According to statistics released in autumn 2008, 78 per cent of Britons don’t know the interest rate of their mortgage. One in two of us feel “mired” in debt. At least as many don’t know how they will afford to pay for Christmas. More than one in five feel their job is under threat – twice as many are worried their homes may be repossessed. The economy is shrinking. Unemployment is soaring, inflation is rising, property values are dropping. In the Abercromby area of Liverpool, 96 per cent of children are classed as living in poverty.
Meanwhile... McDonald’s have reported a record two million extra customers a month compared with a year before. Cadbury’s profits are up 46 per cent. High heels, lipstick and fake tan sales are up by more than half from last year. West End musicals took £470 million at the box office in 2007 and sales of video game consoles have doubled over the year to 17.3 million. And record numbers of us phone premium rate telephone lines to vote for talent show contestants to make a handful of very rich men even richer. Easy come, easy go.
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This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.
No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.
Defining the age through a slogan a day
This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.
No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.
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