GONE FISHIN’ [475]

Only occasionally will I have something to eat from McDonald’s, but when I do, and if it has passed 11am, I will have a Filet-O-Fish. Once I realised that choice was “Proustian”, I had to think about it a bit more.

The Filet-O-Fish has been my choice since childhood, and I can taste why: it is milder overall than a hamburger or cheeseburger, with a steamed bun over a toasted one, tartare sauce instead of the more mixed assault of mustard, ketchup and gherkin, breaded pollock over seasoned beef, and a slice of processed cheese – the original American version only uses half a slice.  I continue to make sure that some of the sauce falls out, creating a dip for the fries.

I also remember the Filet-O-Fish’s previous blue polystyrene container, served in bags crossed with lines of “M”s, more than any toy the meal came with, and trying to poke your fingers through it as much as you tried to flatten the flimsy foil (unused) ashtrays that used to be on every table, which usually had the moulded seats bolted onto the table leg that took root in the red tiled floor, surrounded by cream walls, doctor’s office pictures, spider plants and Muzak...

This is the term “Proustian” at work, derived from the dunking of a Madeline cake in tea conjuring the memory of the story that makes Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” (or “Remembrance of Things Past”). Everything I have described does not exist anymore, but they are of such a specific time – the late 1980s into the early 1990s – that it cannot be separated from what triggers those memories.

Tastes necessarily do change. McDonald’s can no longer realistically be allowed to appeal to children, their having ended the ball pits and birthday parties. I sensed something was up when the dominant colour of their restaurants changed from red to green, resembling a coffee shop more than a classic McDonald’s, just as other coffee shop chains joined the High Street like Starbucks and Costa. At the very least, the UK avoided the replacement of the Filet-O-Fish in the US by the Fish Filet Deluxe in 1996, with a larger patty and the addition of lettuce, before petitions brought the original back within a year, retaining the larger fish patty.

I am also now too aware that the Filet-O-Fish is the “healthier” option only in comparison to their other burgers, McDonald’s making clear it uses fish from sustainable sources, and that a medium portion of fries has more calories in it than the sandwich itself (337 versus 315, according to mcdonalds.co.uk)... but you still need at least a small portion of fries for the tartare sauce... 

If nostalgia is going to be triggered by food, make sure that nostalgia comes from a place that means you can only eat it occasionally.

TOO BUSY DODGING BETWEEN THE FLAK [474]

I had only one reason to think that Donald Trump could be re-elected President of the United States, and that was the event of his attempted assassination in Pennsylvania in July 2024, when the imagery of someone getting back up, punching the air as they were led away, eclipsed everything he had said or done, or could say and do. We live in the age of the moving image.

I have no intention of writing about Donald Trump again after this article, because I have done it more than enough times for one lifetime. I could find myself writing about the consequences of his actions, because you don’t have to be in the United States to have it act upon you in some way. Trump will do what he does, like he did last time, we will all resist again, like we did last time, and when he leaves office, because he cannot run for President again – and realistically will be too old to run for a third time, even if he somehow changed the rules – the next President will overwrite his proclamations with new ones, just like last time.

Meanwhile, most Americans that did vote for Trump may consider that choice to be as transactional as any other interaction he has made, because they cannot have voted based on character to have re-elected as known a quantity as him. Fears over the future of classical liberalism and democracy will fade, because people can still think, choose and act for themselves, regardless of what the rules are – how else does Trump think he can behave as he does? The search for a Democratic answer to this victory will be found, but by a younger generation of people.

It has already been noticed that sales of dystopian fiction, like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, have surged in the days following the election. However, I had already thought about the fictional megacorporations that would have benefitted from a Trump presidency, like Wayland Utani (“Alien”), the Tyrell Corporation (“Blade Runner”) and Omni Consumer Products (“Robocop”). Elon Musk, having slotted himself into a prospective governmental position has also, through his use and misuse of his own social media platform, also fulfils the role previously filled by newspaper press barons like Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hearst. 

