The Goldfish Chronicles

First - there’s an advert that points out that kids usually take too much, especially toilet paper. Then they go on to explain how their new lavvy roll is ultra soft and you can take less off.

I throw my hands up in despair - apparently the plan behind the advert is to state the bleeding obvious, and then make a claim that is utterly unrelated. “Oh.. I’ll just explain that to my child and I’m sure he’ll take less off. Now he knows it’s nice and soft, we won’t find a toilet bowl full of paper when it’s time to flush”. I guess as long as the name sticks in your head (and maybe some idiot blogs about it) then they think it’s good advertising. Don’t make people believe your product is good - just make them remember the name. Brand advertising is so irritating.

Now over to Football. The Welsh sports minister has pointed out that he’d like to see the Welsh national anthem played at Wembley before the FA Cup Final, given that Cardiff have qualified. They won in 1927, which was the only time a non-English team have won, and the last time one was in the final (Cardiff were also runners up in 1925, and Queen’s Park of Scotland were runners up in 1884 and 1885).

My first thought - “Too right”. My second thought - “Hang on, what about the English national anthem?”. In those short moments I feel I’ve pretty much described the UK national question from an English point of view. “Sure”, and “What about us?”. Currently every game starts with the British anthem of God Save the Queen.

The various options listed over at Wikipedia are interesting. Cricket have been using “Jerusalem” since 2004. Rugby used “Land of Hope and Glory” for a while and then reverted back to “God Save the Queen” (though the fans seem to like “Swing Low Sweet Chariots”, or at least used to). The page also suggests “I Vow to Thee, My Country” and “Rule, Britannia!”. Interesting page to read - I think I edge in favour of “Land of Hope and Glory” with “Jerusalem” in second place. The Commonwealth games plays “Land of Hope and Glory” for England, so that one seems to be the closest to a national anthem, and the tune is definitely something that we’re used to.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 9:16 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.