Royal Air Force [01:40]# The writer Robert Musil once cited the boredom of bourgeois life as the main reason for going to war. This devilishly well-made recruitment commercial for the Royal Air Force seems to be inspired by the same idea. We are presented with a number of everyday situations. A secretary in an office, polishing her nails and announcing with barely concealed boredom in her voice: “We’ve got visitors.” Then the same woman, now in an RAF uniform, watching a radar screen and uttering the same phrase which, in this context, comes off as charged with excitement. Another secretary, being sexually harassed by some superior who tells her, “I hope you haven’t made any plans for tonight.” In the next scene we see the same woman, now with the RAF, telling a man “I hope you haven’t made any plans for tonight.” This time the sentence implies that there is a job to be done on which the good of the whole country might depend. Some more contrasting situation follow. The we are treated to a series of quick cuts from a man going through the motion of starting a car and driving to work followed by those of the same man, now a fighter pilot starting up the engine of a plane and taking off on some – no doubt very important – mission. “A job in the Royal Air Force is a job like any other”, the VO tells us somewhat disingenuously, “only with wings on.”