Draw a big yellow M in the air in front of any under 16 and there will be an unequivocal response. It will involve a sheepish grin- because our school education system quite rightly frowns at this global corporation’s ability to provide sustained, day-to-day nutrition; and probably a request to visit the nearest outlet.
And I haven’t even given it a name yet.
There is no shortage of outlets: from Кирпичный пер., 6, г. Санкт-Петербург, Saint Petersburg, to Ernest Oppenhein Street, Johannesburg, you will find a MacDonalds in most places. The burger corporation has stretched its long yellow fingers across the globe bringing an inimitable version of Uncle Sam’s cuisine to the nations.
A trainer with a slick tick on it will inspire similar recognition.
I counted at least 15 stores which sell Nike in Mumbai, India. Surely, I thought, great inscrutable China would not stoop to host the athletic but steadfastly capitalist footwear?
There’s a store at 三里屯, Chaoyang, Beijing.
Once upon a time, a brand was an immoveable, indelible mark, which was often accompanied by pain.
The brand of Cain is an ancient tale involving blood-guilt. The Oxford Dictionary defines the ancient uses of branding thus: “burn with hot iron, penally, or to show ownership or quality.”
It’s not nice provenance for the word bandied about by our huge corporations.
These days, says OED, a brand is more likely to be labelling with a trademark: and more tellingly, impressing on the memory.
The brands are as insidious as they are predators on our subconscious. We love them, we feel comfortable with the routine they provide. They lull us.
And when we least expect it they leap out of our subconscious, as part of our culture as the folksongs which once told our stories.
As my cat demonstrated so ably today.
Kit-Kat is an old lady. She is attitudinal. She is hard of hearing and every meow is a piercing shriek. She knows what she likes and she is not afraid to demand with menaces to get it. In her last incarnation she was a thugee. She takes no prisoners.
A year ago I wrote a heartfelt prose-ode to the creature who has dominated the last 17 years of our family’s life. It may well be her last Summer, I wallowed. And here she is sprinting for Autumn 2011 with no sign of slowing.
She is, however, becoming increasingly eccentric.
She has taken to ascending the stairs at three in the morning, shrieking for her breakfast. She demands food all day, every day, with her customary menaces. This morning we were mercilessly harangued. I said to Phil: “Oh, shall we just give her a bowl of milk? Will that assuage her?”
“Yes”, he intoned solemnly. “But she doesn’t like full cream milk. Only semi skimmed will do. Her favourite,” he went on, warming nicely to his subject, “is malty milk which has had cereal in it.”
She has the staff well-trained, that one.
She has taken to sleeping in odd places. The garden table, working surfaces, drawers. And she is too deaf to anticipate any approach: when rudely awakened she administers a percussive outraged squawk. Let that, she intimates, be a lesson to you.
We have been having our customary August downpours and hanging washing on a line is not a wise course of action. The tumble drier is not an optional extra in the UK, but an essential.
I emptied the washing machine and prepared a load for the drier. But when I turned to the little round Hobbit-like door I found it was engaged.
Two baleful amber eyes stared out at me. Kit Kat had settled herself comfortably on warm towels, and this was her territory now. Humans, it was clear, could back off. End of.
A fearsome feline face protruding from a circular hole . Remind you of anyone?
Metro Goldwn Meyer’s lion is often credited to Lionel Reiss, a Polish-American Jewish painter who grew up in Manhattan. He became art director at Paramount Studios, the story goes, and created a great, strident roaring lion which has always knocked Rank’s bloke with a gong and 20th Century Fox’s spotlit logo into a cocked hat.
The lion is surrounded by a regal coat of arms fashioned out of celluloid: and above its head is a rather wonderful logo: ‘Ars gratia artis’, or ‘Art for art’s sake’.
The lion has prefaced some of the epoch making films of our time: Ben Hur; Gone With The Wind, Showboat, Singing in the Rain, the list goes on: is it any wonder their brand was the first thing that leapt into the mind of an English housewife when her cat stuck its head out of the tumble dryer?
And Kit Kat even roared territorially. I swear, if you speeded up Leo’s roar it would come out as Kit Kat ‘s outraged yowl.
MGM: My Geriatric Moggie.
Written in response to Side View’s Weekend Theme: Advertising. Mosey on over there and join the fun!
Kate Shrewsday 
I love pets with personality and I love the way you link random things.
Strong personalities like this are only a few every lifetime, I think, Tilly…thanks 🙂
Isn’t she awesome, Kate? My last cat, Snow, lived to almost 20 years old so Kit-Kat still has some to go and she looks very healthy still. Poor Snow got thinner and thinner despite Vit B injections – just old age – and nothing we could do… But she had had a good life!
Denise, that’s lovely news. Odd as our old dowager is becoming, she will leave a very big hole when she goes.
what a wonderful cat she is!
I saw the MGM lion in the NgoraNgora crater in Tanzania. Lying just right, his profile was as needed. Then he yawned, not the roar of anticipation for the movie to come, but boredom at us tourists, interfering with his view.
The power of advertising to put a name to a picture is quite scary really. Yet I must admit I have never eaten a big Mac, nor worn Nikes (or even tried them on). Maybe I’m one of those who gets nasty when confronted with the buy-buy pressure of adverts.
You must be in that illusive top five per cent which is immune to advertising, Sidey 🙂 I write this on my Apple keyboard, flanked by my iPhone and iPad. Clearly, I am not in that percentage….
