Advert Complaints

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anything broadcast will offend at least one person somewhere; most of the time we won't hear about it unless they've got a blog or write for a newspaper.

Yep that's right Guardian writer Peter Jones is complaining that the Compare the Market/Meerkat advert is racist; except of course he's not really. He's complaining on behalf of his Ukrainian girlfriend who was offended. Oh noes they're making a joke out of how some people pronounce the word market, presumably intimating that they're stupid.

Now personally I don't like the advert the "Simples [noise]" just grates every time and hadn't even realised (or cared) about the point of pronunciation. But accusing it of racism?

I presume Peter also insists that Louis Armstrong's "Let's call the whole thing off" is never heard in his presence; that any impersonator is verboten in his home; and that Frankie Boyle is most definitely not on his Christmas Card list (unless it's not racist for Scottish people to slag off Scotland?).

As mentioned by one of DK's commentators

'Um Bongo, Um Bongo,
They drink it in the Congo...'

May I also add "Too orangey for Crows" and the classic "Me Ears are alight" oh but those are all old and 'before we knew any better'. Oo I know how about all the shampoo adverts that only feature women or the Maltesers, the Special K et al adverts that demonstrate that it's only women who are concerned with calories, dieting, chocolate etc.

How about the badly dubbed adverts or the ones that can't even be bothered to regionalise their adverts such as any car advert that shows them driving on the wrong side of the road or the Stabilo advert that tells us that it's "erasable" while the kid rubs out the word "effaçable".

Go on Peter defend us from this filth, on behalf of the nation I implore you to continuously complain to the ASA in the hopes that will prevent you from having time to write for the Guardian.