Christmas Coffee Cups

A few posts ago, I was ranting about coffee cups and Christmas as a marketing ploy.  Thinking about it, it’s only natural that coffee shops should have seasonal cups.  They’ve been trying to personalise the coffee experience, just like the cola companies have been trying to, and so no wonder that they changed the design of their beverage containers to make us think ‘ahhh, lovely, let me guzzle this and go out and buy another, this is fun!’.

It does lead me to wonder why the hell aren’t these people making a bit more of an effort during the rest of the year.  Christmas is not the main Christian holiday, Easter is, and so why don’t we have special; designs for Easter.  Or for other seasons or holiday, God knows the shops seem pretty bloody keen to sell us stuff related to Halloween, why not cups and cola cans too.  (Honourable exception here, Krispy Kreme, they make one hell of an effort.  I don’t know what’s in that orange icing they use, but it’s practically a legal high).

Given the drive for personalisation of your gulping experience by cola companies and coffee shops alike it is unsurprising that they seek to make the experience special with a seasonally decorated beverage holder.

Gentleman & Player’s favourite though is, you will be unsurprised to learn, the Waitrose coffee cup.

Let’s pause for a second to consider the Waitrose beverage.  If you have a ‘My Waitrose’ card (which is one of those customer loyalty cards that allows, depending on your point of view, either you to get reward points and vouchers and special offers or for the store to build up a profile of you based on your shopping meaning they know what you eat, what you drink, when you go on holiday, what birth control you use, when you menstruate, and can sell all this to, in ascending order of dreadfulness, other companies, foreign powers or Our Own Government!) you can get a free tea or coffee every day.  The idea is of course that you go in there thinking ‘just a free coffee, just a free coffee’, start getting your coffee, think ‘must…be…strong’ and then exit with at the very least a pastry and more likely a 42 inch telly.  Such is the acknowledged power of going to the shops for a bottle of HP sauce and coming back with an HP printer.

The Waitrose seasonal coffee cup is…it’s…well…it’s very Waitrose.  It’s a white reindeer and seasonal scene on a green background.

Two things.

Firstly, tradition.  Apparently, before the evil elves at the marketing department of a certain cola company got busy, the traditional colours of Christmas were green and white, not red and white.  This makes sense, as we have green Christmas trees in the house and the only red traditionally on offer is the breast of a robin and the claret spilled during the traditional family punch up (always after the Queen’s Speech, we’re not savages).

Secondly, it’s just so very classy and understated.

But surely they can do more.  Costa have four different characters, with the occasional variation, Waitrose can turn a cup into a collectable.

Obviously, a simple red dot on the snout of the animal turns a random reindeer into a beloved character.

A tartan bow, and we have a wee ‘Monarch of the Glen’ moment.

For our American Friends, who think nature is best admired when mounted on the wall of their double-wide trailer, a cross hairs on the forehead.  Actually, that’s the Scottish stalking method, if it’s an American, it’ll be a green haze and a line of print along the bottom that reads ‘cluster bomb option selected’.

I actually rather liked the Waitrose coffee cup.  Possibly because it was full of free coffee but probably because it was astatically pleasing.  The reindeer in question actually looked quite jolly, the green (Waitrose corporate colour though it was) was understated but festive, and appropriate, it was the sort of green you might encounter in nature.  Possibly in woods where fir trees grow.  Possibly at night, armed with a hacksaw, I couldn’t possibly comment.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

If you needed reminding that the festive season is upon us, you need look no further than your beverage cup.  Cola companies, of course, have a long tradition of festive cans, one even going as far as to adopt the festive colours of red and white as a permanent design feature of their cans (although there is a story that the red and white we now associate with Christmas is in fact a result of that particular cola company imposing their company colour scheme on the season.  Frankly, although the idea is cynical, it’s believable as, asked the questions ‘do you believe in Father Christmas?’ and ‘do you believe those bastards in marketing would even try to hi-jack Christmas for their own evil ends?’, I know which of the two I would be more confident in answering in the affirmative.  Having said that, if a cola company was responsible for the clothing colours of any character beloved of children, then, given the sugar content of the stuff they peddle, I’d of thought the tooth fairy would be a better example).

