Andrew Kay despairs at the depths to which advertisers will stoop to sell sweeties

There was a time when I could watch TV advertising and laugh. Somehow there was an intelligent force at work, and from that force came great ideas like the Smash Robots or Frank Muir singing the virtues of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut. It seems, to my memory, that it was a more innocent time. These days the commercial breaks leave me swearing at the TV. Much as I love Coronation Street, the attached sponsors ad makes me weep with despair. Two rather nasty women, mean women, hogging a leather corner unit or throwing peas onto the carpet – not nice.

I always liked the Hovis ads, but I’m convinced they gave rise to what I call ‘heritage TV’; you know the stuff, soft focus, period costumes, lots of people in big frocks being mean to lots of people in rags.

I also (unfortunately) caught a glimpse of new BBC offering The Paradise. My word it seemed thin; no jokes, no plot to speak of and no Miss Brahms or Mrs Slocombe. How it cried out for a clever joke!

Right now my top bad ad is the one for Werthers. It opens with a little girl walking into an ‘olde worlde’ shoppe – see they even have me doing it – in sepia tones and shimmering lights, and as the camera pans in, a voiceover exclaims that she will never forget the first time her grandfather took her to her favourite caramel shop. Caramel shop? Is there or was there ever such a thing, a shop that specialised in caramels? Only in la-la-land!

“I’ll never forget the first time my grandfather lied to me about the local newsagents”

I’m sorry madam, the line should read ‘I’ll never forget the first time my grandfather lied to me about the local newsagents and pretended it was a shop specialising in caramelised confectionery.’

Let’s hope that was his only lie to this poor innocent girl, destined to grow up thinking that shops sold caramels and caramels alone, and that the streets of London were paved with liquorice.

Invention and creativity are the lifeblood of fun, but silly fantasy lies that create a world-gone-by filled with glittering toffees when the truth was more likely rickets, scarlet fever and whooping cough, are a bad idea.

I remember my favourite sweet shop. I remember craving Lucky Bags and being told that I could not have one, I remember flying saucers, penny chews, black jacks and fruit salads – and I remember the dental treatments that follow me through my adult life, too.