The Campaign Poster Debaffler: 6 – The Road Goes Ever On & On…

And so it begins. The most important, epoch-defining, potentially-apocalyptic election since Cain went up against Abel for Emperor of the Trans-Quantum-Multiverse. Blood will flow. Tears will…also flow. Heads will be cracked open with stones. Public discourse will be stained with brain matter and crimson gore. Yay!

To celebrate these imminent and delicious horrors, I’m cranking up the old “Campaign Poster Debaffler” and taking a critical squint at the images that will soon surround and suffocate us. What are they saying? What are they…meaning? Who told that guy that a paisley tie was a good idea with a pinstripe suit? Answers will be found here. And nowhere else.

First up is this pre-emptive (and illegal?) beauty from a dynamic, Waterford-ian, FG tag-team.Courtesy of the bould Derek Troy.

Bland and yawn-inducing at first glance, but look deeper. Look deeper. Firstly, we have a classical dark/fair, good/evil, fairytale dyad. Voters lap up archetypal shit like this. The fusion of opposites. The (badly-needed) lolz of a buddy movie.

Secondly, behold the romantic and evocative image of the open road. Or, upon closer inspection, the somewhat less romantic and less evocative image of the open bypass or dual-carriageway. Still, it runs off into the future: hinting at a pristine, Autobahnish, EU-topia perhaps. Or, more problematically, suggesting a bullish, M3-lovin’, “Fuck you” attitude toward (Lia Fáil-humping) Hill of Tara whingers.

Fine Gael – they’ll take a big, stinking shit on our ancient national heritage(s), but (on the totes plus side) we’ll get to our work-stations 20 minutes earlier. While listening to a Kraftwerk/Planxty mash-up remix on our Bang & Olufsen car stereos (a poignant throwback to the ostentatious, big salad days of odious Celtic Tiger cuntitude).

More soon.