As storms lash Britain and the usual grim faced newsreaders catalogue the terrible disruption to traffic alongside the obligatory car crushed by tree photograph, the Environment Agency has warned people to stay away from the coast. As fatuous government warnings go this is pretty innocuous and not perhaps as immediately chuckle inducing as last year's Police warning for us all to reduce crime by staying away from bad people or the notorious NHS's "Just say NO to disease!".Last year saw government spending on Public service announcements, officious bumf and general nanny state hectoring reaching record levels with one Department of Officious Announcements (DOA) spokesman proudly proclaiming "it is now impossible in Britain to be more than 893.7mm away from a notice, sign or warning telling you to not do something, do something, or what unspeakably nasty things will happen to you if you persist in ignoring whatever it was the last warning warned you about." And any way "ITS THE LAW!" he added smugly.
Back in the golden days the traditional English pub was reassuringly bereft of wall based literature. The nicotine coated walls provided a natural defence against the adhesive qualities of all but the most tenacious felt tip penned event "poster". Even this stronghold of free will has now been swamped by "sensible drinking" posters, No Smoking signs and public health pronouncements. Pub toilets (hardly the British library) have blossomed from the simple NOW WASH YOUR HANDS (which most ignored anyway - just don't eat the free peanuts....) to advice on What you could catch, already might have caught, how to avoid catching it and where to have it cured if you had.
Everything purchased in Britain now tells you what is in it, what isn't in it and why you shouldn't have bought it in the first place.
One common feature of all this omnipresent worthiness is the gratingly complacent style, the first year graphic design student layout and the way it preaches the obvious in such a self righteously trite manner. Unlike the glossy commercial ads which fight for our attention against each other, rules regulations, guidelines and tight budgets and have to constantly be on the cutting edge of creativity, this sanctimonious government sponsored medicine is waved through just about every creative checkpoint and is given pride of place on our walls, TVs and products.
Like some smug, know-it-all teachers pet it gets patted on its neatly brushed head in the classroom - let's all wait in a dark corner of the playground and, when teachers not looking give it a dammed good kicking!
By the way
SMOKING SERIOUSLY HARMS YOUR HEALTH
so smoke, smile and live forever (or buy it with a foreign warning on the packet, learn a language and save money!)
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