I've been playing a lot of video games and catching up on NETFLIX television shows that I've missed in the past 10 years--not many, but they have been surprisingly good ones.
I've just started watching Mad Men... about the advertising business (sort of) during the early 1960s.
Strange that I never watched it before.... I had always wanted to be an ad man... creating copy for brands... but I never pursued it really.
While I was in university here in Toronto, I took night school classes at Humber College (before I went there for day-school for journalism). I took marketing and advertising courses... and needed just one more course to graduate... but then I graduated university after five long years and immediately went into journalism... and was serious enough about it to concentrate on it, and it alone... except for still coaching women's soccer and teaching piano and clarinet to pay for school and all those date I imagined I would have (but didn't).
Even now, 20 years removed from my last days in Japan, I still view advertisements and judge them on their merits or flaws. If you watch tv nowadays, men are a lot more stupid than they have ever been in the commercials, which is fine since women still do the majority of the purchasing.
Which brings me to 1955 and a copy of the October 20, Nippon Times that was sent to me by Vinnie.
That's it above.... Saridon for head pain relief.
I can't relate... even though I have probably out-drunk many a sailor and Japanese business man in my day. I just don't get hangovers... and only after getting mu nose straightened for a deviated septum - thought it would help correct my sleep apnea (it didn't), whenever the weather changed and it was going to rain heavily... I would get a headache.
But that hasn't happened much over the past three years. No idea why, as I only just realized that.
I used to watch many a Japanese male teacher suffer at school the next day after they dared to take me out for a drink or two ( times six, it would invariably be)... and they would be sucking back asprin and energy drinks and other wonder drugs purported to cure the headache du jour.
According to Wikipedia: Saridon is an analgesic combination indicated for the management of headache, and contains propyphenazone, paracetamol and caffeine, and is said to act just like an asprin. It was first launched by Roche in 1933, containing initially pyrithyldione and phenacetin, widely used remedies for fever and pain. It often took on the form “A.P.C” (aspirin-phenacetin-caffeine) but Saridon was reformulated in 1981; replacing the original ingredient phenacetin with paracetamol before the US FDA recall in 1983. It is available in more than 80 countries across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa.
So... apparently it works on a hangover headache... though aside from moderation, the best thing to do is to rehydrate yourself afterward to kiss the headache goodbye. Or so I hear.
I am reprinting the ad contained within the newspaper (on Page 2) because it brings back memories of Japan.
I have actually seen men in Japan beating their heads with their fist while whining about their drinking head... which was always funny to me (not to them) because I always seemed fine enough to piss them off with my stamina or good genes or ability to drink, get drunk and never learn from my mistake attitude.
Is this a good ad? Sort of. It at least grabs your attention... but with the pill box open nearby, it looks like the man in the ad is still suffering as there are imaginary glasses and bottles of booze floating about his tormented head. I suppose it's a warning advertisement... don't let this happen to you, but if it does, get relief.
Something cool and refreshing from me tomorrow... that won't be a piece right out of history.
Cheers (why do you think I write this all the time?)
Andrew (because I was born in England) Joseph
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