The quality of most advertising on the London Underground is appalling at the moment. I know this after being stuck in a tunnel on the Piccadilly line last week - every one of the low rent ads was for a cheap, usually obscure medical, brand and was not in the least bit engaging.
In fact, it was all so bad that I found my attention was entirely focussed on the most appallingly obvious wig on an elderly gentleman stood opposite. Except that with his luxuriant mop of suspiciously dark hair and pair of youthful trainers and jeans, this crepe-paper faced man clearly didn't think he was old at all.
Afraid of offending him by offering him my seat and in a homage to Eric Morecambe, I spent the next ten minutes trying to find the join but the rug was so dense and the man was so bald that it was more of a hat than a wig. Fortunately I got to look at his head from various angles as he craned his wrinkly old neck in rapt interest on all the terrible tube card ads on offer.
And it wasn't just me - who speaks with some sympathy as a fellow baldy - that was fascinated by this bloke's wig; the whole carriage was gawping at it as he carried on scanning the ads, apparently blissfully unaware of the interest his appearance had brought to an otherwise dreary journey.
If any conclusion can be achieved by this encounter, it is that either the London Underground has followed the trend toward media segmentation by hosting ads that only appeal to old blokes in wigs, or that selling outdoor ad space is a bloody difficult job.
