Sunday, January 27, 2008

It pays to advertise

I'm reading Nadeem Aslam's absorbing "Maps For Lost Lovers". I love it when there are signs that writers have been carrying round little nuggets from real life, looking for places to set them down. As in this:
He raises a hand in greeting to a plumber from Calcutta whose van bears the legend, You've tried the cowboys, now try the Indian.....

5 comments:

  1. That's also the slogan of a plumbers somewhere in England, as noted in the Guardian letters page on two occasions in the past few years.

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  2. And also an Indian restaurant in Andalucia...

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  3. Anonymous12:54 pm

    My favourite: "L.U.K.E. Scaffolding - for a better erection"

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  4. Anonymous9:52 pm

    My favourite was from my native Scotland - a potato merchant called Mair whose slogan was "Eat Mair tatties".

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  5. Anonymous10:10 pm

    I worked with a gentleman of Caribbean extraction some years ago who looked around the factory full of 'synergy', 'joined up thinking', 'helicopter views' and the like and sighed "You know what the problem with this place is? Too many chiefs and not enough West Indians..."

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