Early morning FM blues

This will probably strike a chord with Bangaloreans, but will waft over everyone else's heads. The last few months have seen the rise to prominence of a certain property developer. Actually, calling them developers is overstating things - I guess they market a set of properties rather than develop them.

If you drive down to work in the mornings, as most of us do, and you listen to FM while doing so, Orange Properties' jingles are inescapable. The first set of ads promoted villas that came with a huge list of perks, including a helipad and a BMW 3 series. The sign-on amount? A fraction of the cost of the car you drive away with once you've put your x on the line. The catch - well, the pricing of the villas put the astro firmly back in astronomical.

The next was a more affordable dwelling being promoted at an eye-catching low price. The catch? The price was after discounting for a set of "freebies" - clubhouse, power and water connections, etc that were priced at the developers discretion. Sort of the "cost-to-company" salary structure that a lot of firms use to inflate salaries.

The newest one states that home loans against their houses are at roughly a third of market rates, handily saving you trillions. The catch? I don't know, and I can't be bothered to find out. It suffices that I believe there is one. My pavlovian reflex for Orange Properties is now fully developed.

The ads themselves are masterpieces. They feature an ensemble cast that combine, in their delivery, the enthusiasm and guilelessness of newborn puppies, with a cunningly crafted message that would do Machiavelli proud.

And if you somehow miss being ambushed the first time, don't worry - they play twice in succession. Always.

I expect that someday I will get into a pileup and my epitaph would read "Tried changing the channel. Now faces endless static."

Image from Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa.