Don't be a pillock!

Who would've thunk it? Budweiser and the incomparable Dame Helen Mirren collaborating on a brilliant anti-drunk-driving spot aired during Super Bowl 50.



The commercial opens with Mirren sitting at a table in a restaurant, a burger and fries in front of her. (That's chips for you non-Yanks.) A waiter brings her a bottle of Budweiser, the label turned somewhat from the camera. "Oh, my beer. Lovely," she thanks him. Mirren looks directly toward the camera and says:

Hello. I'm Helen Mirren, a notoriously frank and uncensored British lady.

The collective we are dumbfounded that people still drive drunk. So, I'll sum it up like this.

If you drive drunk, you — simply put — are a shortsighted, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting, human form of pollution, a Darwin award-deserving, selfish coward. If your brain was donated to science, science would return it.

So, stop it.

Now, the chances are you are a fun, solid, respectable human being. Don't be a pillock. Your friends and family thank you; the friends and families of other drivers thank you; your future self thanks you.

This is supposed to be fun. Cheers!

Mirren finishes by holding up a bottle of Budweiser, and slyly whispering: "Nice and cold."

Witty, powerfully direct, and succinct. Mirren did a public service announcement; she did a product placement; she got paid.

But, ah, Dame Mirren! What of Britain's culinary gift to the world? What of 'real ale'? Making fun of 'warm,' 'flat' beer? You know it isn't! And Anheuser-Busch? I saw what you did there. Making fun of less-than-ice-cold 'craft' beer? Clever bastards!

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• See the ad on YouTube: here.
• Pillock

  (Britain, mildly pejorative, slang) a stupid or annoying person; simpleton; fool.

  —Wiktionary

• Real Ale
  Otherwise referred to as 'cask ale' or 'cask-conditioned ale,' real ale is defined by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale, in the U.K.) as:

  a natural product brewed using traditional ingredients and left to mature in the cask (container) from which it is served in the pub through a process called secondary fermentation. It is this process which makes real ale unique amongst beers and develops the wonderful tastes and aromas which processed beers can never provide.

• What about the game? Peyton Manning secured the second Super Bowl triumph of his legendary career, in his fourth, and probably, final championship appearance, as the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers, 24-10, to win Super Bowl 50.


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