Today in Gorzow, it is yet another baking-hot, gorgeous, day. I'm starting to get used to them by now (all the bad weather seems to land on Berlin, which is fine by me). The only (possible) downside is that it's meant that I'm only spending a little time in the internet cafe, as there are plenty of sunnier places to be. Now that I'm here, I've also found quite a few emails for me, needing replies (as well as teaching stuff, it was lovely to hear from Joleen, and Chairman Mao- thank you both, and I'll reply asap!).
While I was replying to an email recently, I was trying to think of the funniest part of being here, and I concluded that it had to be the polish adverts. There're two in particular that deserve special attention, and need to be alluded to in the blog, so today I'll start with 'the one about the sheep', which goes as follows:
The advert is set in an old fashioned puppet show, with a castle on the horizon, and three characters: a dragon (in the distance), a woman, and a sheep. There appears to be something unusual about the sheep, but it is hard at first to tell what it is, until the woman (at least, I think it's a woman) sets fire to its tail, for reasons best known to herself. Upon this, the sheep takes off like a fluffy firework, flies around the scene, before knocking over the puppet show, and exploding , revealing the three puppeteers who then sneak off, shamefaced.
It took me a great deal of thinking to try and work out what it was an advert for, until in the end I asked my friend Asia. She explained it to me: apparently there is a polish fairy tale about a man (?) who decides to kill dragon that has captured his girlfriend, by filling a sheep full of explosives, and getting the dragon to eat it, thus igniting the dynamite. Unfortunately, the fairy tale goes sour when the man lights a cigarette on the way to celebrate his cleverness, and obliterates both himself and the sheep. The advert, therefore, is for a mobile phone company (!), which advertises its low rates as honest- because 'we're not very good at telling you fairy-stories'. If this makes any sense to anyone, I'd be really glad to hear from them.
Anyway, in the absence of more exciting things to tell you about that will take less than four minutes, I'd better leave you to think about this one.
Adverts never seem to cross cultures. I remember seeing a bank advert a few times in Russia. It showed a young couple with baby in a pram with their future (and a bank loan) in front of them. They were obviously intended to be the equivalent of a successful yuppy couple to the Russian viewers (assuming that concept was recognizable).
But I saw a girl in an old fashioned Laura Ashley flowery print dress and a hippy bloke with a pony tail, who no bank manager in their right mind would lend money to.
Who knows whether it was a successful advert or not.