Of Course the Chameleon Speaks French

I was watching television a short while ago. This is something I do periodically when I don't feel like thinking too much. Mostly its ok but I do sometimes get irritated with all those programs they feel they have to slip between the ad breaks. There is a commercial at the moment which is doing the rounds for an iced tea called Nestea. It features a chameleon with a French accent. Let's just think about that for a moment. A Swiss company is selling iced tea in Australia by using an animal from Madagascar with a French accent. It's either a triumph of multiculturalism or a subtle protest at exploitative French colonial practices in south east Africa. Pick whichever one seems the least ridiculous to you.

That nestea gets everywhere, they even sell it in Mongolia (in peach or green tea with lemon flavours). Tea is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of refreshing Mongolian beverages. Horse milk and gallon jugs of vodka seem more appropriate but things are changing in Mongolia. Apparently the capital now has buildings that don't fold up and get slung on the back of a horse when grazing gets poor. There is a new up and coming Mongolian elite and they drink peach flavoured iced tea.

I suppose things could be worse, the last time there was an up and coming Mongolian elite they upped and came as far as the Danube river leaving a trail of devastation behind them. Now the only trail of devastation comes from poorly maintained aircraft. While we're waiting for the hordes of Ghenghiz Khan to come galloping across the plain leaving a scattering iced tea bottles and condemned aeroplane parts in their wake we can sit back and enjoy the antics of chameleons with improbable French accents on tv. Sometimes I wonder if anybody in this country would actually recognise a genuine French accent if they heard one. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.

All across the world people are watching tv commercials and sniggering at accents that have been pretty much invented on the spot. Eventually there will be an entirely new language; Commercialese which will unite the world in mutual incomprehension. We will sit there with our iced tea and try to work out whether the chameleon is speaking English with a bad French accent or possibly Finnish with a bad Iranian accent. One thing I'm sure of; it won't have a Malagasy accent. Not even in Madagascar.