Advertising review

I seem to have gone on a lot about magazines recently, and I'm entirely a creature of habit, so this is an extract from the advertisements at the back of Saturday's Guardian magazine.

Let's temporarily bypass Steve Davis and his jauntily hoisted thumb, and consider the advertiser called 'Ever So Sexy'. Ever So Sexy make underwear and there is a woman in their advert wearing it. She looks Ever So Sexy. 'Ever So Sexy' must be one of the most unsexy ways to modify the adjective sexy in the history of sexy. Still, with their extravagant national advertising campaign, they must be raking it in over their passion-halting rivals Jolly Sexy, Sexy Young Filly and I Am Calling You Sexy But I Am Doing So In A Baby Voice.

Anyway, what of Steve and his 'approval' of the Network Veka windows and conservatories? I will confess to being surprised at the site of his palid yet chipper countenance. When Steve Davis was at his professional zenith in the 80s, he was mocked for his consistency and aura of calm. Boring old Steve 'Interesting' Davis. I always found him very droll, and not at all dull. And here he is, thrillingly outside the repertoire of goods I would expect to find him endorsing, which include snooker tables, snooker balls, snooker cues, waistcoats, perhaps insurance.

Why, then, is Steve Davis so very passionate about windows and conservatories? Well, if one is considering becoming a snooker superpower, one needs a practice room. The average household simply cannot accommodate a full-size table. Most barely have a dining room. It's a little-known fact that the No 1 reason people buy conservatories is so they can recreate the conditions of the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield – perfecting their potting, naturally; training their eyes to withstand the glare of the lights by facing off against some fierce, low afternoon sun through the windows; persuading an elderly relative to cough bronchially at crucial moments of concentration or unwrap a Murray Mint at a freakish pitch, until one's nerves become hardened to an iron shield.

As for the windows, well, one of the random facts I have assimilated though a childhood of watching A Question Of Sport and the inferior Sporting Triangles with my dad, is that Steve Davis is fanatical about a certain strand of weird French music. On the cul-de-sac where all retired sportsmen live, Stuart Pearce could barely hear his punk anthems over the Gallic racket emanating from no 6, Casa Davis or, more informally, Steve's. Until, that is, he discovered the joy of double glazing, and everyone could live together in harmony - Roger Black with his James Taylor CDs, Pat Nevin with his mint-condition Joy Division seven-inches.