OPINION: BEALE ON ... FIRE SAFETY.

You might by now be familiar with the story of Frank, the deceased goldfish of Trevor Beattie and thwarted star of the current McCain chips ad. Unfortunately, the advertising militia ruled that the goldfish bowl in which poor, dead Frank was to be floated for McCain's 'chin up' campaign represented irresponsible treatment of (dead) animals for commercial gain. Not enough surface area for oxygen apparently. Not that floating Frank had any need of oxygen.

Ah well, at least Beattie and McCain got some PR out of it; most of page three of the Daily Telegraph, in fact - evidence of that paper's troubling identity crisis as it tries to chase younger readers. And McCain got an ad with an empty goldfish bowl. Frank got a toilet bowl.

But Frank's story spotlights the stringent double standards that exist between what we're allowed to see as viewers of ads and what is considered suitable viewing in the programmes either side of the commercial break.

Mindless violence is acceptable in one, a dead goldfish in a bowl is not acceptable in the other.

There is some obvious logic for the discrepancy, though. It's hard to create a mitigating editorial context in a 30-second ad. And it seems somehow morally questionable to wring people's emotions to sell them a car (remember Rover's 'hostage' ad?) or, indeed, a plate of chips.

This dissonance between adworld and TV programme land is what gives the Government's latest fire safety campaign its punch.

From the start of the ad we are in that whimsical, breezily cheery world that provides the backdrop for so much advertising mulch. We see mum forgetting to put the rubbish out before the bin men arrive, ditsy dad buying flowers from a petrol station late on Mother's Day, a forgotten umbrella in the rain.