{"id":77105,"date":"2014-09-22T18:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T22:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=77105"},"modified":"2014-09-22T18:09:59","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T22:09:59","slug":"go-to-work-on-an-egg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/22\/go-to-work-on-an-egg\/","title":{"rendered":"Go to Work on an Egg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"article-2062348-002C4D8500000258-810_468x608\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Before she made a living as a novelist, Fay Weldon, who\u2019s eighty-three today, was a copywriter \u201cat O&M, a copy group head in charge of the Little Lion egg account<\/a>, first-generation IBM computers, and goodness knows what else.\u201d As she tells it, her crowning achievement there was the slogan \u201cVodka makes you drunker quicker\u201d: \u201cIt just seemed to me<\/a> to be obvious that people who wanted to get drunk fast needed to know this.\u201d Her superiors disagreed\u2014god knows why\u2014and the motto never saw the light of day.<\/p>\n

What did <\/em>see the light of day is \u201cGo to Work on an Egg,\u201d a masterly double entendre that served as the catchphrase for the aptly named British Egg Marketing Board. Weldon managed the ad team that coined the phrase, and proof of her handiwork abounds. On YouTube you can find a series of \u201cGo to Work on an Egg\u201d meta-advertisements in which an increasingly indignant Tony Hancock\u2014a famous British radio and TV personality\u2014bemoans that his career has come to this. \u201cLadies and gentlemen, owing to the present state of the theatrical profession, I have with great reluctance been forced to accept a job as a supporting actor to a lady doing a commercial for eggs.\u201d <\/p>\n