Ice-Cold in Alex is on Dave TV at the mo’. One of my all-time top five favourite movies.

As well as being a ‘cracking good yarn’ I think the movie [made in 1958] must be one of the earliest and best examples of product placement ever. In fact, back when this movie was made, I’m not sure that product placement -as a concept-- would even have existed.

Unfortunately, Dave TV have chosen to show the movie at completely the wrong time of year; this is a film best served on a hot sultry summer’s day, with an unopened bottle of cold beer waiting to hand. That way the viewer can work up an epic empathetic thirst, watching the characters struggle valiantly through the North African desert.

The challenge is not to open your own beer until the heroes of the film do likewise in the legendary Alexandria bar scene at the end of the film, by which stage you will --as the saying goes- be ‘spitting feathers’, just as much as they are.

Great stuff! --although, personally, I usually pick something with a bit more taste than pissy _Carlsberg _for my movie-accompanying prop.