Club Foyer>Chillout Room

by Andy mac

• Dec 08
• Nov 08
• Sept 08
• Aug 08
• June
• May
• April
• March
• October
• September
• August
• July

December 08

John Lewis is now TV advertising that they have a Christmas present for everyone. This ad includes a lady in a black Mac getting drenched. She ultimately lays claim to an umbrella. I think it's the umbrella they are advertising, but I had the sound turned down. Personally, I think she should go for the drenching & sell the brolly on e bay. Far more fun!!

November 08

Some fresh TV ad inspiration.... McDonalds are advertising cinema tickets. The lady at the head of the queue is suitably entrenched. In addition, one of the latest BT ads shows the female half of their ongoing ad campaign showing off a rather natty grey trenchcoat... It is possible to be "natty" in grey isn't it?

September 08

A decent trenchcoat

Marks & Spencer have a new clothing TV advert out. It contains at least two macs I think - though I'll be looking out for it now so I can confirm or deny. This should be no surprise as a recent search of their website for macs revealed no less than 26 options for the Consumer. Happy days indeed.
 
At the same time, yesterday's Sunday Times Style magazine ran a feature on 50 items that a "cool girl" should be in possession of. I scanned the list quickly, to see if my own name was amongst the 50 items. Sadly, and quite predictably, it wasn't! I am happy to reveal though that a "decent trenchcoat" came in at no 7.
 
I'm not sure if the 50 items were arranged in priority order. I sincerely hope not, because if that were to be the case, the trench has been outgunned by hooped ear rings and a beret, to name but two of the six items higher up the list! Equally interestingly, a Parka came in at No 20.
 
It also begs the question as to The Sunday Times's definition of a "decent" trenchcoat??? I wonder what they would define as an "indecent" one...... and if I could have one of those ...

PS I saw the M&S ad again last night. I don't think it does contain two macs actually. It's the same one twice.... At least it is done up though, which is positively refreshing.

PPS

And as if that's not enough, we now have two big High Street retailers macmerising viewers into purchases. Add Next to M&S for having an ad for their clothes with a mac in it.
 
Next are massively persuasive, using Scouting For Girls and their hit "She's so luvverly". One lady in the ad is luvverlier than all the others put together for me though. She appears right at the end in a fascinating fastened up green mac. Two retailers then, featuring a done-up raincoat as opposed to the normal undone fayre so typical of the mac in a TV ad. It must be because they are actually advertising the mac, rather than just happening to feature it by chance. All of us who know about macs know they should be buttoned up to maximise the effect don't we? Next and Marks and Spencer are both on the done-up side of the bridge!

This particular lady, buttoned up into her green Trenchcoat has maximised some effects before. We know this because several adoring children run up to her in delight. Are they all hers? If so, perhaps she has worked some magic on the male species, weaving her magic upon the said male(s), in order to entice him (or them) into helping with the production of copious quantities of nippers........ Beautiful! The mackintosh is the opposite of the morning after pill?? The "night before potion" perhaps??? Complete with sussurus, & seductive aromas! 
 
I love it!

Gaining interest

Have you seen the TV ad for NatWest Bank, where they position themselves as SatWest due to Saturday opening, meaning that they can re-possess houses on one more day than was the case before, no doubt...?
 
There's actually more than one of these ads, a short one and a long one. The mac is only in the longer version. The chaps from the delightfully named "A Bank" are spying on a Nat West branch from within a car. The very first few seconds of the ad show a lady (but only from the back) walking straight past the bank in a cream trench. Like so many of the ladies in TV ads with macs on, she too is undone.... You can see her coat flapping even though the camera is behind her. Perhaps she is trying to "gain interest" as she passes the bank??

Ok... So that was a crap joke, but it's Friday afternoon and I'm knackered!!

Fiona's story

Shocking enough, but Fiona, played by Gina McKee is frequently to be found in a mac (she wears other coats too though) over the programme's 90 minute spread.
 
I went back on the i-player this morning to pick out one or two moments. There's a great bit between approx 40 minutes and 43 minutes. She is being unfaithful to her husband in this period. There is some amazing sussurrus as she and her lover both endeavour to get her mac unbelted, unbuttoned and off altogether before collapsing on the bed in a frenzy of arms and legs... As they do so they crush her poor old mac a fair bit.... What a pity... She should have kept it on for what they were obviously embarking on in the bed. Far more exciting that way in my experience!!
 
