Life in London: Advertisements and Culture Shock

Whilst in Londontown, I am currently pondering two burning issues about British life, namely:

How in the world did the country that brought us high teas, the unparalleled changing of the guard, the management of great swathes of Africa and India, and children in uniforms (and liking it), could get their basic plumbing so totally ass backwards (errr--scratch that, I mean, nix that -- they don't even have bidets) and, worse yet, continue to use their fit-for-Queen Aragon of Spain (est. 1500s) as a viable system today? And two, How does a city as big as London (pop: approx 15M) with virtually no garbage bins remain so impeccably clean?

Regardless, I will post a few more great things about British Life, and that’s their ceaseless delivery of tongue-in-cheek ads: from the Underground to the Mayor’s office, to selling auto insurance (www.confused.com), to furniture stores, flights, and fun things to do, riding the subway here is akin to spending each and every day in a comedy club.

Here are a few which I offer up to my Italian paesani, in the hopes someone's taking notes. Even though this kind of humour is very un-Italian, I’d still like to find an Italian in all the world that doesn’t smile at the Brits' sales tactics (and, who always -- always remembers the ad). Only Ikea stands alone – all of their ads are at once memorable and successful. And oh --- Not to be a prude, but, I must also say that in Britain, these past 2 weeks I’ve eye-balled probably over 40000 adverts, and not found one nude yet -- except on the little stickers attached to the phone booths, but, you get my drift. Come to think of it, Ikea doesn't use them either. So now there's a third pressing question upon which to ruminate: Is there a correlation between high creativity and unclothed women???



The furniture one, while not witty, is a gift for Mr. Binacci -- Lesson #1
How to Sell Furniture