Alan Coleman

A few years ago I wrote about The sanitisation of war, how our media have come to depict warfare in general as not only just, but as a simple story of good against evil in the manner of a Commando comic.

On page 47 of today’s free Sport magazine, the Royal Air Force have taken out a full page Commando comic style advertisement for staff. It’s taken us a while to get to the point where this is an acceptable depiction of something quite terrifying, but I think we’ve been prepared gently and can now relax, safe in the knowledge that war is not only fun reading, but is also something to aspire to.

The advert features the handsome Flight Lieutenant Sean Langrish, an epitome of the well rounded young man, complete with steely determination and well rehearsed student sneer. (In another advert he’ll be seen relaxing over a few beers with an orange juice swigging colleague, however everyone knows that not drinking in the forces is tantramount to homosexuality).

The story is as follows. The lads on the ground in Helmand are cornered, brave Sean calls in some Laser Guided Bombs, he keeps his promise, the enemy is eliminated and he’s got 24 new bezzie mates. No really, that’s what happens! Then we’re ‘all good’! Fucking superb! If only I wasn’t so old!

There’s money to waste on misleading adverts though isn’t there? We know that because there’s cash to be spunked on teaching the country’s two most over privileged brothers to indulge in learning to be Search and Rescue pilots. The Palace must be getting wet thinking about that little number when it comes to fruition. All the tabloid glory, none of the risk, everyone’s a winner! Essentially, it’s this week’s hobby, a well deserved break from playing football with six year old African children with no legs, or from getting cunted in China Whites.

This is nothing new though, The RAF, like the military in general, has a history of outrageously misleading adverts bent on showing that in War, there’s something for everyone. Remember the ridiculous Cinema adverts of a few years ago that suggested that young people could progress from delivering pizzas on a moped to piloting a Harrier? Yes, that’s going to happen isn’t it?

No need to worry too much about it though, when the reality of the cartoon like battle against evil ends up with no arms to have a wank with, there’s always Help for Heroes.

Royal Air Force. Be part of the story.

It’s happened very quickly, in the last couple of years it seems that the way that we speak has changed more than in the last four or five decades.

It’s like an epidemic has taken hold affecting everyone between the ages of twenty and forty, and what’s more I’m sure people do it to annoy me specifically. Is it a fashion thing? It must be, it’s not like we’ve started using the word ‘get’ and ‘grab’ instead of ‘have’ just to make our request a little clearer. Also, people of my generation didn’t talk like that when we we’re at school, so it is, fashion.

I wouldn’t mind so much if it was teenagers that adopted this slang and carried it on into adult life, which would sort of make sense. But hearing adults using these teenage Americanisms sounds a little like being down with the kids. And there’s only one thing worse than an adult who thinks he’s down with the kids, that’s an adult that actually is down with the kids.

I almost want to get a job in Pret A Manger so that I can correct those thirty something’s who pretend to be too busy to ask me for a coffee properly.

“No, you can’t get a coffee, I can get one for you and you can have it.”

“No, you can’t grab a receipt, you can ask me for one and I’ll give it to you.”

The whole ‘Can I get a coffee’ culture just reminds me of Radio One and that ‘Too cool for school’ slurred middle England accent. It’s everywhere from T4 to Sarah Cox, which is fine provided you’re younger than twenty. Otherwise, it’s simply time to grow up.

It annoys me when people fake confusion when you’re trying to explain something to them. Looking at you like you’re from a different planet whilst repeating back to you what you’ve just asked,  slowly.

Managers are past masters at faking confusion, it’s something they learn at those high five motivational seminars. The fake confusion that accompanies the simple phrase, “How come it’s taking so long?” Will usually look like the face of a History student when asked to wire a mains plug onto an iron.

In fact, pulling faces in general is a bad habit to get into. Happy, sad or confused, you’ll always end up looking stupid, and probably quite ugly too.

What’s so wrong with telling someone that you simply don’t understand what they’re saying? That’s a sign of confidence surely?

It was after I read an article somewhere a few years ago that I began to think that things were going wrong for British Pubs. I can’t remember what it was in or when, but it was about John Illsley, former Bass player from Dire Straits taking over a pub in Hampshire, which turns out to be called the East End Arms. He made a comment about the kind of clientele he’d like to attract, something along the lines of replacing the lagers with real ales in an attempt discourage the “Lager crowd”.

The reason I’m talking about this now is on the back of some reading I did yesterday about the Government and Local Authorities trying to regulate how and where we use our local pubs. Typical New Labour stuff, no standing at the bar, no swearing, children welcome, you know. I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that New Labour and John Illsley are actually after the same things. Gentrification and profit.

When John Illsley spoke of the “Lager crowd” what he meant was people like you and me. People that use pubs in the way that they we’re always intended, rather than his idea of them as restaurants for his own kind of people.  No more faded pictures of the 1979 pub football team, no more fruit machines, no more carpet complete with engrained filth, no more coloured curved glass hiding drinkers from prying eyes, no more raucous laughter, no more waiting for years to finally be let in. That’s all been replaced by inclusive entertainment for all the family. A restaurant, and a profitable one too.

I guess that’s what happened. The locals at the East End Arms were made to feel unwelcome, the place was stripped of any individuality and transformed into a hearty gastropub full of occasional diners and ‘hand cooked’ crisps. You could argue that it’s been voted one of the top 50 pubs in Britain, but by whom? The Guardian? What would anyone that writes or has ever read The Guardian know about local pubs? Nothing apart from the fact that the Sunday Roast can be ‘very pleasant’ when mum comes to stay and that the double buggy can fit through the doors that where widened for disabled access.

So John Illsley finally got the kind of gentrified clientele he wanted after installing “The Guest Ales”, an ordered and pleasant slice of New Labour’s soulless and boring middle classes.

Imagine this scene. Myself and Mandy, enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon pint outside a pub before moving on to a friends house for a BBQ. The sun is shining and we’re passing the time by talking about how much money we wouldn’t give our families if we came in on the Premium Bonds.

That was yesterday, at least it was until the Smug London Parents arrived and along with the worlds cleverest child and promptly ruined a decent afternoon.

The child prodigy, just about walking age, proceeded to push a wooden chair backwards and forwards on the concrete producing a perfectly pitched grating sound. The Smug London Parents looked around proudly before returning to their conversation about All Tomorrows Parties, which incidentally they were conducting at the top of their voices to be heard about little darling’s racket.
So now no one else outside the pub can speak because of the child genius and his grating sound interspersed with his parents shrieking bouts of side splitting banter.

It’s like people will do anything to demonstrate how liberal and cool they are, even if it means being incredibly anti social.

So I get the hump and we leave. Leave them to their vanilla perfumed tobacco, middle class chit chat about cool bands and their wonderful fucking brat.