There's another good bit of sussurrus just after 47 mins where she comes into the house and takes her mac off, depositing it on one side.... Swoosh!
 
Lots of other nice shots of her in the film too, both done up and undone - much as I normally hate the undone option. 
 
I'm sure there was one bit last night where she fastened her daughter's anorak whilst she was wearing her own mac too - but I couldn't locate that on the i player sadly. There are lots of ways to approach another when fastening their coat.... From behind, from the side, or in front - but what Gina did was evidence that she does it the way I like, from in front, bending a little on approach whilst extending both arms with some urgency.... then tugging at the zip in a "come here and stand still" sort of a way....! This is exactly how most people will approach if they are going to fasten your coat for you in my experience, but it was nice to see Gina being "typical". I found myself imagining her approaching me like that, in her mac... I'd like that!!
 
And here's the first TV ad with a mac for September.
 
I'm just amazed I've missed this before. There has been, for some time, the ad running that tells us we have to get digital TV in order to have TV at all in the future. It's got the bloke driving the van with his metal passenger.... "Digit AL."
 
"Digit AL" waves at various passers by. One of them appears to be female with a remarkable silver mac - towards the end of the ad.

British Gas are the latest major corporation to make full use of the lady in the mac to advertise their services.. Have you seen it?? They claim they will freeze your prices until 2011. That's good of them, having just put them up so much.
 
We see a sequence of different people trying to catch things that are floating up into the air, doubtless symbolic of prices. The first person to do this in the ad is a lady in a supermarket who is trying to catch her groceries that are flying out of reach. She has a splendid little black trench on. Like so many mac ladies in ads she has undone buttons, which is a criminal offence isn't it??? Are these actresses unwilling mac wearers who won't go the whole hog with buttons, or is there another deeper seated reason why so many ladies in macs in TV ads go undone....? Who knows?

Anyway, this particular lady would have been well-served with coaxing her buttons into the buttonholes. Surely she would have been more aerodynamic as she flew through the air in pursuit of her shopping had she fastened them. As per my title, she would also have stood a better chance of not freezing to death had she done up, making the freezing of the prices less relevant..... Or was she going to do them up when she got outside so as to feel the benefit perhaps.... We'll never know will we?  
 
Either way, had I worn a coat like that my very own wife would have given me the chilling instruction..... "Come here and stand still!"

Aug 08

British Gas are the latest major corporation to make full use of the lady in the mac to advertise their services.. Have you seen it?? They claim they will freeze your prices until 2011. That's good of them, having just put them up so much.
 
We see a sequence of different people trying to catch things that are floating up into the air, doubtless symbolic of prices. The first person to do this in the ad is a lady in a supermarket who is trying to catch her groceries that are flying out of reach. She has a splendid little black trench on. Like so many mac ladies in ads she has undone buttons, which is a criminal offence isn't it??? Are these actresses unwilling mac wearers who won't go the whole hog with buttons, or is there another deeper seated reason why so many ladies in macs in TV ads go undone....? Who knows?
 
Anyway, this particular lady would have been well served with coaxing her buttons into the buttonholes. Surely she would have been more aerodynamic as she flew through the air in pursuit of her shopping had she fastened them.. As per my title, she would also have stood a better chance of not freezing to death had she done up, making the freezing of the prices less relevant..... Or was she going to do them up when she got outside so as to feel the benefit perhaps.... We'll never know will we?  
 
Either way, had I worn a coat like that my very own wife would have given me the chilling instruction..... "Come here and stand still!"
 
Argos have their new catalogue out and are advertising the fact so that we can all go and pick one up. During the ad a somewhat bewildered-looking lady appears in a stone-coloured single-breasted trenchcoat. She has failed completely to do up her buttons and her bewildered expression is perhaps a cry for help in that area?

Roll on September!

June

I'm glad to say that I've found a TV ad with a mac in it in June, though I've only noticed one such ad in June that is new to me. I was beginning to think I'd have nothing to report this month.
 
