It is a difficult skill to master, the ability to wrap serious depth in light witticism. Frank McNally’s Irishman’s Diary in the Irish Times has it in spades. And yesterday’s column is no exception. Lurking within the comedy is a very serious point about advertising to children. Every parent is aware of the pester power of children. A children’s tv channel advertises the latest must-have range of fanciful dolls or transforming superheros, and children everywhere pester their parents until the wretched things are bought. But it wasn’t always thus. Indeed, McNally began yesterday’s Diary with a trip down memory lane: it marked

the 50th anniversary of a fateful event in the history of broadcasting: the end of the so-called Toddlers’ Truce … a 60-minute suspension of all programmes every day between 6pm and 7pm, so that – wait for it – the children could be put to bed.

Wow! Children going to bed at teatime!! Do modern children go to bed at 6.00pm?! More seriously, though, McNally’s point, buried in the comedy, relates not to this golden hour but to its modern possible alternatives, such as banning or regulating advertising aimed at children, (and not to protect adults from children’s pester power, but to protect the children from the advertising):

I used to have high hopes that the Swedes, who ban all ads to children under 12, would spread their enlightenment to the rest of the EU.

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