Of magically inflated breasts, astounding flat prices and the big bluff

I CANNOT DENY the appeal of the messages to which I am treated when I watch television. Drink this cognac and you too can be a French pseudo-nobleman. Wear this watch and you too can be an English country gent.

Most astonishing recently has been the selling pitch to women for an explosive breath lozenge, Fishermen's Friend. The starlet of the ad swallows one and, pop-pop, her breasts are instantly double their previous size. Hey presto, magic candy, no trip to the plastic surgeon required now.

I suppose it is really no more of an effrontery to viewers than the one that shows how to become as bony as Miss Photogenic by drinking the contents of a small bottle, or another that promises that a brief acquaintance with a slimy mask will make your face as white as the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

Few people are really taken in, you may say, but the evidence suggests otherwise. The rising intensity alone of this bombardment of nonsense strongly indicates that it has met with success.

So what shall we do about truth in advertising? Shall we make it mandatory that advertisers prove the ennobling virtues of cognac and watches if they sell these things on that basis? Shall we insist that Fishermen's Friend's implied claims of breast enlargement be backed up with documented proof of before and after use of a tape measure?

And what should I be told the next time that I play five-card poker and, with a hand that features only a pair of fours, confidently say to the Nervous Nelly across from me, 'see your ten and raise you ten', to watch him fold a full house and let me scoop the table?