Sophisticated entertainment

 Here's a favourite scene of mine, from the Beano Comic Library "Triple Trouble", starring Baby-Face Finlayson. Some things never get old - I've been reliably laughing at "thinks he's helping" for the last forty years.

Drawn by Henry Davies, probably. And really, you don't see this kind of thing in the Beano any more - even the best strips these days don't cram anywhere near this many gags into every panel!

Of course, there is still some entertainment to be found for the children of today. But if, like me, you spend an unreasonable amount of time watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on kids' TV channels, you get the drawback of seeing a limited number of adverts, over and over again.

And the one that really bugs me is the one for Fairy Liquid, with small child saying "Dad, I really want to make a spaceship out of that Fairy Liquid bottle, but it's taking ages to run out!" I have several problems with this. Firstly, the boy is a terrible actor, but that's not his fault. I'm also a terrible actor, and I'm making a point of being nice to such people, in hopes that other people will do the same to me. But secondly, they did this exact same advert back in the mid-nineties or thereabouts, only better. That one was taken from an early reality show where they gave video cameras to members of the public, and so the original scene was at least pretending to be unscripted, and looked a lot more natural. Why remake an old advert, only not nearly as well? Thirdly, Fairy Liquid bottles aren't even the right shape to make spaceships any more. Bring back the old ones, Fairy! And fourthly, I've never understood the whole "it lasts longer" thing that Fairy like to boast about. Whatever washing up liquid I'm using, I just put a squeeze of it into the sink. Who uses extra when they're washing dishes if they think it hasn't adequately cleaned them? Nobody, that's who! Fairy Liquid lasts the exact same length of time as any other, and someone ought to stop them claiming that about it!

I'll stop complaining now. And to be fair, I always buy Fairy Liquid. I don't remember the last time I used one of the rival brands that they claim to last longer than.

But the most irksome advert on the kids' TV channels right now is what seems to be a serious attempt to make children want to eat vegetables. "Eat them to defeat them." I'm sure everyone involved in it was doing it very tongue in cheek, but I bet the child actors in that one (better ones than the Fairy boy) get jeered at by their drama-school classmates.