Bunhill: No relief from advertising

SOME people are incapable of seeing a blank space without wanting to fill it with advertising. Anything seems to be fair game - from the front of football shirts to the back of theatre seats. I'm told some lunatic wants to sell the bottoms of golf holes as ad space. ('Very ABC1, golfers.') So I was delighted to see Brussels outlaw eggshells as an advertising medium - on health grounds.

However, a new threat is on its way. The simple pleasure of taking an ad-free piddle may soon be a thing of the past, if Frank Peters, a Brummie design consultant, gets his way. To him the idea of people relieving themselves while staring at a blank wall is a shocking waste. They could, after all, be persuaded to buy condoms or perfumes.

Peters is hoping to raise pounds 300,000 from investors under the Business Expansion Scheme to launch Small Room Media plc. It would install hoardings above urinals and on cubicle doors in the toilets of pubs, shops, motorway service stations and airports.

A spokesman for SRM says men, at least, will be grateful. They desperately want a focal point dead ahead to avoid being accused of 'taking a peek sideways'.