Mark Simpson has a sniff around a classic men’s deodorant ad that reveals how far we’ve come – and also how some things never change Back in the 1960s the mass-market ‘grooming’ of men by advertisers wanting to sell them vanity products was only just beginning its warm-up. This rare and… Read More »‘A Fresh Clean Smell That Could ONLY Be Masculine!’
(Originally appeared in The Guardian August, 2010) As a boy growing up in the 1960s and 70s I was raised to fight the Second World War all over again. Airfix models. Commando comics. Air tattoos in June. Watching The Battle of Britain and The Longest Day on telly with my dad,… Read More »Army Dreamers: A Backwards Salute to British Army Recruitment Films
Mark Simpson feels the collar of a vanished world The London Times Some trace the demise of the British way of life to the day when RAC patrolmen stopped saluting. In fact, as Police and Thieves, a marvellous two-DVD collection of historical documentaries on policing and the justice system from… Read More »Crims Ain’t Wot They Used To Be