Monday 27 October 2008

Cultural Confusion

So, Sunday night on Croatian TV is a bit of a shocker (What?! You don’t honestly expect me to be in the archives all the time?). To the untrained eye and unsophisticated ear the following occurs at about 8pm:

Bar scene peopled with buxom wenches of an age where the phrase “mutton dressed as lamb” might just about be applicable. Rather down-at-heel men surround them and engage in what must be terribly humorous banter, judging by the lashings of canned laughter, between each other and the aforementioned bar wenches. Lager of some variety seems to be the social lubricant of the scenario. Occasionally and seemingly without warning, scene change occurs and we have a band appear in the bar led by a lady lip-synching songs of great passion, while a couple of girls in short skirts in the background gyrate and sway in an unconvincing manner. The band members also seem to be down-at-heel men. An audience (purveyors of fine canned laughter?) sways its arms in time to the music, in contrast to the girls in short skirts, and much merriment is had by all.

Scene change either back to witty banter of hospitality-providing wenches and clientele or to another down-at-heel man wielding a ladder and trying to interview in a mixture of Croatian, German and Italian, a dashing young man with no hair who may or may not be a football player of South American extraction.
Then back to the dodgy band singing what I am sure is exactly the same tune as before but must be different as the lead singer has changed her frock. Dancing girls in short skirts are still as uncoordinated as a new-born pug but have added a twirl to their limited repertoire of motion, much to the whooping delight of the audience. And then back to the wenches and clientele...etc etc etc

I really think I may be missing something. Is this possibly like that Mr Bean episode with the New Year’s party, the one remaining twiglet, a pot of Marmite and a twig? Unless you have had the cultural exposure to know ...


a) What a Twiglet is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiglets)

b) What Marmite is (http://www.marmite.com/)
c) Who Mr Bean is (unfortunately one of the most worryingly pervasive British cultural exports of the late 20th C so I shall assume a hunter gatherer of the darkest Amazon has probably been exposed to and maybe even died of “Mr Bean”. A bit like small pox really.)


... there is not a hope in hell in understanding why a grown man is dipping a twig into what looks like an industrial lubricant of some form and then trying to offer it to his unwitting guest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U24g88GNgMI The twiglet gag kicks off at about the 3rd minute.


Any thoughts on the Croatian TV programme would be greatly appreciated.