I do enjoy those adverts which claim to use a fantastic new wonder chemical in their crappy product - usually shampoo, or those antiwrinkle creams. Beautesse, RCeramide, Rejuvade, Shineamat C, and so on. I may have made those up; but that's what the makers/advertisers do anyway.
There's always a really very impressive little animated bit in which the miracle ingredient, probably depicted as smiley little blobs, sinks deep into your pores and nukes out any trace of grime, or the "appearance of ageing", or whatever the hey.
Recently joining the array of smiley glossy women who endorse such products is Cheryl Cole. I think it's some kind of L'Oreal gloop that she advertises. It's a bit hard to be totally sure because I find her accent so distracting. Still mainly Geordie, but with a dollop of posh Welsh thrown in... possibly to make her sound a bit sing-song and childlike and innocuous.
Mrs Cole does not strike me as innocuous. However I am not the sort of person who would advocate the use of words like "shallow", "greedy", or "racist" when discussing such a modern prometheus of celebrity culture. Despite my difficulties with Mrs Cole's pronunciation I am almost convinced that she is coyly silent about her 2003 conviction for attacking toilet attendant Sophie Amogbokpa. But to be fair who even remembers such unpleasantness these days? It wasn't, after all, proven to be a racially aggravated assault... though possibly that outcome might owe as much to some clever and expensive lawyering rather than the underlying facts of the case.
Happily there is at least one thing to be said in favour of the advert which is that Mrs Cole does not sing. But I feel bound to ask when it is that Michael Barrymore will be endorsing Brut on our screens?
