The Elegant Venus

"That poster's disgusting."

The BF looked up from his phone.  "What is?"

"That.  It's obscene.  It's like something out of a porno."

He squinted at me quizzically.  "What's wrong with it?  It's a girl on a beach."

"You don't think that picture's smutty?"  Now it was my turn to look quizzical.  How could he not see it?  It was utterly obvious to me that this was the first shot of some X-rated epic, and now Merseyrail were using it to flog Family Tickets. That's right, Family Tickets.  I found myself bristling in a distinctly Whitehouse fashion.

He stared at the poster, properly stared, stared for so long I began to feel a bit uncomfortable and was convinced that our fellow passengers would think he was a pervert.  Finally, he said, "There's absolutely nothing wrong with it."

We moved on, but that poster stayed with me.  Why was I the only one who could see it?  And then, last weekend, it suddenly came to me.  I realised what I was seeing.

Honeychile Rider, by George Almond
Taken from 007 Magazine, Winter 1989

It was a naked girl, with her back to him.  She was not quite naked.  She wore a broad leather belt around her waist with a hunting knife in a leather sheaf at her right hip... She stood not more than five yards away on the tideline looking at something in her hand.  She stood in the classical relaxed pose of the nude, all the weight on the right leg and the left knee bent and turning slightly inwards, the head to one side as she examined the things in her hand.

Merseyrail were printing a picture of a happy woman on a day trip to Southport.  I was seeing Honeychile Rider, naked, from the novel of Dr No.  That's my go-to image when I see a female at the water's edge: a Bond Girl.  I was basically undressing that woman with my eyes.

I cannot apologise enough.

Fuel Dump

I'm quite impressed by Merseyrail's new advertising campaign.  You've probably seen the posters all over the network, telling you how much you could save if you went by train instead of rail.  Apparently you could save enough for a cruise, or something.

The problem with a poster in a train station is you're preaching to the converted.  They've already bought a ticket.  So Merseyrail have taken the war to where it'll hurt motorists the most: the petrol pumps.

This was at Sainsbury's in Upton earlier this evening.  How effective it is would be another matter.  The Bf was doing the filling up, and he didn't notice it at all.  He was too busy staring at the price of the petrol.

Nice try though.

It Doesn't Take A Genius

She's a scientist, see? She's got a conical flask there. You can't really see it, because it's on the extreme right of the picture and it's made of glass, but it's there. Plus she's using a pipette. Again you can't really see it, because it's transparent, and there's black behind it, and her hand is actually cropped off the top so you can't see her holding it, but it's there. Just squint a bit. I know your eye is naturally drawn to the pretty girl in the middle, but move beyond that.

And yes, she is a scientist, not a schoolgirl. I know the minute you see a young woman in a white shirt fiddling with scientific equipment you automatically assume she's a schoolgirl, because there are a lot more episodes of Waterloo Road and Grange Hill out there than Young Women Chemists, but that's your prejudice, and you should put it to one side. Also she looks very young. But no; she's a scientist, and so she is a genius.

Geniuses use public transport too. Richard Dawkins practically lives on the Tube. Tim Berners-Lee has an annual season ticket. Stephen Hawking would be all over the buses if he could get his wheelchair on board. So a genius needs to get to work, and there's sciency genius type work happening in Port Sunlight. Involving pipettes. You see Port Sunlight on a poster, and you think heritage, tea-rooms and charming little houses. Well there's more to it than that: there's a blooming great ugly chemical factory too.

So the premise is this: genius scientist girl has to get to work at Port Sunlight so she can fiddle with pipettes and stare intensely into the middle distance, no doubt calculating how to spend her Nobel Prize winnings. So she uses a Railpass, or a Trio, or a Solo season ticket to get there. Because she's clever, you see?

BUT!!! You - yes, even you - can use these marvellous forms of transport too. You, a mere plebian, who has no access to conical flasks, can wield a Railpass at your leisure. Run along to a travel centre and you too can be like genius scientist girl, though probably with tackier lipstick.

And that is the message you should be getting from this poster. Definitely not "this girl is unbelievably thick, but even she can work out where Port Sunlight is". Definitely not that.