I wonder, if you can even remember those happy, care-free days?

The ones when all we had to worry about was the Russians vapourising our arses with only 4 minutes warning. The ones before we were all forced to pretend we actually give a toss about the environment. The ones when I wasn’t made to feel guilty by the checkout girl at Tesco because I forgot to take my organic hemp bag and had to use a plastic bag instead.

Yeah, they were magical times.

You could eat as many orangutans as you wanted and no-one would bat an eyelid. And you were all but encouraged to saw up the rain forest just so you could build a petro-chemicals plant.

But then Sting came along – wanting to save the bloody rain forest.

And then Pierce Brosnan, er, fighting for the causes he believes in.

And now EDF Energy are in on it too. What with them being “committed to helping tackle climate change“.

And I’ll give EDF Energy their dues – it’s quite a hard act for an energy company to be green, you know, what with power stations traditionally pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere then all the tractors in Chelsea.

But I don’t doubt that they’re really giving it a go (mostly because I’m easily lead and can’t be bothered to read what they’re actually going to do).

What I do doubt, however, is that there’s any substantial benefit in making an advert from recycled clips all edited together over, ooh, let’s say making the exceeding studio light intensive Accident Advice Helpline advert.

Although they may not make any claims about the energy savings from using recycled film clips, the implication is clear “recycled adverts are better for the environment”.

But even id that is the case, there’s one thing for sure, recycled adverts aren’t as good for the environment as, for example, not holding the Olympics Games, are they?

Which brings me to Toby Hammans, who submitted the new Olympic Dreams advert:

Whilst the first 39 seconds are relatively inoffensive, the final
tagline is so hideous I can barely bring myself to type it.

This commercial was made from recycled dreams.

Yep, just like an electricity supplying equivalent of Martin Luther King, EDF Energy have a dream – although EDF Energy’s dream is suspiciously like edited versions of other people’s achievements.

Which makes their dream come out all Earth Song on us, and golly, I feel like jumping on stage and flapping my bum cheeks at them.

You see EDF Energy want to be seen as a lovely green company but they’re promoting themselves and their nauseating dream by sponsoring the Olympic Games. An event that’s surely already has a carbon footprint the size of Ian Thrope (you see, he’s won 9 Olympic medals and has really big feet. So he’s got a big footprint. That’s why I picked his name. See? Oh forget it!).

Now don’t get me wrong, I love double standards, they make life so much easier, but asking us to help make the 2012 Olympics a turning point in the fight against climate change seems a little bit silly. They might as well asked us all to help save the environment by asking us to all leave our fridges open or getting everyone to start a tyre fire in their back yard.

Or is it just me?

Is it?

Don’t Worry Dear

As a side note, what I really love about that first advert posted above is the girl from the conference who very pompously says:

“Jungles and rain forests; I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see”.

Well look. It’s somewhere between the 3rd and the 14th of June 1992. You’re, what, 15 years old? It’s now 16 years later, and they’re still here.

I’m fairly certain that they will exist for your children.

God, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a false apocalyptic warning to cheer me up between Corrie and Tonight With Trevor McDonald.

Just How Bad is this Ad?

(6 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)