From Hovis to Alien

On the same car journey the presenter mentioned that it was Ridley Scott's birthday, his 80th I think. Sir Ridley Scott is famous for many of the films he's directed but I didn't realise that before he directed Alien and Blade Runner he made, amongst the other things, adverts. Including what is apparently Britain's favourite television ad, for Hovis back in 1973.

It must have been twenty years after that that I wrote a nativity play for Sunday school in Linden Church. I wrote it as though it were being reported by television news and in the middle we had a break for advertisements, which I'd cunningly adapted from real television adverts. So instead of Hovis we advertised the 'bread of life' that never runs out - a specially expanding loaf that I constructed but don't ask me how!

I also used the Gold Blend coffee advert where a woman asks her new neighbour if she can borrow some coffee. I can't remember my twist on it but it must have been something about 'drink this and you'll never be thirsty again'.

But for now here's the Hovis advertisement, one of a series of three.