A MOMENT OF CALM

There’s an advert out at the moment for tea. Gone are the days of chimps pushing pianos or cartoon Yorkshiremen putting their slippers up. This one features a woman in ripped off jeans and billowing shirt, reclining on top of a car at the beach. The sun sparkles from the waves and she lifts a transparent mug to her lips (teabag label in view), gazing out over the endless blue.

“A moment of calm…” says the soft voiceover. The camera pulls back and we see her on her car, parked up on the sand. Finis.

My guess is that this is how they want to make you feel when you think about that tea. Free, unbothered by the world, off-road, alive, living your best life. By association, your subconscious will remember that in the supermarket, and a glimpse of that feeling will return, just long enough for you to pull a box off the shelf. You might not even realise it.

How did she make that tea? She took a flask with her, I suppose. There’s no sign of it though. Perhaps she poured out the hot water into the cup in the car and then climbed up onto the bonnet? Perhaps she took the flask up there, and the cup, and the teabag? Either way, it would have been a bit awkward. There’s a lot of paraphernalia involved.

Maybe she has a friend? No sign of a tea-making accomplice though, especially when the camera pans back. There were no footprints, so her buddy probably hadn’t gone for a walk, and in any case, ‘a moment of calm’ suggests that we’re to think of her alone, miles from anyone who could cause her stress. No, she drove out there solo. She made herself a cuppa alone, and she clambered up there on her own, for certain. And somehow she’s going to have to climb down again with an empty mug and a soggy old teabag.

A moment of calm eh? You don’t get to see the cumbersome moments of awkward struggle either side. You don’t see her pulling off the road and wondering whether her tires will sink into the sand. You don’t see the tide coming in, or a dog-walker shouting “Shouldn’t be here, love” or pointing out the Pay & Display thirty yards behind her. None of that - just ten seconds of calm, earned with a larger amount of difficulty beforehand, and followed by more of the same.

But maybe that is exactly the point. Sigh. I’ve been played on a meta level. Again.

Go on then, stick the kettle on. I get it tea people, I get it.