Grabbing our attention

Have I got your complete attention yet?


C’mere ‘til I tell ya
Daniel Carey

LAST Tuesday, TV3 aired a programme called ‘Help! I Smell Of Fish’, which looked at the cases of three people who suffer from Fish Odour Syndrome, an incurable condition that causes sufferers to smell of anything from rotting fish to stale sweat. Some who saw the advertisements promoting the programme saw it as proof that television is going to hell in a handcart. Others were intrigued and found the programme strangely compelling.
The programme evoked memories of a show first aired on BBC3 last year entitled ‘Help! My Pet’s As Fat As Me’, in which overweight people went on diets at the same time as their four-legged friends. It did exactly what it said on the tin. And it made me wonder about the ways TV programme-makers, newspaper sub-editors, e-mail writers and musicians attract our attention.
Spam (junk e-mail) is a wonderful source of bizarre titles. Among the items which have recently dropped in my inbox of late are ‘Britney Spears attacked by pet pineapple’, ‘Man bites police car’ and the anatomy-extension offer ‘Put Godzilla’s manhood to shame’. Mind you, I don’t think Godzilla had much of a sex life.
Music is also a great repository of titles. I’ve never heard the album ‘Let’s Put The Axe To The Axis – Songs of World War II, Volume I’, but it includes some of the most imaginative song names in history. As well as the title track, you can look forward to hearing ‘Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet’, ‘Little Bo-Peep Has Lost Her Jeep’ and ‘Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition’.
Many of us in the newspaper industry have a particular fondness for eye-catching headlines. Court cases invariably provide some of the most memorable. The Connacht Tribune’s December 2006 effort ‘Woman claims that man asked her to use castration tool on him’ is hard to top. Other stories from the legal world include ‘Man took refuge in cupboard during pub raid’ (from an old Westmeath Independent) and ‘Ballinamuck man threw curry chips at restaurant manager’ (from a February 2006 edition of the Longford Leader).
Religion can also throw up headings which convince even those of a non-spiritual bent to read the stories below. The aforementioned chip-throwing story would normally be a shoe-in for headline of the week at the Longford Leader. But it faced stiff competition in that particular issue from a short item about one boy’s dream entitled ‘Brian wants to become Pope’. Similarly, those not normally given to picking up a copy of the Catholic newspaper Alive! might have been tempted when they saw the story ‘Only believers know how to really party, says Pope’ in January 2007.
Some of the best fun we get out of newspaper stories can be unintentional. The sports journalist Liam Mackey tells a story about the day Con Houlihan’s father misread a headline in the paper. ‘Riots in Laos’, it said. Houlihan Senior wasn’t surprised. “That crowd above in Laois are always causing trouble,” he remarked.