, but it looks like the London Underground. There was almost no advertising there at the time because everyone was unemployed, and if you weren’t, the chances were that you were coming into work by car from a nice area. Consequently, there was little point in advertisers paying to talk to the poor by advertising in the Liverpool tube.

Well, it was a sad and uncolourful place without any decent advertising to read while you waited for a train (not worth getting out the War and Peace for such a short wait or train journey). In fact it was miserable. So no, I don’t object to adverts on the tube. The best ones are quite entertaining. I don’t object to advertising. I object to poor, crass advertising. I don’t want to live in a planned state with only one sort of cheese.