A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post

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Declan Swan. It’s a name to strike fear and revulsion in the heart of every telly viewer.

Declan Swan isn’t an IRA terrorist. He isn’t a dim-witted contestant on a low-budget quiz show. He isn’t even a lying, corrupt NuLabour politician.

He’s the snotty-nosed, speccy-eyed kid in the Claims Direct advert. And I hate him.

Now I know we’ve been here before, but this awful advert is now repeated so often that I’m even hearing it in my sleep. “Declan Swan had an accident in the playground and now has to wear glasses.” Good. It’s just a shame he wasn’t run over by a steamroller.

“His mother wanted something done. And so did we.” Yeah, too right. A nice cheque for £10,000 and one less teacher for Declan’s school.

Please, please remove these avaricious cretins from our screens before I smash up the television set. Because then I’ll have to claim on the insurance.

Another whinging git polluting the airwaves at the moment is that Brummie bloke in the cancer advert. You know the one. “It’s all down to smoking … those little white sticks.”

Listen mate, just because you’ve only got one lung, there’s no point bleating on about it. You’re a smoker. Losing bits of your body goes with the territory. You never saw Jeffrey Bernard making a fuss in public. And he had his leg off.

The editor of this impressive organ telephones from a lunchtime lap-dancing club in Old Market.

“Bazza,” the drunken Mancunian cries. “We’ve had a letter from the Bristol Racial Equality Council. The Welsh are revolting!”

Oh bugger. I thought the swarthy little thieves would catch up with me sooner or later. But wait! It turns out that the complaint has nothing to do with me. It’s about a front page headline which reads “Jobs for the Boyos.”

You what? Is that it? The letter reads, in part: “We have received a complaint from a Welsh person who lives in Bristol. Some will find the use of the word “boyo” as objectionable. There is a danger of pandering to the negative view that many people in Bristol have historically had of the Welsh.

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