Ridiculous World Cup products, part 5373

Forza Italia

The latest copy of Viz just came thru the post and it includes a marvellously trashy World Cup poster. Basically this consists of a series of Viz characters in the usual poses, and a big caption saying Come On England. A nice touch on the next page is a cut-out and paste sheet ("for our Welsh, Scottish, and Irish readers") which substitutes the words Fuck Off England. If I were going to risk being scarred for life by removing the staples and displaying it I know which version would be in my window.

As the last When Saturday Comes mag memorably put it, everything including combine harvesters is currently being advertised with a desperate World Cup twist to it. (Okay, not L'Oreal products, yet.) Every shop is full of crappy teddys, mugs, hats, sticker albums, toilet rolls, tattooed slaves, scratch and sniff biographies of Wayne Rooney's amanuensis and every conceivable other product with a little red cross on a white background (even fairy cake type confectioneries in Morrisons). You would have to be in a coma not to be aware of the damn thing. Last night there was a Nike advert at least three minutes long which simultaneously satirises the whole thing while subtly implying that you're a spineless little turd if you don't want to be a part of it.

In order to curtail all this having the World Cup poked up every bodily orifice 24/7 the earlier England are knocked out the better it will be. Of course this will be via a penalty shoot-out so that the mythology can be reinforced that "we" are still mightier than everyone else, "we" just had a bit of bad luck with that errant piece of grass that tripped Frank Lampard over on his run-up. 

 

Forza Italia!