Why is it that the people who plug toiletries, medication and cosmetics in television commercials invariably have no need for these products in the first place? Twenty-something women promoting anti-wrinkle cream. Dandruff-free men recommending Head & Shoulders. Clear-complexioned teens selling spot cream. ‘But you don’t have acne.’ ‘That’s because I use Biactol!’ What next, men plugging tampons? ‘But you don’t have a cunt, Jerry.’ ‘Better safe than sorry, mate. Besides, these things are great at stopping anal leakage.’ In military circles, it’s known as a pre-emptive strike. ‘We’re gonna nuke Iran just in case they decide to nuke us first, and then we’re gonna smear KY Jelly on our bodies, just in case we decide to fuck each other’s asses in the mess hall afterwards.’ Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t do pre-emptive shopping. I don’t put Lemsips in my trolley in case I get a cold, or condoms in case I get lucky.
It’s time for a radical shake-up of the advertising industry. One of the new measures that I propose is a blanket ban on gross adverts being shown on terrestrial TV. You know the sort I mean - bloated women, jostling to get into the bathroom ahead of their thrush-filled daughters; diarrheic dads rushing to reach the church on time without their breakfast trickling down the inside of their leg, and any commercial featuring Michael Winner. We don’t want these adverts on daytime TV. If they have to be aired at all, I suggest that they are shown solely on cable channels that are designed for dealing with such sickness - Thrush TV, or The Syph Channel. If you’ve got a bad dose of the squits, just tune in to Skid Central on channel 475, where you can watch laxative advertisers and diarrhoea advertisers battle it out for the contents of your wallet and your toilet bowl. If we’re going to banish all gross and offensive commercials from daytime TV, however, it is only fair that we allow adverts of a more adult nature to be broadcast after the watershed. If movies and docu-dramas are allowed to feature sex, violence and bad language after 9pm, why can’t adverts follow suit? If late-nite sanitary towel commercials showed Lindsey Dawn McKenzie inserting tampons into her pussy, I know I’d buy them, cunt or no cunt. In fact such adverts could generate a whole new source of revenue for tampon manufacturers - ‘Press the red button on your remote now for a chance to win one of Lindsey Dawn McKenzie’s used tampons.’
In the increasingly competitive feminine hygiene market, manufacturers are desperately trying to find new gimmicks that will give their menstrual blood absorber the edge over their rival’s menstrual blood absorber - ‘Our ones have more wings.’ ‘Well our ones look like sugar sachets.’ ‘Well our ones soak up more of that precious blue liquid that women seem to excrete during tampon commercials.’ How about this for an innovation - the Double-Ended Tampon. It has a string on each end, and looks a bit like a Christmas cracker. In an emergency, just pull it out of your cunt and stick the other end in. Plus if two women both try and claim the last tampon in the vending machine, as if it were the ultimate Ferrero Rocher at the governor’s banquet, there is no need to fight - they can break it in half and share it. If I was in marketing, TV commercials would be a lot more interesting. No one would dare change the channel when the adverts came on. I’d have my chlamydia products advertised by disease-riddled crack whores. I’d have my anti-wrinkle cream sold by octogenarians with skin the texture of ribbed condoms. I’d have my tampons sold my menstruating women with blood-soaked thighs, and not a drop of blue liquid in sight. Reality TV just got a whole lot realer.