I can't believe that I am the only man in
the country who finds something mildly nauseating in the Switch Family Robinson, the imaginary family who figure in the Central Electricity Board's latest advertisements. " I say—they are getting on with the new Power Station," says Master Robinson, pardonably surprised—and I see his point there—that anybody should be getting on with anything. "Yes, Plug," replies his ineffable father, "and British Electricity have 24 others on the way." And so on, through three more crudely drawn pictures in the old Night Starvation style, with improbable dialogue coming out of the characters' mouths in bubbles. It isn't so much the dreary vulgarity of the copy that appals one as the realisation that there are, somewhere, important officials who think it is a jolly clever idea to call Master Robinson " Plug," who firmly believe that, if public funds are to be spent on adver- tising, this is the sort of advertising to spend them on. If British Electricity were a private firm producing patent medicines one could condone a technique so pre-eminently tasteless and old-fashioned. As it is, one can only wait with morbid curiosity to see how the Government handle the publicity for some of the other enterprises
they have taken over Lady Betty : " I say, Jack, where are all those posh folk making for ? "
The Hon. Jack ; " Haven't you heard, old thing? The British Opera Season is opening at Covent Garden! "
Lady Betty : " Stunning! Let's fill up an application form for tickets ek dum."
I can't wait foe it.
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