That's not your bandwagon

Pulling up at the petrol station (gas station for my US readers) the other day, I was surprised to see that they offered free WiFi. This is a nice gesture but, as far as I know, I'm not supposed to use the phone near the fuel pumps or I might make my cares and those of my fellow motorists disappear in a column of incandescence. Which means I'm either using the WiFi in the shop or whilst powdering my nose. The latter doesn't bear thinking about too much but the former doesn't seem that much more likely, either. At a cafe, sure, I can see people who are devoid of friends or entirely sick of the one they are sitting with using the WiFi to ameliorate their FOMO but at the servo? Are you going to hang around the motor oils, catching up on Twitter or reading the news? A little Facebook perhaps? Status update "Buying fuel. Might grab a bottle of milk and a pie that's been in the warmer for a month and a half. LOL"

What is it with "LOL", by the way? I used to think it meant "laughing out loud" and was a way to convey emotional responses in an environment devoid of body language. But words change their meanings and now, divining meaning from context, it seems to be synonymous with "over" at the end of a radio broadcast.

"Just off to bed. LOL"

"Sorry to tell you but your grandmother died. LOL"

"It doesn't look good from here. I think the whole lot's going to blow and leave most of eastern Asia uninhabitable for the next thousand years. LOL"

Still, I've seen more ridiculous Facebook statuses. And requests to follow too, for that matter.

My butcher is inviting me to follow him on Facebook. Why? What is he going to tell me that I would want on my news feed?  He could share a recipe with me. That would be original. There are no recipes on Pinterest or anything like that. Perhaps he might upload some photos. Tell one of those endearing little back stories that Maccas seems to favour using in an attempt to assure us of the wholesomeness of their ingredients.

Follow Beverly the cow as she goes from pasture, through sale yard, from execution through abattoir and butchering. Admire her entrails and see how Beverley becomes prime rump steak on your BBQ this Sunday.

Equally puzzling is the TV station's adoption of car manufacturer's marketing lines. A car that is "all new" is impressive - new engineering of every component. A TV show that is "all new" is a statement of the obvious. "All new episodes of NCIS start this Tuesday, only on ..." Has anyone ever seen a TV show that isn't either "all new" or not new at all; viz a repeat. Is anyone making TV by splicing some new stuff into scenes recycled from previous seasons and hoping the viewers don't notice? It's a bad mismatching of ideas; rather like my surgeon offering me a free set of steak knives with my appendectomy.

Coming back to fast food outlets; they are not selling more product by pretending that they are on the side of healthy living. Mining companies don't get to be greenies and junk food shops don't get to be Tinkerbell's assistant - a parent's conscience buddy. Putting "don't forget to go outside and play" on the side of the box so that the kids can read it while consuming their monthly calorie intake all in one sitting is not fooling anyone. You can't sell type 2 diabetes - with a free non-biodegradable toy - and be a partner to parents in getting the kids up and going. To make the cognitive dissonance even worse, how on Earth did Maccas get to become the official restaurant of the Olympics?

Sex sells, sure, but not everything. The most amazing example of misplaced cleavage I've seen recently was in a calendar called "Babes and Boars" which, as the name suggests, shows pictures of women in bikinis posing, with firearms, next to large, feral and almost certainly deceased pigs. A fairly close second was the curvacious brunette who was, apparently, making me tongue-hanging-out desperate to buy industrial tarpaulins with which to cover my semi-trailer. And running a respectable third is the ongoing meme of women in bikinis carrying dead fish trying to sell me boats, fishing lures, cruises or, presumably, a peg for my nose.

What's the unspoken message here? In car ads it's

"You bring the car, I'll be here waiting with the legs and the lingerie."

In chocolate ads, of the licking-the-last-bit-from-your-fingers kind, it's

"You bring the chocolate, I'll bring the tongue."

Are they trying to lure me into buying fishing paraphernalia with a subliminal

"You bring the boat and I'll bring a disgusting fishy smell that you won't be able to get your of your skin for days"?

And, finally, undertakers should not be asking us to follow them on Twitter - my phone isn't a virtual ouija board and I don't wanting to be getting tweets like "Drk in here. LOL".

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