Cola cans now come in festive designs and, if you like that sort if thing, it’s all very jolly.  Ho Ho Ho.

But the fun doesn’t stop with a tin can.  Coffee cups now come with Christmas characters on them.  Costa are an excellent example of this, with four different designs of paper beaker, a snowman, a reindeer, an elf I think and, possibly, Santa.  Given the design limitations of a receptacle that, to be at all useful, has to have a rather abrupt straight edge to the top, they all look like beloved characters that have been in an industrial accident, but they are sort of jolly all the same.

Naturally, as soon as I saw them, I wanted to ‘collect the set’.  Be advised, drinking four cups of coffee in one day is sensational for productivity, next to useless for producing anything of worth.  You may well be typing like a demon, but the word ‘wheeeeeeeeee’, with another 274 ‘ees’ is not, as I soon discovered, acceptable content for an e mail or text.  At least not on its own.

In case you are wondering, coffee saturation is not best dealt with by drinking alcohol in a classic ‘you give a drunk guy coffee, so it’s best to give an over-stimulated fellow booze, right?’.  That’s the sort of idea you have after your forth store-bought latte.  I discovered.  It doesn’t work.

Elsewhere, the commercial signs of Christmas are everywhere.  The worse thing about them…they work.

Day to day, I have very little interest in port.  If I am at a restaurant and am having the cheese board, I’ll probably order a glass because a socially acceptable way to drink fortified wine and gives you the necessary courage to try the stilton brooding thuggishly and untouched at the end of the slate of cheeses that these bloody people insist you eat from left to right.  However, wandering down the ‘seasonal’ aisle of the supermarket at Christmas (in effect, the entire shop), if I see a half bottle, boxed with a cheese knife and a cheese board, I want it.  I don’t need it, I don’t particularly like it, but I want it.

The same goes for whisky.  I feel manipulated, I should not be thinking ‘must…have…scotch’ just because it comes packaged with a couple of engraved glasses.

In days of yore, Christmas was heralded by perfume adverts on telly (switching, at 5:30 on Christmas Eve, to holiday adverts, because in yore, Dads earned the money and had to be told how to spend it), now, it’s the same stuff you walk past every day, in a new box, that lets you know that the season of peace and goodwill to all men, and especially consumers, is upon us.

Fuck you too C**e C**a, you don't know me either

Not so very long ago, seeing your name in print was a Very Big Thing, especially if it was for the right reasons rather than as a result of your name appearing in newspaper story titled ‘Convent School Flasher Apprehended’.  Even today, certain Sunday newspapers, not all tabloids, contain little glossy magazines you can order personalised items from.  Golf balls seem to be a speciality, although surely it would be simpler to change your name to ‘Slazenger’.  There’s a cottage industry, presumably, stamping initials on everything from handkerchiefs to corkscrews.  The same sort of chap who has his initials on his jumper probably has them, or a close approximation, on his car’s number plate.  But if you don’t have a tiny cock, there are acceptable uses for personalisation, such as school kit or, well, that’s about it really.  And of course where your name appears is all important, for instance, on a car parking space, probably good, on a cell door, probably bad.

Recently, Starbucks started to ask you your name, rank and serial number when you ordered a coffee, and so it came to pass that a lot of immigrant, minimum wage workers learned first hand that the English can be a surly, belligerent but oddly creative bunch first thing in the morning before they have had their coffee.  Either that, or ‘Fuksake’ is a really, really popular first name.

Where one beverage giant wanders, another aimlessly trundles after, and so we have the personalised cola bottle.

That’s right, a cola company has decided to add a little bit of soul to a product that is, if the ingredients are to be believed, water, sugar, more sugar, syrup and a colour to turn the entire thing the shade your piss goes after a three day fast.  OK, so that may not be exactly the ingredients, but I can’t be arsed to fetch a bottle and check for myself.

