Sofa sale now on - huge discounts.

The thing about not owning a television is that I tend to miss the minutae of cultural phenomena. Whilst I can keep up with the shifting sands of who is famous this week through the celeb pages in the newspaper and Holy Moly, it's the little things - the indicators of what is really going on in society - which pass me by. The sort of things which Ozymandias is looking for when he's watching his television wall.
So naturally, I spent a lot of time over Christmas watching telly (Or at least, that's my excuse. Cultural awareness training. Mmm-hmm.) and the thing which struck me most strongly was just how crap most telly is*. The next thing was that there seemed to be four major themes in the adverts:

1) Quit smoking now!
2) Lose weight and/or join a gym!
3) Sofa sale now on!
4) Pay of your debts with a loan.**

From this I can only assume that there's a sizable demographic for whom Christmas involved slumping down on the sofa for a fag, breaking it due to being so fat, and then having to go into debt to buy a new one. Does that match your experience?


^{*Note to Dr. Who fans. It was rubbish. Get over it.
**As a statement, "Pay off your debts with a loan" makes as much sense as "Fight for peace", "Eat yourself thin" and "Invest in public services".}