Mills on ... Pink.(Saatchi ad for Thomas Pink)(Brief Article)

That well-known saying "hard on the outside ... soft on the inside" is, in current usage, a sentimental media cliche commonly used in conjunction with certain footballers (such as Roy Keane), abusive comedians (Bernard Manning) and criminals such as the Kray twins. They may commit quotidian acts of violence such as armed robbery, pulling the wings off butterflies and beating up grannies but, Gawd bless 'em, they love their mums, give generously to charity and blub at the opening bars of My Way. Yes, they're genuine working-class heroes.

The upmarket shirtmaker Thomas Pink, so beloved of City traders and other professional establishment classes, has a new campaign out through M&C Saatchi (Campaign, last week). It features, among others, the one-time Kray associate Freddie Foreman, whose legendary hard-man status is cunningly subverted with the line "Soft on the outside".

Now you can read this straight -- the shirt's soft on the outside but there's a real hard nut such as Foreman wearing it. Or you could take it to mean when you've served time inside you really appreciate how soft life is outside, especially with a nice shirt. Interesting, too, to suggest that rough is the new smooth.

All very smart, as I say, although it seems to me that advertising a shirt that costs, to use the lingo, a couple of ponies at least, on the basis that it is soft seems about as useful as advertising a car on the basis that it has an engine. For that much dosh, I'd damn well expect a shirt as soft as Andrex.

In the face of justified protests from the Police Federation and Victim Support about the morality of using gangsters in advertising, Pink and M&C lamely protest that they weren't trying to exonerate Foreman and his ilk. That's pathetic, as I hope M&C has the courage to admit the next time it comes face to face with one Silts other clients, the police, for whom it handles recruitment advertising. (I am a great fan of ...