{"id":488,"date":"2006-09-20T15:03:23","date_gmt":"2006-09-20T15:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/bologs\/vng\/marketing-psychosis\/"},"modified":"2006-09-20T15:03:23","modified_gmt":"2006-09-20T15:03:23","slug":"marketing-psychosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/marketing-psychosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Psychosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UnlikeIn celebration of passing the 500 mark on this blog I went to Lewisham hospital this morning for a couple of biopsies – almost certainly nothing serious, I think the guy was more curious than anything else. Lewisham Hospital, or rather “Lewisham University Hospital Trust”, has, like every other former public body, succumbed to Marketing Psychosis; a curious disease that renders the sufferer incapable of distinguishing between reality and a TV advert. Throughout the clean and polished reception area are 5ft glossy banners, each depicting a loyal member of staff or a grateful patient, together with the caption “Choose Lewisham”…in one of those dreadfully tacky handwritingy typefaces.
\nNobody chooses<\/i> Lewisham Hospital do they ? Surely it depends where you collapse, get knocked-down, get stabbed, or where your GP sends you doesn’t it ? Maybe not! Next time I’m in need of hospitalisation, no matter where in the world I am, I’ll make sure to tell the paramedic that I “Choose Lewisham”. Perhaps they should introduce a loyalty card, that they can put little red stamps on every time you get wounded or referred there. They could have a little catalogue of products you can exchange your Lewisham points for, from Witch Hazel to an electric wheelchair.
\n\"nude
\nTwo injections and a few stitches later I was on the 136 heading back home. It seems that not just the hospital, but the whole of Lewisham has Marketing Psychosis – very contagious obviously. Barclays bank have given over their entire front window to a huge blue arrow and the words “The coolest people in the world walk through our doors”. And it would seem that it’s not the only example of grip-loss going on at Barclays<\/a>. Maybe we should try and section the bank manager there ?
\nBut the Pièce de résistance was adorning front of the, recently closed down, “Money Shop”. Closed down because it is relocating to larger premises – at least someone<\/i> is benefitting from the poor and desperate in Lewisham. “The Money Shop<\/a>” which is where you go to cash your magic cheques, even if you have no money in your bank account (for a ludicrously high fee, natch) is genuinely advertising itself using pictures of naked woman, waving fans of £20 notes at you! Look! Naked ladies! Free money! Come in! MONEY! NUDE LADIES! You couldn’t make it up….etc ad nausiam…<\/p>\n

BTW – I wrote a huge and depressing chunk about aging and decrepitude, but I took it out – you don’t deserve to sit through that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In celebration of passing the 500 mark on this blog I went to Lewisham hospital this morning for a couple of biopsies – almost certainly nothing serious, I think the guy was more curious than anything else. Lewisham Hospital, or rather “Lewisham University Hospital Trust”, has, like every other former public body, succumbed to Marketing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}