ADVERTISING is becoming more surreal by the minute. Those commercial breaks on commercial television have now become mini art forms in themselves created by artistic directors mainly for the benefit of like-minded souls. All this psycho-babble is directed at the subconscious, subliminal propaganda for everything from motor cars to washing-up liquid.

How I long for the more direct approach of years gone by. You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent. Boom-boom-boom-boom.... Esso Blue. Milky Way - the sweet you can eat between meals. How I long for the days when a spade was called a digging utensil.

lTONY Blair keeps prattling on about law and order. Still, you've got to give New Labour the benefit of the doubt for the time being - they've only been in power for a mere nine years.

The problem with basing a political philosophy around one immense, endless sound bite is that it all starts to wear a bit thin after nearly a tenth of a century.

I could stand in the middle of Worcester High Street and make any number of ridiculous promises but no one in his or her right mind would take the slightest notice and who would blame them?

Take Worcester for example. We have a jobs problem, but it's no more than most places. The riverbank and Cathedral gardens are taken over by drunks and junkies during the summer months, but once again, I daresay it's the same up and down the land.

What we need, then, is a one-size-fits-all strategy to be implemented nationwide.

That means proper beat policing and on-the-spot fines for offences such as littering. If the motorist can be persecuted with the zeal of the Spanish Inquisition, why not wrongdoers?