What am I going to do? I will leave below what I have already said before, leave it at that, and be thankful that the only reason the United Kingdom is on its sixth Prime Minister in a decade is because, when they are no good, either as a political leader or as a person, they are either voted out, or kicked out.

This could apply in so many cases, but in the next four years or less, read thoroughly, have a sense of history, and don’t repeat your mistakes.

Back when Trump was first elected in 2016, I said that “the weight of [the Presidential] office demands respect. However, the holder of that office cannot afford to be given the benefit of the doubt, especially when Trump has never appeared to need it before.” (“Who Says a Miss Was Made to Kiss?”, 21/11/2016)

In 2018, I mistakenly consoled myself knowing that 2025 could have been the latest possible year Trump could remain President: “What I do know is that everything will find its centre, or equilibrium once more, even if it has to make a new one, as people take stock of where everything has reached.” (“You’ll Never Live It Down Unless You Whip It”, 28/05/2018)

When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, I said that scrutiny of Trump will continue to intensify: “Trusting only his decisions, there is no history to learn, no precedent to observe, no dignity worth honouring... Perhaps your experience of life is tainted when the only people that come close to you will eventually sell you out for profit, but when you define your life by the deals you make, you can’t reasonably expect fealty from anyone.” (“Spank The Pank Who Try To Drive You Nuts”, 08/11/2020)

Finally, after the 2021 attack on the Capitol building, I thought I never had to consider Trump again: “Donald Trump became the de facto 'Gatekeepers' bogeyman: a man whose choppy utterances and half-formed, half-stolen slogans enraptured millions, and radicalised thousands more. Words were often beyond him, left to those in his administration to make sound reasonable, but the longer the noise, the threats against the media, and the pronouncements on Twitter went on, the more it became the stifling daily rhythm to everyday life... He really was the worst of us.” (“All About the Love Again”, 24/01/2021)

BUT STILL THEY COME! [473]

Browsing blu-rays in HMV’s flagship store in London’s Oxford Street, I found myself unable to concentrate on what special edition re-release I wanted this time around, leaving half an hour later empty-handed and with a headache. 

While inside, the store’s speakers were playing an intense section of the immensely popular 1978 prog rock album “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds”, from the emergence of the spidery Martian creatures and their heat rays, with driving bass lines and Phil Lynott’s vocoded call of “Ulla!”, through Justin Hayward’s rendition of the love song “Forever Autumn”, the album’s sole cover, mixed seamlessly into the story, to the sinking of the iron-clad warship HMS Thunder Child by the Martians. 

I presume the 95-minute album was played in full, but it was heavy going for a Saturday afternoon in a busy store. However, I made sure to listen to it in full, something I had never done before, despite my family always owning at least two copies of it, my parents seeing a live performance of it, and even my travelling to Woking, where the story is set, to see Michael Condron’s Martian Tripod sculpture, identifying it more with the album cover than the description in H.G. Wells’ original novel. My family has always had at least two copies of the original double vinyl release, with gatefold sleeve and booklet of art by John Pasche to accompany the music - it is pretty much my introduction to what an “album” is.

The opening track, “The Eve of The War”, and “Forever Autumn” were released as singles, and a “Highlights from...” album cuts the length in half, but listening to Jeff Wayne’s development of leitmotifs is something I should have done earlier, distilling the essence of Walls’s story into an immersive experience, guided by Richard Burton’s narration as “The Journalist” (recorded in California before he began shooting the film “Exorcist II: The Heretic”).

Progressive rock is named through its aspiration to art through more elaborate composition and arrangement of music and lyrics, taking in other genres. I initially thought that, in this case, Rick Wakeman had walked so that Jeff Wayne could run, through Wakeman’s albums like “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” in 1975, and the previous year’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, a forty-minute orchestral adaptation narrated by David Hemmings. However, Wayne had already composed the score for a West End musical adaptation of “A Tale of Two Cities” before entering commercial song and ad jingle writing.

