HH! passion

Right then – here we go with the first entry in the Hyperbole Hitlist.

passion
When you’re selling something nowadays – whether it be products, policies, whatever – it seems that you have to be ‘passionate’ about it, otherwise no-one will want it. You can’t just “sell” something; that something has to be your “passion”.

Some examples:

1. Gordon Brown in several speeches (including his keynote speech at the Labour Party conference) towards the end of 2007 – “education is my passion”.

Is it? Is it really? What does Mrs Brown have to say about that then? “Sorry sweetheart, no nudey prod games for you tonight – my passion is education, not you.”

2. Some pet food company (that’s right, they simply sell dog food) who advertise on the telly – “your pet is our passion”.

Get the fuck away from my pet, you sickos. I’m not passionate about my pet, so the fact that you claim to be just scares me. And anyway, my pet died last year – it got run over by a car. Because my pet was, supposedly, your passion, I waited and waited for you to organise a wake, or perhaps to track down the person driving the car and kill them (in a crime of passion – do you see?). You didn’t even send us a fucking card.

On no, hold a moment, you’re lying aren’t you? You simply want to sell me overpriced pet food. Perhaps your tagline should be “we’re interested in robbing you blind by overcharging for some mashed up, freeze-dried chicken arses”. Unfortunately, that probably isn’t misleading enough.

I don’t want my Prime Minister to be “passionate” about education. I don’t even want the Education Secretary to be passionate about it. Or teachers. Just because education is important, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t mundane. And people who claim to be passionate about mundane stuff are just wrong, or just lying. The same goes for pet food too. Arseholes.

What happens to these people when they find something that truly deserves their passion? Do they explode in seething mass of passion-squared? I sincerely hope so.

If you know of any ridiculous claims of passion, then please feel free to leave them on here as a comment. Ta very much.