The Work: Private View.

CREATIVE - Gerry Moira, executive creative director, Euro RSCG London

Are you the kind of guy who likes to unwind with a couple of glasses of pinot noir and a casual battering of the missus? If so, the boys from the Metropolitan Police (3) would like a word in your shell-like. Well, almost a hundred words, actually, and that's the stand-out difference of these cross-track posters. The daringly long copy informs us that Plod no longer requires the victim to grass up her abuser; he can be nicked on suss. Bang the bastards up for 12 months with some heavily tattooed bull-nonce who likes to work out to Judy Garland records, that's what I say. The Grim Rimmer waits for them all.

Speaking of Miss Garland, Shirley Temple lends her most iconic tune to the new Boots No7 (1) ad. This charming spot eschews CGI for some good old-fashioned back projection and a model so pretty that I started to have 'bad thoughts' about her. It's just that ... well, godammit, it being Mother and all, you expect something a bit more subversive, more category challenging. I seem to remember my hang-dog features forming the same small moue of disappointment at its Coke debut. Do we expect too much? Perhaps we do.

Like me, you are probably a little bored with men being made to look like twats in ads. Always (4), however, believes there's still some life left in the old dog yet. Here, the obligatory nauseating male suitor is given the bum's rush when our heroine rattles her tampons at him. The painters are in, Arsenal are playing at home, Mr Blobby has come to visit, etc, etc. For some reason, the wretched fellow is revealed to be wearing a girl's thong. Why?

A different kind of crack is featured in a Guinness (2) spot. Here, the Craic is ceremonially released from a jar to start the St Patrick's Day festivities. I get nervous whenever this venerable brand 'Paddies-up' (remember the Irish hurling team who found themselves playing a Lord of the Rings XI?). Somehow, I feel Guinness is too big to be in the bejaysus business at all, at all.

'You've got kids, you'll understand,' is the rather unwieldy strapline on the new Calpol (6) campaign. Largely redundant, too, as there's nothing particularly difficult to comprehend in these well-observed children's fantasies. The sureness of touch falters only when the voiceover refers to the client as 'the Calpol people'. We haven't heard that kind of attempt at unearned familiarity since the 70s.

Those of us serving on awards' juries this summer will doubtless see a good deal of these 'posters' for the Royal Ballet (5). Indeed, I suspect we will constitute their largest audience by some margin.