77 Advertising truths

1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch football or drink beer.

2. Women are locked in a constant battle with their weight/body shape/hairstyle.

3. Career success is entirely based on your ability to impress your boss.

4. Mums are often harassed but NEVER depressed/unable to cope.

5. Any act of male stupidity (e.g. walking across a clean floor in muddy boots, putting the dog in the dishwasher, etc.) will be met with a wry smile, not genuine annoyance/anger.

6. Married men will flirt with other, younger women but NEVER act upon it.

7. Anyone with a scientific career will have a bad haircut and dreadful clothes.

8. If you work for the emergency services, you are a better person than the general population.

9. Elderly relatives NEVER suffer from senile dementia.

10. Scandinavians are, without exception, blonde and beautiful.

11. Women have jobs they never do in real life, e.g. dockworker (who looks like a model).

12. Children will not eat fruit or vegetables. Ever.

13. Both men and women find driving deeply pleasurable, never boring or stressful.

14. Men are inherently lazy/slobbish; women are the reverse.

15. Chocolate, however, will cause women to immediately fall into the languor of the opium eater.

16. High Street bank staff are (A) friends of the customers, and (B) of slightly above-average attractiveness (only if female).

17. Modern men own a cat.

18. Hot beverages have miraculous rejuvenating effects.

19. Professional people have strangely trivial preoccupations, e.g. a female barrister who is morbidly obsessed with finding a healthy snack bar.

20. All women (except stay-at-home housewives) have interesting and enjoyable careers.

21. Any over-the-counter medical product will work instantly and 100% effectively.

22. Children know more than adults.

23. Women never merely hop in and out of the shower, instead preferring to act out some sort of soapy Dance of the Seven Veils.

24. School is a happy experience for all children.

25. Tortilla chips are the most exciting experience any group of young people can experience.

26. Playing bingo is THE number one pastime among 18-25 year old British women.

27. Science's most important applications are smoothing out wrinkles and making hair shiny.

28. Yoghurt-based products can change your life. Want to be a brilliant dancer? Have a yoghurt! Want to do away with your natural preference for *attractive* members of the opposite sex? Have a yoghurt! Want to avoid heart disease? Don't bother with all that boring giving-up of stuff, have a yoghurt!

29. Cleaning products will remove any stain in one sweep of a cloth.
Razors glide across male faces and leave baby-smooth non-irritated skin underneath.

30. Babies have conversations with each other about the relative merits of their nappies.

31. Women only wear spectacles in adverts for opticians.

32. It's OK to racially stereotype eskimos

33. Everyone is either in debt and wanting to take out a loan, or seeking compensation from someone.

34. Clothes come out of washing machines.

35. Anyone who is at home in the afternoon is in desperate need of a secured loan, a pension plan or no-win, no-fee solicitor.

36. Lipstick will never come off.

37. Driving in a brand new car leads immediately to all other traffic being kept off the road.

38. The last thing to emerge from an upended box of breakfast cereal is one perfect flake. The most important property of a tampon is its resemblance to a sweet.

39. Duvets are miraculously L-Shaped, reaching to the underarms of the woman in the bed but only to the midriff of the man.

40. Public transport is a beautifully clean and relaxing way to travel and you'll always be able to flirt with an attractive member of the opposite sex.

41. All babies spend their time being either naked and perfectly happy or clothed and asleep.

42. Saving a few quid on a car insurance bill of several hundred pounds will make you ecstatic for the rest of the week.

43. Women are unable to remove their glasses without shaking their hair down in slow motion.

44. Shop staff always greet you with a smile and answers your questions in a professional manner.

45. All dogs are happy and stupid. All cats have impeccable taste.

46. Mothers never ever shout at their offspring, and have endless patience.

47. Chocolate bars come out of hand bags/top pockets facing forwards, pause for a moment on their journey upwards in the half in/half out state (of hand bag/top pocket) and finally they are opened, perfectly, by simply pulling at the top outermost corner of the wrapping.

48. People who talk to the viewer never seem to be noticed by the people around them (i.e. their family, friends, co-workers).

49. If you have dyed red hair you are glamorous and sexy. If you have natural red hair then by all accounts you have a problem.

50. Cat food smells delicious to humans.

51. Bars are not sweaty, smoky places with very drunk people in them

52. Shaving is always performed to music, semi-naked and accompanied by a blonde woman in a towel.

53. Young people always live in fantastic flats.

54. You only ever wash one item at a time in your washing machine.

55. It's possible to take great photos with a camera phone.

57. Pieces of chewing gum only ever fall from their packet in pairs into the hands of the gum eater.

58. It is totally acceptable and quite normal behaviour to go around kissing babies' bottoms.

59. Soldiering is portrayed as being on a challenging outward-bound course

60. Any advert so obscure that you have no idea what it is about will be revealed to be a car advert in the final half-second.

61. Black people don't exist - or at least they don't buy anything.

62. Women suffer from constipation, men suffer from piles.

63. People with regional accents are always friendly and helpful.

64. Buying a sofa will not only improve your life beyond measure, it'll also make you and your family beautiful.

65. Teenage "sufferers" of acne will only ever have one completely invisible spot, for which they will apply a product which will not only clear the spot, but also miraculously solve all other social issues they might be having.

66. Slim, young, sexy, beautiful women are invariably and inexplicably married to frumpy, dumpy, pudgy - and quite often balding - middle-aged men.

67. If senior women are smiling and dancing they must be wearing an adult diaper.

68. Cars never sound like cars revving and changing gear, but the gentle sound of a hollow breeze.

69. Cats are always fed by women.

70. All people are heterosexual.

71. All vicars look like twits.

72. Married women are *nearly* sexy. (I believe there is an ad industry formula for this.)

73. Dogs in adverts never sniff your crotch.

74. Andie McDowell never ages.

75. Carol Vordeman knows everything.

76. Everything is or will be great

77. Technology works.

From the Magazine at news.bbc.co.uk