MOANING about adverts is a national sport. Some people even go to the bother of officially complaining about an advert they've seen on television or in print, which seems to be excessively disagreeable, but there you go.

However, those of a narrow and miserable mind do like to vent their displeasure. Indeed, I suspect that some people live to find something, somewhere that has annoyed them.

A recent newspaper campaign for the charity Barnardo's has caused a record number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, with 330 people grumbling so far - a number predicted to rise far higher.

The adverts were certainly shocking and hard hitting. One showed a new-born baby with a cockroach crawling out of its mouth. Another featured a baby glugging meths. These images were calculated to cause offence, and then to highlight the charity's belief that it is too "easy to turn a blind eye to child poverty".

Last Sunday, the charity took the unusual step of placing full page adverts in national newspapers explaining why the campaign was important. Barnardo's said the adverts were intended to draw attention to "the fact that poverty still seriously damages the lives and prospects of some children in this country".

These adverts are the latest in a long line of what you may call charity "shock-vertising", in which a good cause turns to eye-snagging methods as a brutal means of communication.

The only measure of whether such adverts work is if they raise awareness of a social problem - and, more pertinently, inspire people to dip into their pockets and make a donation.

I don't have a problem with the Barnardo's campaign, although it is possible to become immune to such tactics. Perhaps a parallel campaign could show new-born babies puffing on fat cigars, swallowing champagne or clutching wads of money. This could draw attention to fact that some babies still grow up to do very well thank you. It could even be sponsored by the Tory party/New Labour (delete according to prejudice).

What is interesting, however, is that so many people should complain about the Barnado's campaign, while apparently not being irritated or sickened by the relentless diet of envy, nastiness and acquisitiveness pushed out by the adverts on television.

Just as soap operas these days seem to be full of nasty people saying and doing mean-spirited things, so the adverts in between promote their own brand of objectionable behaviour.

Whether it's mobile phones, cars or whatever, these adverts writhe with envy and covetousness. You know the sort. Children refusing to get into their parents' car because it isn't the right model. Cars being attacked by other people because they are just too good and shiny. Worried drivers moving their cars so that perilously dangling window cleaners don't do damage by falling on them.

David Beckham is in one for mobile phones, beaming pictures from sunny Spain to rainy England. All these adverts are smart, clever and cynical.

Add to that the incessant advertising aimed at getting children to eat fat-drenched, sugar-soaked food or waste their money on whatever cheap, rubbishy toy is the mini must-have of the moment, and you can see that there is plenty to complain about.

So what is the most complained about TV advert of the year? Yes, it's the bottom advert for a toilet tissue manufacturer. The one with the cheery music and a row of bare behinds.

Strangely enough, I found that advert amusing and charming.

Updated: 10:08 Thursday, November 27, 2003