Now I have listened to it, something that made me screw up my face was the track “Brave New World”, where David Essex, as the Artilleryman, proposes that humanity can live underground, under the noses of the Martians: “We'll send scouting parties to collect books and stuff, and men like you'll teach the kids not poems and rubbish – science, so we can get everything working.” Fortunately, us art-lovers have Burton’s narration of the Artilleryman unveiling his tunnel, “scarcely ten yards long, that had taken him a week to dig. I could have dug that much in a day, and I suddenly had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers...” How fortunate for humanity that the Martians caught a cold.

Writing this has led me to discover that “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of Spartacus” exists, an album released in 1992 that stars Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, seemingly eclipsed by the enduring success of Wayne’s previous work. I may have to listen to it too. 

WE FADE TO GREY [472]

“Operation No Grey” was a campaign launched in June 2023 by the car manufacturer Fiat, with the advertising agency Leo Burnett Italy, announcing they will no longer sell cars painted grey. This was symbolised by dipping their latest car, the Fiat 600e, into a vat of orange paint. Their press release said, “The decision was made to enhance the importance of colours in life, embodying the Italian way of living and reaffirming the Brand’s New Dolce Vita value.” This was followed in February 2024 by a full La Dolce Vita guide, provided to help Fiat’s British customers lead a more relaxed and Italian lifestyle.

This gimmick, posture and provocation was most likely fuelled by car sales data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders confirming that grey has been the most popular car colour sold in the UK since 2018, counting for 26.8% of all new cars sold in 2023. With second choice black taking 20.2%, and third choice white at 16.5%, blue is the first non-monochrome choice with 15.1%. The overwhelming popularity of grey and monochrome colours was found among both personal fleet buyers in all parts of the UK, perhaps the result of wanting to protect the resale value of the car.

Fiat’s decision also attempts to highlight themselves above other car brands. Despite being a significant part of the gargantuan conglomerate Stellantis, they are still one brand among many: Fiat’s car range is comprised of small cars like the 500, 600 and Panda, with the Ford Focus-sized Tipo no longer sold in the UK. Despite compete with similarly-sized cars from Renault, Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda, they also vie with other Stellantis brands like Vauxhall, Opel, Peugeot and Citroën, the latter having its own extensive history of small cars. Want a bigger Fiat? Stellantis will sell you an Alfa Romeo instead or, better still, a Maserati.

Checking Fiat’s website in other countries confirm they do not sell grey cars elsewhere either, although they don’t need to sell La Dolce Vita to the Italians. However, what I have noticed is they have restricted the choice of available colours in another way: the price. The new 600 is available in red, but if you want any other colour, including Sunset Orange, it will cost you £650. Likewise, the electric 500e (Ice White), the original 500 hybrid (Sicilian Orange) and the Panda (Gelato White) are essentially sold in only one colour, unless you pay extra – the upcoming Grande Panda has no information available on which colour, or colours, you can get for free.

Increased choice is available, but not necessarily demanded, so therefore, if you want La Dolce Vita, you will have to pay for it. Even with a base Fiat 500 coming in at just under £17,000, an extra £650 is a significant cost to add for something that, while making your car easier to find, won’t change how it drives.

LIKE SUGAR AND SPICE [471]

“Coca-Cola Spiced” was a variant of the ubiquitous soft drink sold by The Coca-Cola Company in North America from February to September 2024. Originally introduced as the first permanent addition to the range since Coca-Cola Cherry Vanilla in 2020, it was withdrawn after only seven months due to undisclosed reasons, while Cherry Vanilla and “Diet Coke with Splenda”, sweetened with sucralose and aspartame, were withdrawn as well.

I came across an imported can of the with-sugar version Coca-Cola Spiced – a “Zero Sugar” version was also sold - a few months into its now-limited run. I had not heard any description or review of the drink, only that there was a Coke labelled as “Spiced”.

Drinking the can left me underwhelmed – “Spiced” essentially meant “with raspberry”, in the same way that the longstanding cherry variant of Coke is “spiced” with cherry flavour.

