Advertising: Did you get the geese? The Mayor's homage to London is too clever by half

Will literal-minded crossword types want to record it and do a frame-by-frame analysis?

Oh clev-ver. Practically broadsheet crossword clever. It's the new campaign for Transport for London (like London Transport but more conceptual and strategic and less unequivocally public sector). As you might expect, it's the rainbowest coalition ever: a soft reggae background about "a little love that slowly grows and grows", a bearded lecturer in Notting Hill Carnival drag, all the right stuff.

But the main thing about the five-second love letters to London attractions that make up these 40-second ads is spotting the clue to a famous area or institution in an entirely different scene. So, for instance, Smithfield is symbolised in a vaulted underground clubland setting by a dreadlocked black man dancing with a large joint of beef in his arms, while the Tate is signalled by a pile of bricks on a building site.

I fell at the first fence. A pair of geese are goosing around in a park. Behind them, on a bench, there's someone wrapped in muslin, tapping the back of the municipal wood, very slowly. It's for the British Museum, so I suppose it's a mummy out of its case, but it doesn't look particularly Egyptian - and why the geese? (I absolutely know you're going to tell me...)

Is the idea that literal-minded crossword types will be on the edge of their seats for the next break so they can decode every last treatment? Might they want to record it and do a frame-by-frame analysis? Some locations are terribly obvious; some are just difficult to see - like the masked halberdier who appears in long shot in a gym for a second (Tower of London); and some just look seriously obscure.

It's the sort of advertising that, like the Perrier eau campaign, is loved by the self-consciously educated viewer. Its like the kind of corporate advertising that's meant to persuade you polluting plutocrats are surprisingly witty, thoughtful and concerned, that they share the tastes of Muswell Hill. But what exactly is it for, what's it selling, and to whom? It's an "I *" effort, with a little heart for each location and a big one for "I * London", ending with the London Transport roundel. Which makes you think that this message comes from the Office for Ken - long-standing believers in the power of advertising - and that it's an undeclared kind of party political broadcast.

Peter@sru.co.uk