Table of Contents
0 Introduction: What is Everyday Analysis?-A Defence of "Theory" 1
1 The Email Sign-Off and Politeness 8
2 On the Impossibility of Judging a Book by its Cover 10
3 Baby Food, or How to Eat Like an American 12
4 Is God a Match for the Unconscious? 14
5 Is DJing a Resistance to the Standardised Commodity? 16
6 Old Spice and the Structure of Advertising 18
7 The Centralizing Drive of 'Would You Rather…?' 20
8 Celebrities on Canvas and the Birth of Photography 22
9 You are What You are and What You are is OK 25
10 The Politics of 'Friend Zone' 26
11 Love-Locks 28
12 Crosscountry Trains 30
13 Hiding Racism in the Racist Joke 32
14 Why the 2010 UK General Election Should Have Us in Stitches, but Doesn't… 36
15 'Newphoria' and the Case of the Mobile Phone 39
16 Tazreen Fashions Factorv Photographs and their Reception 41
17 Autocorrect in the History of Literature 44
18 How Toasties Can Hide Little Bits of the Real 47
19 Does it Really Make a Difference Whether it was James Gandolfini or Tony Soprano who Died? 49
20 'Your a Dick': Richard Dawkins's Tweets 52
21 Charity and the Disorganisation of Unemployees 55
22 The Deaths of Margaret Thatcher 58
23 The Daily Mail: A Text that Reads Itself 61
24 Saint Artist Taxi Driver 63
25 Why are Animals Funny? 65
26 On the Bicentenary of Richard Wagner 67
27 Moon and the Eternal Return of the Same 70
28 Symbols of the Working Class 72
29 One Grande Super Skinny Latte with an Extra Shot and Sugar-Free Vanilla Syrup Please! 74
30 Why Justin Bieber Should Listen to Neutral Milk Hotel 76
31 More on Justin Bieber and Anne Frank 78
32 Pushing the Skies' Limit 81
33 'Drink Responsibly' and the Limits of the Infinite 84
34 This Charmless Man 86
35 'Change Your Life' 88
36 Angry Birds and Postmodernism 90
37 Manning Up 93
38 From Restricted to General Onanism 95
39 Fear and Anxiety in The Gruffalo 97
40 Consumero ex nihilo: 'Air is Part of the Recipe' 100
41 Relationship Breakdowns, Marx, and Alice in Wonderland 102
42 Miroslaw Balka's 'How It Is' 105
43 Alain de Botton and the Narcissism of Melancholy 109
44 How did the Other get so Big? The Swallowing of Democracy by the Imaginary Order 111
45 Worbining (Word-Combining) 114
46 'One Word: Plastics' - A Parable of Discord in The Graduate 116
Endnotes 118