Monkey business

The logo of the brand (sic) new Democratic Party here in Italy has been reminding me of something for some time. I realised what it was today. As if that wasn't enough, the woolly monkey now used to advertise PG Tips looks vaguely like the leader of the PD, Walter Veltroni. You don't believe me? Take a look...

On the left, we have the lovable knitted monkey. On the right, we have the only man capable of saving us, maybe, from the fifth Berlusconi government. And it'll take more than a nice hot cuppa to digest that. But both of them have that anxious, yearning look as though about to be deprived of something they deserve...

(And while I'm here, I suppose we now have the woolly chimp rather than the family of real ones that used to do the PG Tips ads when I was young to avoid accusations of cruelty to animals or, even worse, anthropomorphic exploitation of animals for advertising purposes. Or maybe we're simply seen as more infantile than in the past, and being pandered to. Still, the PG Tips monkey is pretty sophisticated when compared with those other knitted things, practically limbless rectangles with crudely human features, that jump in and out of cars, dance, bounce up and down, have sex and keep shouting C'mon. And no, I don't mean the Backstreet Boys.)