I've only seen the ad once so far and it is for Bulmer's Cider. There is a strapline in there telling us that Bulmers will help us to make the most of the summer (or something like that.) This comes at the end of the ad. I can conclude that one member of the cast was certainly making the most of the British summer earlier in the sequence. Sadly she was only featured briefly, but there was no doubt that her own version of making the most of the British summer had involved slipping her arms into a biscuit coloured mac, which appeared to be single breasted. Equally sad for me was the fact that once her arms had slipped in, her hands had failed to complete the buttoning up task... She was hanging undone.... It just won't do (up?)!

May

May appears to have begun with a whole tranche (or should that be trench) of macadverts. I decided to watch "flood" over the bank holiday with the idea that any programme with such a title would contain rain, and that when it rains, people wear macs, and that therefore "flood" would not just be a thriller about London going underwater, but also be filled with people all buttoned up against the deluge that this would entail.
 
How wrong was I? Across ITV's 4 hours of flooding I saw not one proper trenchcoat within the programme. That can't be right can it? London always boasts a high percentage of its working population in the type of trenchcoats that make my heart flutter, so ITV got it all wrong - to say nothing of the fact that this programme featured a chap who made many calls on his mobile phone, irrespective of the fact that it had spent a good part of the programme underwater. Surely it would have stopped working?? This programme was not realistic on 2 counts at least then. The mobile phone that works while saturated, coupled with 4 hours of London footage of a downpour on a working day with a cast of 200,000 with not one mac between them. Shame on ITV's reearchers!
 
What about the commercial breaks in this programme though? First up came an Npower commercial that I hadn't seen before, featuring a lady who is going to have a new boiler. We don't get to see her entire torso while she is wearing it, but we do see from the chest up, a garment in beige which appears waterproof (drape, sheen and all that, though sadly no sussurus on offer within the clip). This garment appears to be double breasted as it has a button high up on either side, and I believe there may have been epaulettes too. It has to be a mac!
 
No sooner had we come to the next ad break and Actimel got advertised with all those lovely diagrams they use to show how their yoghurt does positive things for your gut. I found myself wanting to fast forward the ad as I figured it wouldn't contain a mac. I concentrated on improving the state of my own gut with the glass of Merlot I was holding instead of their damned yoghurt. Then. Lo and behold. the advert goes and ends with a woman in a short cream coloured, double breasted trenchcoat, buttoned up. She is walking towards us in it smiling, her gut mended and ready for action thanks to her trusty mac's power of combining with her pudding perhaps?
 
Another ad break took me to the dizzy heights of three coated campaigns in under an hour! This time we have some poor unfortunate lady suffering with diarrhoea - not on camera fortunately. She is going to take Imodium. Before she does, she steps in a big puddle (with no coat on). We are intended to believe that she is having a bad day. One dose of Imodium though, and all her problems are over. She appears again, smiling this time, twirling her umbrella against whatever the sky may be depositing. Best of all though, she is wearing a mac just like the one worn by the Actimel lady. Imodium has cleared up those horrid cramps and given her a style lesson too, as someone has now buttoned her up neatly into the trenchcoat.
 
So it is clear then, raincoats in a trench style are endorsed by Actimel and Imodium. They help the stomach. You should try selling your wares to Boots Lorraine, so that when people come in with tummy problems, a new remedy can be recommended in the form of a mackintosh. I don't suppose they'd listen would they?
 
Enjoy the sunshine.... But bring on the thunder!
 

April

Just when I thought another month might elapse without any macs on a TV advert in my sights, this one cropped up tonight as April's vote. It was for Laughing Cow with their rather tasty cheese portions. One lady in the ad has a mac slung neatly over her arm. How could she not wear it? I think we should all nip along to the film set, gently remove it from her arm and shake it noisily behind her....
 
"Now come here. Put your arms in the sleeves and do those buttons up... You won't feel the benefit dear!"
 
That's all for now

Andy mac

March

Hope you are well and suitably buttoned up against all weather that is (thankfully) being thrown at us. For a while a few month's back I was able to send you large quantities of details of macs in TV ads. Then they all dried up, probably hung in some wardrobe somewhere by someone with no idea how wondrous life can be in the trenches.
 
Normality returns though.. I have precisely no idea who is advertising/sponsoring the ITV National Weather after the ten o clock news. I'm just altogether smitten by the girl in the trenchcoat who can't get the comb through her hair when she eventually reaches her desk. Have yourself a little look at the strappy things on her cuffs. Is there a technical name for them?? Whether there is or not, have you ever seen "strappy things" as broad as that? They could have been used to advertise "fatty ahhh buckles.." GROAN............! What a lovely coat though? I just wish I could see more of it, feel it, hear it rumpling, and perhaps smell it!!
 