That’s a fantastic picture, just to start out with–and nobody’s ever accused a cat of not knowing who’s in charge.
Cheers Connor 😀 She’s really a frustrated kitty model….and as you say, she is quite clear on who wears the trousers round here.
Love that photo!
The cat’s the star of the show today, Sharon 😀
I would not care to try to evict Kit Kat from her hobbit hole. 😀
Cats are grand creatures ~ designed to keep us humble in the face of deity.
I am sure that’s why the Ancient Egyptians loved them so much, Nancy 🙂
(Another) highly amusing post, Kate. I so admire the way you weave your information. It’s not often I can see which way a post’s going! Most enjoyable.
Glad you enjoyed it: Kit Kat chose the subject matter today…
I could do with a bit less pet personality in this house at the moment but aha, inspiration for a blog post! I love the MGM history of which i was totally unaware. Thanks Kate.
I’m looking forward to that post, Tammy 🙂 CXan’t wait to see how the animals in your life fit in with your rather wonderful lifestyle…
Oh, great post, Kate, and great photo too! It’s the ‘don’t mess with me’ stare, even though she isn’t looking directly, that shows she’s in charge, and she knows what she is doing.
I don’t know how old Spudley is, but she has us wrapped around her little fingers / digits (whatever they’re called!), and even more so now since she has started to speak English.
Cats definitely, and always, know what they are doing…
That last sentence, Tom: that has me hooked. Spudley can speak English: a jewel amongst cats. Maybe we could arrange a little tutoring: it’s never too late for us to catch up on what’s in Kit-Kat’s Ming The Merciless mind…
I don’t think Spudley knows that she is speaking English… I think that she is trying to greet us in the same way that we greet her, so she says “Wewwo” rather than “Miaow” when she sees us. Although once, when we hadn’t seen her for a few days, we asked her where she had been, and she answered “Wew We Wew”, which we interpreted as ‘everywhere’.
You really don’t have to be mad, but it helps at times… 😉
A truly accomplished cat: you remind me of a rather special Siamese I once owned who use to talk a bit like the Martians in Mars Attacks: but with raucous affection. I think he truly felt he was talking and we were rather slow to understand.
What a terrific and imperial looking kittie! love her! Cats as they age become more and more queen- or king-like! They take on the air of one who believes that the world does inded owe them a living1 I generally love them al lthe more for it! Our longest-lived cat was 17 when he died. He definitely ruled the roost. However, my brother had a wonderful cat, “Sanka” (he was black with a little “cream” on his feet and neck) who lived to be 23 years of age. He got more and more imperious, but also he got quite doddery. It sounds odd to say, but we really think he tired of living and committed suicide. He lay under the tires of the neighbors car, hidden, and waited for the car to drive over him, which is what happened. Since it has been a few years ago, I can sort of smile at it now – after all, he did go quickly, and probably painlessly! He was a great cat. Long live Kit-Kat! When you put Kit-Kat in your mouth do you get a “bang” out of life? (talk about advertising!)
😆
whoops! Just realized I made an error! It’s “Put a Tic-Tac in your mouth and get a “bang out of life!” Here’s the link to the Australian version of that commercial – and the one for Kit-Kat, whose slogan if “Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of your kit-kat bar.” So do you ever ask Kit-Kat to give you a break? Here are those links.
I’ll consider thi my advertising prompt response for Sidey! 😆
http://youtu.be/JO6mVI68Z2o (Tic-Tac)
http://youtu.be/1V7c-jZ4wbg (Kit-Kat) with words from 1994)
http://youtu.be/uv2SaE-2Tr4 (Current Kit-Kat commercial with ounds FX only – I love this one!)
Here you go Sidey!! Advertising an be addictive and annoying. . .
I try not to, Paula, bit furry for my tastes! What a sad little story. They are such characters in our lives…
Poor beautiful old thing has a touch of dementia, Kate, but she’s safe and warm and loved – what more could a moggy ask for?
And you even finish your blog with an advert for Sidey, Kate.!!
Nice blog, though.
And we enjoyed yesterday in spite of – or perhaps more because of – KK’s menaces. She is still nimble, in spite of her years.
Dad
She’s a little so-and-so, Dad 🙂
Oh, I just ADORE this pic, Kate – and the story!! I shall have to let Jina in on Kit-Kat’s secret. I know she would LOVE the warm washing…just as she loves the milk left in the coco pops bowl 😀
Ah, so the cereal thing is a universal cat thing, then, Naomi 🙂 High praise indeed from you on the pic: I have loved your African landscape pictures over the last week or so…
Delicious story telling! And dear Kit-Kat…defying the odds. I like any descriptions of lives long-lived. Our beloved Licorice lived to be 21. Even in his last days he attempted chasing birds, squirrels and possums–catching some to present as prized winnings righ up until the very end. Our son was leaving home for grad school and was away on a brief trip to line up fall housing…dear Licorice chose that time as his departure date. He had been my son’s special buddy since he was two years old. I believe the cat knew their time together was over. Cats are eerily intuitive, aren’t they? Thank you, Kate. You’ve given me a warm smile this afternoon. Debra
They are very clever sometimes, Debar, what a beautiful life story, and thank you for coming along to visit! Licorice had the secret of life: he seized the day. What a wonderful lesson for all of us.
What a wonderful post! There’s nothing like a cat companion, and my two boys are precious to me. I love their little tyrannies and submit with good grace. May Kit Kat rule for years yet!
Amen, Elizabeth…..wonder if there’s any poetry on your site about those two….