I've really begun noticing how much less advertising seems to effect me here. Maybe not less of an effect - it is just different. I guess because I am simply unfamiliar with a fair amount of the shared culture. The other day there was an advertisement on the side of the bus that seemed to rely on the viewer recognizing the face of a guy, but I had no idea who he was (I think it was probably a soccer player, maybe?) so it just kind of went past me. It's both calming (less anxiety to buy things) and disorienting - I instantly feel more foreign when it happens, like my non-local-ness has been examined and found unworthy.
Advertising can be affirmative and reassuring - it lets you feel a part of a common culture (I remember several years ago some teenage girls remarking at how 'clever' a billboard that simply had "3" on it was, recognizing it was an ad for the dreadful Pirates of the Caribbean movie). But at the same time, there's often an exclusionary aspect to it, though even those that don't quite understand it - the excluded ones - it has an effect on them, right? You feel the anxiety about not quite fitting in and you more readily allow yourself to be influenced.
I'm hosting a dinner for some friends and was sort of solemnly looking around for some bbq ingredients - I wasn't holding my breath for some of them - but I really perked up when I saw the darkest, stickiest brown sugar I've ever seen. And it was dirt cheap (at least for London). Brown sugar is brown because of molasses, and this has so much of those same deep, dark, beautiful flavors of molasses. Absolutely fantastic stuff.
