"But didn't you see

the one with the cat in it? It's so cute!"
No, I didn't see it. I am not likely to see it. I do not want to see it. I am not interested in advertisements for cat food.
As regular readers of my wails know I am not interested in the advertising which appears on television. I am not really interested in television. It has to be something I really want to see before I am prepared to watch television. Even if I do watch something then I have to be doing something else (usually knitting) at the same time. But, other people obviously feel differently. Some of them must watch a lot of television.
I sometimes wonder what they get out of it. Yes, I suppose it is nice to just press a button and be instantly entertained without having to make any effort at all. I am just not like that.
Lately the only programme the Senior Cat likes has been off-air in favour of yet more sport. He is not impressed. He has watched no television at all lately. My watching has been confined to the first part of the early evening news service which concentrates on international affairs. I do something else at the same time of course. I cannot just sit there and watch.
There is one commercial break in the middle of that time. I turn the sound off simply because listening to the same thing over and over again really irritates me. The commercial break has been worse than usual during the election campaign. The on-air advertising for political parties has to stop today and even the chief political reporter for that station admitted it would be "a relief".
The political advertising has not been good. It has been dire. It has been filled with only the sort of lies that political parties can get away with. The advertisements have continued even after independent sources  have said that some of the "facts" in them are not accurate. You don't get in the way of a good advertisement it seems.
Then there is print advertising that lands in the letter box. The Senior Cat struggled in with a tree load of paper last week and another this week...well, I exaggerate but you know what I mean. I put it in the recycle bin as I return to the house. All of it makes the most extraordinary claims about what will and won't be done. Very little of it will actually happen. At best it is a guide to what might happen, if you can work out which party is actually responsible for the piece of paper you are looking at.
If each party was required to state their policies in plain English on just one piece of plain paper the choice for voters would be much simpler. We might decide not vote for any of them.
If cat food companies were required to state the ingredients on just one piece of plain paper I doubt cats would vote for any of them either.