Open happiness

Old charm, nostalgia…, it’s cola Christmas, tis the season to celebrate and to go shopping for presents, although unfortunately, as the 'little girl who has become a woman' in the ad does, you might have to carry them all around awkwardly in your hand (carrier bags don’t look so cool). But it’s okay, in spite of that and of the overwhelming crowds in Oxford Street, you are still in the mood to smile and make your rosy cheeks glow at the chance encounter with cola Santa; and lucky you, you still have a free hand to grab his nicely shaped cola bottle (Freudian connotations at work).

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Coca-cola: Open happiness
Lascotts Road, N22
London

Who is Salt?

Every morning I used to walk past this poster on my way to work and every time I thought to myself what a profoundly uninspiring poster it was, even giving it the benefit of the possible subliminal reading of the shape of hands and gun as Angelina’s so much desired genitalia (you just need to squint your eyes and adopt a reasonably suspicious attitude). Even with that, there is nothing to the poster but the stale old-school star-system appeal of a famous and arch-sexy Hollywood actress.
Maybe because of that, maybe a bit self-aware of their dullness, the creators decided to enhance the poster a bit by throwing in that explicit question: “Who is Salt?”. But I could only agree with the answer a fellow citizen scribbled on the actual display: “who cares?”.

Incidentally, I could not help to grin at the fact that someone –maybe someone whose intelligence felt defiled– had decided to ‘intervene’ with the ad, an intervention which I find to be an illegal but surely legitimate act: does not the public space belong to the public after all?


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Columbia Films: Who is Salt?
High Road, N22
London