FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Christmas is coming. Coming! Christmas has been coming since the last of the ‘Trick or Treat’ kids skipped down our driveway with monkey nuts, sweets and some loose change.
In fact, Christmas was coming even sooner. I saw Christmas cards in a certain supermarket in mid-October. Ridiculous!
The first time I was in the States, at Halloween, about 40 years ago, I was amazed, and disappointed, that even while pumpkins were still on display Christmas trees and Christmas decorations populated every store in town (Newtown, outside Philadelphia). How sad, I thought, how crass. Well, we’re no better ourselves now – that same crass commercialism is thriving in this great little country of ours.
That said, I love Christmas and what I particularly enjoy this time of year is the Christmas ads on the telly. One of my favourites is the commercial for Spar whose catch phrase is ‘Under the tree at Spar’. I love the music which I listen to right through the lengthy commercial. And what is the music? I never really knew, all I know is that, years on, I still like it and find myself humming it for ages afterwards.
Well, to find out more I went to the oracle, Google; here I learned, much to my surprise, that it’s a cover version of ‘The Christmas Song’ by a Danish band called The Raveonettes. Who’d have thought? The version we hear, however, was recorded by twin sisters Katie and Aoife Lynch of the folk duo Water’s Edge. And I love it.
Another ad that I love is the classic Guinness one. Shot in black and white, of course, in homage to the drink, I am still enamoured with it. It’s as satisfying and enjoyable as the pint itself. ‘Even at the home of the black stuff, they dream of a white one.’ Don’t know who the copywriter of that was but its simplicity is brilliant. Oh, and I am still curious as to whose voice that is – it sounds like Liam Neeson’s but I’m not sure. However, I’m not going to the oracle about this. Sometimes a little bit of mystery enhances things – a poem, a song, a person, even a television commercial.
Now as perfect as the Guinness ad is, there is an imperfection. A small one but an imperfection none- the-less. An anomaly to be precise. Many of you may have spotted it but, for those of you still wondering, here’s a clue. Instead of anomaly substitute anomolly. Any help? Well, the molly in anomolly refers to the one and only Molly Malone who ‘wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow, singing cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh’.
You see Molly isn’t there anymore – by there I mean where she features in the TV commercial, in Dublin’s Grafton Street. Molly, of the burnished breasts (which I won’t get into) has been moved a few hundred yards down to Suffolk Street outside the tourist office.
And whatever about cockles & mussels did she ever think she’d be promoting stout in 2025?
Ian Coulter
Ian passed away unexpectedly on November 22 and my heartfelt sympathy goes out to his wife Daphne, son Rian and daughter Ailbhe. Ian and I crossed paths frequently because of the various groups we belonged to. I very much enjoyed Ian’s company – always sharp, chirpy, knowledgeable and I loved those engaging, twinkling eyes of his.
Ian and I soldiered together, as adjudicators, in the Concern Debates for Secondary Schools. As chief judge, and before announcing the result, I always remember a little anecdote Ian would relate to the students about being focused. “A young man arrived in home, after playing football outside on the green, and announced to his mother that he had lost his contact lenses and could not find them, having searched for ages.
“His mother took off her apron, went out to the green and five minutes later arrived back with the lenses. ‘How did you find them?’ her son asked incredulously. ‘You were looking for contact lenses’, his mother replied, ‘I was looking for 200 euroz’. “
Rest in peace, Ian.