Then there's the ad with the two blokes (father and son?) cleaning the kitchen quickly at half time in the televised football while Mum is out isn't there? Are they advertising Flash? Once again, I've missed the brand because of the coat Mum is wearing when she comes home... She catches them cleaning the kitchen, which they have done in record time thanks to the wonder product. She acts all surprised that they aren't watching the football. They pretend to be surprised that it is on at all.... Even though all this is acted out we don't get to see much of her coat, but it has all the lines of a trusty trench from what I can see... Am I right?
 
Then there's another ad and I can't even remember vaguely what it is for but there is a pretty red coloured ladies trench hanging in the hall. What a waste... There must've been someone on the set who would have benefited from popping it on and giving those buttons some exercise.... I'll let you know what this ad is for next time it comes on.
 
In the meantime, stay dryish and encourage anyone who will listen into their macs. My local Asda has a big sign above the ladieswear saying that springtime is about macs!! They don't have any in stock though. Crazy!

October

It may make no sense that ads come and go so quickly, but that just stacks up with the rest of the big bad world.
 
As an example, it makes no sense that some people fail to wear macs on wet days, choosing an anorak, or perhaps just an umbrella with no outerwear instead. It makes no sense that people sew buttons on macs with the express intention that these will be fastened, only to then have the same macs purchased by people who choose to go undone, flapping vigourously in the wind.
 
It makes no sense that some towns are full of mac wearers and some have very few. Now there's a new discussion point. The major cities are full of formally dressed folks so it's no surprise that I find London, Birmingham and Manchester to be mac hotbeds.
 
How's this though? Hereford is disappointing. You can drive right through it on the wettest day and never see one. Conversely, Worcester and Kidderminster (not that far from Hereford) always seem full of traditional macs. Lincoln and Nottingham are good too in my experience.... But here's the real stunner. Just up the road from Lakeland Elements, Morecambe now has the proud boast of football league status. I came to the delightful Christie Park as a visitor the other day.... I saw no macs in Morecambe at all.... Is it just that all the ones in your locality are kept personally by Lakeland Elements in Lancaster?

Incidentally, I believe Morecambe have a goalkeeper called Steven Drench. Now there's a fine name to endorse rainwear. You could sponsor him - with a drenchcoat perhaps.
 
I'm wasted. I should have been in Marketing!

September

It's magical. As soon as you put one lot up on your site, some more adverts appear with raincoats in them.
 
Who gives us extra?? The Halifax of course....
 
Their latest TV ad has at least one girl stripping off a silvery mac at the outset. She won't feel the benefit at all, which is terribly bad form in my view.
 
Add to that the fact that Hiscox's campaign is on overdrive (in my area anyway) and that the girl who likes the chap with the Kia car is well and truly back.... Well, my summer is made. Kia think that she has fallen for his car?? Maybe so - but not as much as he has fallen for her mac I'm sure.
 
Just when I thought that was it, Vodafone started airing "Drip drip drop little April shower" again, in August.
 
I'm giving up watching programmes on the TV. I think I'll just Sky plus all the adverts in an act of mad consumerism.

August

There is a new ad for Hiscox (an insurance company I think but I got distrmacted in mid-advert.) From what I can see there's just the one mac in it which is very foolish of those being filmed and those doing the filming as the ad is shot in an amazing thuderstorm, or perhaps a collection of different ones. The macless actors must have got soaked, poor things. Anyway, look out for the girl on the roof, with her back to you. She is belted tightly (and in all probability buttoned up but we are left to guess as we can only see her back) into an interesting looking dark brown trenchcoat.
 
What about the Tropicana Orange juice TV advert? Various people pick oranges from trees during this and one girl reaches out of a bus window to pick one. I'm pretty sure she's got a mac on, despite the fact that it is a hot sunny day. Actually, places that grow oranges don't have much macsuitable weather do they? She must be a real addict if what she is wearing is what I think it is... Have a look and let me know if you think she's one of the rainwear crew.

July

Two TV adverts at the moment that do us all some justice.

