Steve Canavan finds the commercial breaks in his favourite murder-mystery are pushing him to breaking point

There’s an advert on TV at the moment driving me mad. Every time it comes on, I leap from the settee and jab my finger angrily at the tele like a stressed-out teacher who’s lost the plot with an unruly pupil.
Amazon AlexaAmazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa

I don’t write about TV on account of the fact I rarely watch it. Instead I prefer to shut myself away in a dark room and spend my evenings alone, then wonder why I feel so isolated and fed up.

However, recently I got into something called White House Farm, a drama on ITV about an infamous crime in 1985, when a bloke called Jeremy Bamber shot his entire family and tried to convince everyone his sister did it. I thoroughly recommend it. The programme that is, not slaughtering your family and framing a sibling.

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Anyway, during nearly every single ad break – and there were many – the most ludicrous advert kept coming on.

Maybe it’s because I am middle-aged and becoming increasingly disillusioned with my lot in life, but I find myself becoming enraged by TV ads.

I mean, why, for instance, are all car adverts the same? They always involve a man or a women driving around a trendy city centre, while wide-eyed people stop and stare and gasp and nudge each other and generally look on in awe at the car driving past. I’m not being funny, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked on in wonder at a passing Ford Focus. It’s a ludicrous concept.

Same with aftershave adverts, for designer brands like Calvin Klein.

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They are generally shot in black-and-white and involve an incredibly attractive male dressed only in underpants sat in some ludicrous setting – for example, on a rock as huge waves crash against it (disappointingly the protagonist never gets swept out to sea, ne’er to be seen again, his torn and soaking underpants washed up on a remote beach somewhere weeks later…) In 40 years of watching telly, I have yet to fathom a link between any aftershave advert and the actual product it is advertising.

And toothpaste. What is going on with toothpaste adverts? They’re naff too, always set in some sort of science lab and featuring a couple of young people in white coats staring earnestly into a microscope. The narrator will say, “scientists found this amount of plaque on your teeth if you brush with [insert brand of toothpaste they’re advertising]”. The picture shows a close-up of a petri dish containing nothing at all. Then the narrator, adopting a darker tone, will add, “but this is what scientists found after using other toothpastes” – cut to a shot of petri dish containing dirt and muck and lots of nasty-looking wriggling creatures.

For the love of god, at least try something different. Maybe start with a close-up of a man opening his mouth to reveal he has no teeth. The narrator could solemnly say, “Geoff doesn’t need toothpaste because he lost all his teeth aged nine in a serious car accident”. Then, cheerier, “but if you do have teeth, then why not try Colgate…” (NB – if Colgate use that any time soon, let me know and I’ll sue).

Anyway to the advert that so got my goat the other night.

It was for Amazon Echo, which is that little machine people have in their houses, the one you ask questions like, “Alexa, is Malcolm having an affair with the girl from the badminton club?” and it responds, “yes, it started last April, they’ve been sleeping together twice a week, and he’s planning to leave you when the kids go to university”. (I’m exaggerating – obviously the machine can’t tell you exactly how many times they’ve been sleeping together).

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Anyway, in this advert, a young girl dressed in football kit (nice touch – ticks the gender box) rushes into a house. Her mum shouts “how did you get on?”, but the girl doesn’t answer and moodily stomps into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

It switches to the middle of the night when mum is awoken by a thudding sound outside. Despite the fact it’s surely easier to look at a clock, she says, “Alexa, what timeis it?”. The machine replies, “4.40am”.

Mum goes to the window and sees the noise is her daughter kicking a football against the house wall.

They catch each other’s eye, it’s pitch black, then the mother says, “Alexa turn on the back yard light”. They smile at each other, then the girl carries on kicking the ball and mum presumably goes back to bed – though just how she’ll sleep while a football is being thwacked against her house is unclear.

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Now I’m not being funny but if I discovered my daughter kicking a football against the house at 20 to 5 in the morning, I’d open the window and scream “what the hell are you doing? Get in here, get your bloody football kit off, and get to bed”.

It is utterly ridiculous.

I have first-hand experience of this Alexa thing as my sisters and I bought said machine for my mother’s 70th birthday a few years back. My dad had passed away and we thought it would be nice for my mum to have this little thing to talk to and to generally make life easier for her.

Predictably, though, my mother (or any of her slightly backward-when-it-comes-to-technology family) never figured out how to use it and for the last four years – and this is true – she talks to it once a day, first thing in the morning, when she says in a ridiculously posh voice, like she’s receiving a phonecall from the Queen, “Alexa, what is the weather like today?”

She doesn’t use it till the same time the next morning, meaning we essentially paid a three-figure sum for something my mum could discover by opening the curtains. A waste of money. We should have just got her aftershave and toothpaste instead.

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