Whistling

Now here's a curious thing. Whistling in advertisements, whether TV ads or radio ads - perhaps especially the latter. I get to hear these ads on LBC and Classic fm, the only two commercial stations I listen to.

It's been going on for some time now. Whistling sounds upbeat, cheerful and carefree. A whistling man is a relaxed man who knows what he's doing: which implies that he's skilful, and that you can trust him. The same for a team working together, all of them whistling their heads off. They'll get the job done, and get a good result.

All this is may explain why there's a lot of whistling going on in the background of ads for claims companies, whether it's compensation for mis-sold PPI (coming to an end soon) or mis-sold investments (the latest thing). They want you to believe that making compensation claims is a sweet and pleasant passtime, and that their cheerful whistling experts can put money your way, effortlessly, simply by texting KER-THUNK to 88866888 or whatever.

At the present time, with cheerful whistling so much in fashion, I'm thinking it could be applied to many useful services, such as cleaning, doorstep deliveries and pet-walking. I haven't actually seen or heard such ads, but it's not hard to imagine them. I am sure whistling could also be used (more dubiously) with things such as radical dental work, cosmetic surgery, and funeral services - anything where a cheerful whistle might instil trust, and reassure you that your money will be wisely spent on work competently undertaken. Well, if you were contemplating a boob job, wouldn't you go for the team that whistles while they work? Rather than the team that treats you to Gregorian chant?

One thing about whistling that bothers me is that it has become almost exclusively a male thing. I don't see why women shouldn't whistle just as well as a man, and yet it's rare thing to hear a woman whistling, at least nowadays: the Calamity Janes and Cat Ballous of Western films in their heyday had no problems whistling for their horses. But in modern times, it has become an all-male skill, and for no very good reason. Surely the notion that whistling is 'unbecoming in a woman' is completely dead? After all, this is - at least when I last looked - the twenty-first century. If you have a normal mouth, you can whistle, and I am surprised that so many women never do it.

Mind you, I don't. I can, but I don't. Offhand, I can't think why not - unless it's the self-knowledge that I'm unmusical, and that the sound I make just isn't tuneful. I don't have any pets to whistle after, either. And for certain, I don't fit exhausts or bathrooms.

To end, I'd like to recommend a short story by William Hope Hodgson called The Whistling Room, which is about a room in an ancient Irish castle haunted by something awful that whistles at night. Utterly creepy.