In yesterday’s Guardian, Charlie Brooker discussed the new genre of Christmas adverts we now get at this time of year. If you don’t know Charlie B (you know, if you’re, like, foreign), you really should pop by to say hi, if you like your curmudgeon to come with a side of snide and an acerbic aftertaste.
I can’t help it; the man makes me laugh, OK?
Charlie B was particularly charmed by the new John Lewis advert, which shows a small boy anxiously watching the days click away until Christmas…but! contrary to all expectations, he is not the spoilt middle-class offspring of virtually all of John Lewis’s customers (I think I became middle-class purely so I could love JL more) awaiting the arrival of presents, but a charming, lovavble munchkin who cannot wait to give his parents their present.
Here’s the ad:
No, I didn’t cry, either. I was too busy wondering what monstrosity the boy had made out of two lollipop sticks and a tuft of cotton wool and managed to call a present. I am, clearly, a bad mother.
But is it OK to laugh at this?:
‘Given the fuss they were making, the tears they shed, you’d think they were watching footage of shoeless orphans being kicked face-first into a propeller. But no. They were looking at an advert for a shop.’
Because I laughed at this till tea came down my nose.