“Spice” is a word used in different ways, and what I expected upon seeing that word on a can of Coke was expecting the taste to be “hotter”, or more piquant, which I don’t equate with raspberry flavouring. I think it was a mistake not to identify the use of raspberry in the name of the drink, the only major clue being a slight tinge of pink in the red colour of the can, and in using a word as potent as “spiced” only in relation to raspberry.

Coca-Cola has, since 2022, been leaning into another definition of “spice” with its “Creations” line of special edition drinks – making its drinks more interesting or, more specifically in this case, giving them more attention. I liked the strawberry and watermelon-flavoured version of Coke produced with, and named after, the American music producer and DJ Marshmello – ironically, the following “Dreamworld” flavour tasted more like marshmallow. A later “creation” imagined the year 3000 through a caramel and popcorn taste, and the current Oreo cookie flavour feels less a “creation” than a simple mash-up, one reminding me more of chocolate Angel Delight than Oreo.

My takeaway from this situation is that Coca-Cola “Original Taste”, and the brand in general, is so ubiquitous it has become part of the background, but the current solution is in adding to the formula in various ways to make people continue to try the drink, when advertising the existing drinks to remind people about them, or implement a loyalty scheme, have already been tried.

As Coca-Cola Spiced was introduced in North America, the UK received their own flavour that, while sounding more boring, remains on sale: Lemon.

YOU SAW THE WHOLE OF THE MOON [470]

[Update: A big thank you to the digital artist Dave Jeffery [https://www.kecskebak.hu/], whose work in creating and recreating channel idents has been used on screen by the BBC and Big Centre TV, for contacting me via Mastodon to confirm that Meridian’s logo was designed by Ian Carley, the company’s head of design. The original article is below.]

The half-sun, half-moon face used as a logo by Meridian Broadcasting has remained lodged in my mind long after it disappeared from TV screens, but I have never considered why it was used to represent independent television in the south and south-east of England – my hunch is that it doesn’t matter at all.

Back when ITV was the name of a network of regional TV channels, mostly named for the area on which they were broadcast – Thames, Tyne Tees, Anglia, Scottish, London Weekend Television and so on – Meridian replaced TVS (Television South), providing programmes in its area of the UK from 1993. It is still broadcasting, but in the procession of takeovers and mergers of ITV companies that began when Meridian bought Anglia in 1994, Meridian’s distinctive logo and name were usurped by a national “ITV” identity from 2002, the name living on as “ITV News Meridian”, the name of their regional bulletins.

This does not explain the choosing of its symbol, from a designer whose name I could not find, here picked out in high-contrast red, yellow and purple, initially in idents on a halved yellow and blue background. The sun-moon face is centuries old, borne of opposing forces, of duality, and of accepting this as a nature of being, from good and bad, to life and death, and femininity and masculinity. It was seen as decoration on old naval navigational tools, like compasses and sextants, fitting in with the brief of serving an area of the UK steeped in maritime and naval tradition like Portsmouth, Southampton, Cowes and Chatham, but means precisely nothing if you are also broadcasting inland to the likes of Salisbury, Reading and Oxford.

The name “Meridian” is more confusing than expected: it comes from the Latin “meridionalis”, meaning “of the south”, but it makes me think of London, and the Greenwich Meridian - this use came from the Latin “meridies”, for “midday”. When the consortium that owned Meridian bid, in 1991, to represent the ITV network in the south and south-east of England, they also bid for the London area, most likely using the same name and logo. Perhaps the intention was, just “Granada” came to symbolise Manchester and the north-west of England as much as that region of Spain, Meridian will do the same for the south, once it appears often enough. This expectation did not happen so much for Carlton, like Granada a pre-existing company with a pre-existing name, which eventually won the London licence.

The website TVArk has a quote from a J Dallas, creative director at Meridian, talking in 1999 about the replacement of their original bombastic and orchestral idents with something a lot calmer and more purple: “The idea was they thought the Company had become established and the computer graphics for the original ident looked old fashioned. The problem with the logo is it looks stuck on to something whatever you do with it.” Meanwhile, the wonderful book “Branding for Television With Knobs On” by Martin Lambie-Nairn, designer of the Channel 4 logo, noted that Meridian executives took offense at being told their production and marketing wasn’t connected by a unifying strategy and brief, its “marketing tree” being disparate twigs growing from the ground, unable to take advantage of the fact the TV channel itself, branding and all, is as much a product as the programmes by themselves.

