Big Brother won't save our post offices
Big Brother is playing with out minds. There is a sinister side to that People's Post Office advertising campaign that is more than just patronising - it is a downright lie.
Annoying twerp Ken who fronts the ads is not a cardboard cutout but a real life actor called John Henshaw. Yet step inside the self-delusional world of the Post Office website and you are invited into Ken's staff room to learn more about the made-up characters as if they were real.
In a poor rip off of David Brent's The Office, a pretend journalist - another cynical marketing tool stunt to aid the deceit, interviews four actors. Ken not only has a phoney CV but a Facebook entry that makes you wonder whether he should be anywhere near small children, let alone run a post office that does not exist.
For those in the real world that Big Brother video shows a level of delusion that requires medical help. 'One or two people are what you call the ordinary public,' explains Ken about his customers. Quite.
Then there is Jill, his pretend middle-aged assistant, who also seems far more interested in passing 'celebrities' - and maybe Ken's roaming hands. Or perhaps Jill is just desperate to escape playing bit parts in such dreadful adverts and is keen to join the B-listers. Others are a strategically placed ethnic minority Amir - a group who just happen to be the backbone of our beleaguered branch network - and a retarded youngster called Ted who gibbers about Bill Oddie's duck whistle.
This great value entertainment is all part of the £10m being thrown away by the Post Office to sell itself to, uh... itself, rather than help the struggling branches. Oh, and if you visit the revamped www.postoffice.co.uk website take a magnifying glass to the bottom right hand corner of the page and press 'Network change update' for a hint of what is really going on - branch cuts.
Toby Walne
toby@walne.co.uk
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