Cola is suffering something of an identity crisis itself.  During the adverts it’s drunk by attractive people.  When the adverts end and it’s back to ‘Britain’s fattest slobs’ it’s drunk, by the gallon, by fatties who are crying either shame, or because they have a self-righteous teevee presenter screaming at them.

Now though, somebody who had obviously drunk far too much fizzy pop for breakfast decided to put names on cola bottles.  This is genius!  You can actually drink out of a bottle that has your name on it or, even better, drink from a bottle with somebody else’s name on it.  How subversive is that?

The upshot of this is that there are now three categories of cola drinker.  The first is the ‘don’t give a shit whose name is on the bottle’ type.  The second is the sort who will look through the stock to see if their name is there, and be a little bit disappointed if it’s not.  Finally, and also my favourite, are the people who will choose the most interesting name, often of the opposite sex, just like in the early days of internet chat rooms.  Surely nothing is more impressive than the sight of a hairy arsed tattooed, bearded bloke builder sucking on a bottle labelled ‘Marjory’.  It’s so wrong it’s right!

Like everything that comes out of the boardroom, there’s room for conspiracy here, so certain names are forbidden no doubt (so (more) bad luck if you have the misfortune to be called ‘Adolf’) whilst there is probably no chance of you, or more likely your servants, finding a bottled labelled ‘Crispin’.

I am actually all for personalisation of beverage containers.  I remember years ago a Scottish beer company used to adorn their cans with, I understand the technical phrase is, ‘dolly birds’.  Collect the set and become a harmless alcoholic with a soft porn gallery that you will one day display on ‘Antiques Roadshow’, rather than a sugar fuelled rage machine because the shop has run out of ‘Jimmies’.

Although, obviously, if you should see a ‘Kylie’, you must purchase it at once and keep it about your person at all times, so that should you ever chance to meet the Aussie songstress/goddess you have an opening line other than ‘er….er….er…’

Cheers!

Merry February

Post Christmas

During the festive season, friends and family are greeted with the question ‘keeping up the Christmas?’, meaning: ‘it is ten o’clock in the morning, with the day now in double figures, have you had a drink yet?’. Keeping up the Christmas conveys well the situation when it comes to food and drink at this time of year. Essentially the last normal meal anyone has is Christmas dinner, thereafter everyone just tucks into what is essentially a thinning selection of leftovers until it is time to supplement it with cheese, ham, pickle and of course, a constant flow of booze.

Certainly the Christmas season was extended this year. Thanks to the snow in December bringing postal deliveries to a grinding halt, people were still getting the Christmas cards and presents delivered in mid-January.

One of the odder ways in which a Christmas continuation manifests itself is the availability of Christmas branded stuff after Christmas. I’m not talking about actual Christmas leftovers, no, they are all reduced in price by about 75% and fly of the shelves as hoards of shoppers pick up cards, wrapping and baubles, baubles, baubles. What I mean is the ordinary stuff that, around Christmas time, is sold in Christmas packaging, cola being the prime example. In December the familiar red and white can usually sports a grinning bloke in a beard and this is all very jolly in the count down to Christmas. Mid-January though, when the vending machine is still spitting out cans decorated with bewhiskered old men, all it serves to do is to turn the January blues positively indigo.

This year much was made of the early appearance of Easter eggs in the shops. This was a good way of getting a lot of free publicity and was also excellent for those us who were going into chocolate withdrawal by 29 December after all the selection boxes had been emptied, chocolate coins cashed in and things were getting so desperate that one starts eyeing up the chocolate with nuts in it.

With Easter eggs being available in December and the weather in April sometimes including a festive looking dusting of snow, there is I think a justification for making novelty chocolate snowmen available at Easter.

Then again, perhaps the attitude to adopt to ensure a smooth transition from one religious holiday to another is to say sod the chocolate and crack open the sherry.