The Meridian logo appeared everywhere: before every programme, at the end of programmes made or commissioned by them, in flashes before each advertisement break began, and in a bizarre tie-in with Southern Ford Dealers, where you could buy the Ford Fiesta Meridian special edition car – I really saw a TV broadcaster’s logo plastered on cars that private citizens chose to buy with their own money.

Meridian’s legacy was in children’s programmes like “Wizadora”, “ZZZap!” and “It’s a Mystery”, alongside dramas “The Ruth Rendell Mysteries” and “Hornblower”, and the documentary series “Monkey Business”. However, its logo was used so prominently between 1993 and 2002 that its legacy is what remains for me - it is visually striking, but it only represents itself, not what Meridian was, or continues to be.

BOYS ALWAYS WORK IT OUT [469]

“Oblique Strategies” is a set of cards, introduced in 1975 by artists Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, designed to promote lateral thinking when breaking creative blocks. I knew about them from Eno’s collaboration with David Bowie, sparking and informing decisions made on Bowie’s albums “Heroes” (1977) and “Lodger” (1979).

My sister Layla Spence, writer and artist of the online comic “Ill Fame”, owns a pack of these cards, saying she has used them when a second opinion might be needed, and thought I could use them in my writing. 

You don’t reach the four hundred and sixty-ninth article in a series without having deployed some lateral thinking along the way, but I didn’t know if I should use the cards to spur an idea, or to apply them to something I had already prepared. Upon cutting the cards, the first one read “What wouldn’t you do?”, so my answer was to be led by the cards this time around, forcing me to be creative about my creativity.

“What mistakes did you make last time?” I think my last article about Toys “R” Us opening concessions in branches of WHSmith was a little overblown. Visiting a local branch that stated it was “now open” amounted to a further statue of Geoffrey the Giraffe, and shelves of toys to one side. No space for traditional WHSmith product lines stationery was really lost – if anything, it looked tidier than usual. I always visit that branch when I am in town, and I was facing the prospect of losing some of the reason I go there – as it turned out, I needn’t have worried.

“Do nothing for as long as possible.” Your baseline may vary - living authentically as yourself is politically charged in the sight of the wrong people. Meanwhile, I don’t write to intervene - I don’t need the hassle. I observe, I write, I continue looking. “Nothing” is subjective.

“Abandon normal instruments.” I will switch to making videos someday.

“Who should be doing this job? How would they do it?” There is no vacancy here, but if you can honour your obligation to explore your intrigue every week, while trying to articulate that in an approachable way while never having a set formula for how that will be done each time, then you may be in with a chance... to do it for yourself on your own site.

“Trust in the you of now.” Don’t give yourself enough time to decipher or question your methods. Ritual leads the way. Deadline is style. You are in there somewhere.

“Don’t break the silence.” I drew this card just after watching a YouTube video about a Nintendo GameBoy clone that I want to buy, which I watched to give myself a rest for a moment – I am purposefully thinking of buying myself a worthwhile distraction that forces concentration. I listen to the music or have a TV on in the background all the time. I only do “silence” when I am asleep, and even then, my TV must remain on as I fall asleep. I can be “still”, but not “silent”.

“Do we need holes?” What did you have in mind?

“Abandon normal instruments.” I just drew the card that inspired David Bowie’s song “Boys Keep Swinging”. The plan was already to emulate a garage band by having Bowie’s band playing each other’s instruments – the simple drums are by guitarist Carlos Alomar – and the card seems to imply they were on the right track. Also, “abandon normal instruments” for a song about gender identity? [Yes, I was thinking so hard I didn’t realise I drew the same card twice.]

“Distorting time.” This may have been my plan all along – whatever that is, I’ll never tell, because I don’t actually know.