Anyone with a spare press?  Leon needs one to fix the Jeep's wheel.  I thought a press was something that dry-cleaners use to make clothes flat.  Or The Press - that amazing organism that plays possum whenever you try to hold it responsible for its deeds.  

You've heard it:  We don't make the news, we just report it.  Yes.  Sure.  You are just the messenger and unlike all of us on this planet, you are the only entity devoid of an agenda.  Amazingly.  Completely without bias, utterly selfless and brimming with wisdom.  And not swayed by profit, nor Board decisions, Shareholder opinions and -God forbid we look like conspiracy theorists - that Band of Brothers behind the scenes.  

I am not completely against The Press or the Media, but I am weary of that Spawn of the marriage between Media and Marketing. I could have taken this blog into a very serious, political discussion right now, but I am too tired and not angry enough about anything in particular at this moment.  So I will just say this about Media and Marketing.  Who are you fooling?  Just about everyone?  Oh.  I thought so.  

Well I'm not fooled.  Usually not.  Unless I am hungry/depressed/bored/overjoyed/euphoric - then I might be fooled. But generally I am not.  Take these lamp post adverts for a fitness/diet programme.  They use the bikini-clad torso of a girl (perhaps) that has never been fat in her life and that has muscles that can only be the result of 12 years of hard training and steroids, under a headline "Loose weight today."  What do you see?  The torso and 'today'.  I can buy this product, buy into this programme and although that torso belongs to someone who wouldn't know how to loose weight if it was a small child at Disney World, I will probably look just like that TODAY!!  

Marketing is about saying NOTHING about the product you are selling, and EVERYTHING about something unobtainable that can be made to look obtainable when your product name/logo is placed cleverly in a photo in relationship with it.  How many glossy property development brochures have actual pictures or lay-out plans of the development on them?  Do you want to see the small rooms and deduct that you will have to cut your bed in half and turn it into a bunk-bed if you want to fit a bedside table and your husband in there with you?  Or do you want to see that gorgeously groomed couple with the marvelously angelic off-spring staring into the wide open spaces (that will disappear as soon as our development is finished) weaving their fingers through the flowing wheat like Russel Crowe in The Gladiator.  Wheat?  What the Frikkadel?  When last have we seen wheat in Pretoria?  But we want to.  We want to buy a piece of overpriced property in an estate where some old lady will crap you out because your children rode their bikes past her front door, because we want to be that lovely air-brushed woman, with the husband who adores her and the  ready-made boy and girl in the right age group and perfectly synchronized age gap.  

Next time you see marketing that tells you something about the product it is selling and not some added benefit abstract or real, pinch yourself.  You are not awake and you will drive into the dude in front of you and find out that Budget Insurance really does offer low low premiums.  And nothing else.  You get low low premiums.  You dont actually get covered for anything.  You just get the joy of sending off low low premiums from your pocket to theirs every month.  (It's my blog and I can say what I want to.  Besides I know about Budget Insurance's low low premiums and no no pay-outs.  Did the whole dance with Ombudsman etc. until I just...gave...up!)