Good old Vodafone. The Internet is now mobile? Actually, it was anyway with a laptop and one of those wireless cards of theirs in hand. Have you seen their TV ad though? Drip drip drip little April shower. Or is it drip drip drop? How many macs (or parts of them) can you count in the advert, without recording it? I'm up to 6 now, to say nothing of the girl who looks so pleased that she zipped her Parka up close to the end.

On the other hand there's the advert for the car (Kia I think) with the girl in the splendid brown mac. The bloke driving her capitulates at it's very sight doesn't he? "We should buy a house, get married, have some babies and get a dog??!" Actually that might not be word for word, but he says something like that doesn't he? She doesn't even pause for thought before agreeing. She wooed him and won him thanks to her trusty trench. Hoorah!

Isn't this weather blissfully, beautifully, buttonuppably boastful?! I got positively soaked this morning, or rather, my mac did. I stayed very dry underneath..
 
Following on from my earlier emails about TV ads and macs, how about the current Kelloggs Special K campaign? Have you seen it? There's a rather pretty lady on a damp day (buttoned up very properly in a trenchcoat) who is trying to lose enough weight to get her swimsuit on. After eating Special K we see her manage this. The mac disappears and she wears a swimsuit instead, cavorting about on a beach in the sunshine... We also see her in her mac again, post weight loss, looking a bit thinner.
 
A couple of points of order here.. The reason she looks thinner in the mac the second time around is because she has done the belt up properly to draw her waist in. What a con! Maybe Special K didn't help weight loss then... perhaps her mac did, once someone had helped her to fasten it up properly. How very jolly?!  
 
My second point is this. If she wants a day at the seaside she could pick Morecambe. This would surely enable a visit to Lancaster en route to be fitted into an even more tightly belted trenchcoat. By the time she reached the seaside she could perhaps be a size zero, if that's what she fancies. In order to maintain this size she could keep her coat on whilst by the sea. Ladies in macs are always more exciting than those in swimsuits - anyway in my own biased view. It leaves  macEclectics like me free to wonder what else she might be wearing...
 
Anyway, I wouldn't care if she was a size zero or a size 30... She'd still push my buttons when she fastened her own ones.
 
By the way. I've managed to get a mac like the one Harold Wilson used to wear 30-40 years ago from a Vintage Clothing place. It's amazing and weighs about 3 tons. It has a lovely smell when wet too.
 
It probably makes me look quite fat...
 
Who cares?
 

As a non-smoker I've been pretty pleased with the controversial new law in that area - but a couple of evenings ago I found a whole new opportunity that this has opened up....

I stopped in Warwick Services on the M40 and delighted in their splendid coffee. Whilst doing so I noticed a lady getting out of a People Carrier in the Car Park. She took a troubled look at the grey, threatening skies above, and pulled a beautiful Burberry Trenchcoat from her back seat. She tossed it over her arm and marched purposefully into the Services. Like me, she ordered coffee... Unlike me, she was forced to drink it outside as she was a smoker........... I say outside. It's true to say that the tables out there had some cover as they had canvass above them, but she was still exposed to some degree to whatever the sky was going to deposit from the clouds moments later. Sure enough, the heavens opened with what could at best be described as an apocalyptic downpour. The temperature outside doubtless dropped accordingly.... I couldn't help but observe her as she clenched her cigarette between her lips whilst getting her arms in her raincoat sleeves. She then proceeded to prove an expert in the buttoning up stakes, smoking with her right hand, whilst buttoning up one handed with the left one.... Once finished she looked absolutely wonderful.

On driving away I realised that had the law not changed, or had I been there a couple of weeks earlier, I would probably never have witnessed this. I'd bet that her mac would never have arisen from it's slumbers on her back seat if she had been able to smoke inside..

Dear Andy Thanks so much for your interesting contributions! I must say I have been planning to do a few pages on which hotels in the UK make use of the loophole and make some rooms available for smokers, and which pubs, restaurants etc do their best with outside facilities. Your point opens a new dimension... Best LE

This set off other thoughts. Surely coat manufacturers must gain from the smoking ban??? Smokers will need to wear their coats more now if they are to smoke in public, unless they want to freeze, or get soaked. What better coat for smoking outdoors than a Trenchcoat too? We all know there is nothing better for protecting the legs as well as the top end of the torso.

Looks like you'd better scale up production to me.

The glass is half full!

Andy

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