Pope fails to inspire irreverent advertising: is this the last supper for the business?

I once worked on a fine crockery account. Very prestigious. English china, for the upper crust. It cost a bomb, but when you are eating finest French foie gras plates 'manufactured' in Asia just won't do.

I presented the campaign. It was based around The Last Supper. That part wasn't unique: the famous painting had been used on a variety of occasions in ads.

In the ad, we had Judas sneaking off, and Peter saying to Matthew across a bewildered Jesus, 'Where's he off to?'

Matthew replies, once again cutting across the about-to-die Jesus, 'He only eats off Wedgwood' and a tiny logo in the corner.

Why am I recalling this minor ad from the archives of my mind? Because the Pope is in town. Not the poet, not the mower, not the 1960s Fitzroy ruck-rover; but the actual Pope Benedict from Vatican City, Rome, Italy.

WHERE IS ALL THE OPPORTUNISTIC ADVERTISING?

Nowhere. This industry has lost its balls, if it ever had any, and I mean balls in the metaphorical sense only. Some of the ballsiest people I've known in advertising were women.

Yes, it did ever have any. In the seventies, this papal tour would have seen newspapers roadblocked with humourous Pope- or church-based advertising. No better way to get publicity. The Campaign Palace specialised in opportunistic ads. They were great. They made you feel there was a sense of humour within the national psyche. They made you laugh. People like to characterise Victorian times as being proscriptive and censorious. Bullshit. Today, there is more tut-tutting and pursed lips around than ever before in the history of mankind.

Maybe it's the clients. Marketing departments are full of the most frightened people on earth.

What a shame. At the end of the day, it's just another reason to leave the industry. Who wants to run around being frightened of nanny-state bureaucrats or church bigots? Not me. I'll go and shovel horse shit out of stables. I might see something funny and laugh.

Like the arse-end of a horse that reminds me uncannily of an account service person I worked with once. And that walk ...