ADVERTISEMENTS on television don't usually bother me. Mostly they just pass by in a sort of a blur.

I must admit I get very irritated by those advertising new cars, because they never seem to relate to real people at all. I mean how many of us have to drive through a field of burning maize or accelerate past molten lava spewing from a volcano? Not often on the A390 we don't.

Quite frankly I think they'd be better off showing a car which starts first time after sitting in torrential rain in a Cornish driveway for a whole weekend or is capable of weaving round one of those moorland lanes where you'll find anything from a herd of highland cattle to a heap of manure in the middle of the road. Now that's a test for a car, not swanning around the Med picking up women.

Apart from this I tend not to really notice the ad breaks; except the other evening just as I was tucking into a rather nice lamp chop accompanied by a helping of sprouts and broccoli I spotted my now most unfavourite TV ad ever.

It involved an attractive woman who could have been about to advertise hair spray, scent or one of those slimming breads. But no, she dashed into a café, and stared longingly at the door of the Ladies' lavatory. Could it be one of those ads for incontinence pads, I asked myself? The one where the slightly older woman can now go out and about without seeking out a handy public convenience so therefore has a spring in her step and a smile on her face.

Wrong, this lady is next shown eating a huge piece of chocolate gateau and the voice over tells us she doesn't have to worry about finding the loo because she is taking so and so's diarrhoea medication so all her troubles are over.

Now putting aside the fact that I don't really want to hear about the trials and tribulations of a diorrhea sufferer when I'm eating my dinner, I ask myself what is a diarrhoea sufferer doing out and about anyway? Shouldn't she be at the doctor to get it sorted out? And come to that, eating an enormous slice of chocolate cake isn't going to do her condition any good, even with the tablets. Some things ought to be kept private, or at least appear after the watershed of 9pm when we've safely eaten our food.

Still with the television I note that a new programme is starting next week on BBC2 called 'The Life Laundry' which is about people who go around other people's houses and remove all their clutter. We probably call this kind of person a collector for a car boot sale, but if you've money to burn you can go a bit up market and actually pay someone to do it.

Rule one for these people is 'be ruthless, keep only things that continue to serve a useful function or bring you pleasure'.

Well I'm sorry, but that encompasses the whole of my kitchen utensil collection, so I'll not be inviting the life laundry lot around.

It's all very well talking about clutter, but one person's clutter is another person's fond memories. Alright, just what kind of fond memory can be evoked by a slightly dented apple corer I can't say, but I like it.

It's taken me years to accumulate my collection and I may donate it to some lucky heritage group eventually. This will save it from various members of the family who've been dying to consign the lot to the dustbin.

By sheer coincidence I had been going through my collection only a day or so before, seeing if there was anything which I didn't need. Which of course there wasn't. I don't count the things which I probably wouldn't need if I knew what they were, having done without them since I bought them because I don't know what they are supposed to do.

As collecting goes it's fairly harmless. It doesn't cost a lot, most of it being bought from car boot sales, charity shops and the odd jumble sale. It is, in the main, useful or rather you can find uses for most of it. I must admit that having obtained a new gadget I occasionally base the menu round it to prove how useful the latest egg slicer or cucumber peeler is.

I have my favourites. One is a tiny little thing which looks like a skewer until you pull up the handle then a tiny claw opens at the bottom. It looks like those little claws which they have in amusement arcades which never quite pick up the solitary gold watch and more often than not don't pick up anything at all. It's actually to snag small pickled onions, gherkins or olives out of their liquid without having to stick your fingers in the jar.

Then there's the American cherry pie lattice top maker, you roll the pastry on top of it and it turns out a perfect lattice. AND it came complete with a recipe.

I also have a heavy duty pair of poultry scissors, sold to be for 50p by a lady at a car boot sale because I guessed what they were; a previous would-be customer had said they were blunt garden scissors and thoroughly offended the owner. There's a fat separator, into which you pour the liquid from a roast and it separates the juice from the fat. You can buy these new and they really do work.

I have several egg slicers but none nicer than the egg-cup shaped one which cuts the eggs into perfect quarters rather than into slices. Yes, you know-alls, you can do this with a knife just as easily but it isn't so much fun. I also have a gadget which cuts apples into eight pieces and cores it at the same time, and leaves a permanent circle indentation on your palms.

My favourite at the moment is a recent purchase (smuggled in under cover of darkness because I had promised not to buy more). It looks like a boring old plastic pot but it's actually in two parts. You tip a jar of olives, gherkins or small pickled onions into the top and the liquid drains into the bottom bit. You can then use the contents without getting your fingers wet but when you have finished you turn it upside down, the liquid covers what's left and you pop the whole thing in the fridge. This prevents the contents drying out. What a little gem.

I do make mistakes. The miracle new potato skinner, which is supposed to remove the skins against an abrasive liner turned out little battered marbles and the runner bean string remover produced bootlace beans with more bean left on string than string on bean.

I also enjoy the four little plastic gadgets sold to me by a lady in a charity shop as mini-pasty makers. 'Although I can't understand why anyone would want two inch long pasties', she said. I hadn't the heart to tell her they were to make Indian samosas.

There are, of course, useless, nay even dangerous items. The set of things which look like bulldog clips which are actually to hold quarters of lemon to squeeze over fish, but which when pressed shoot a whole bit of lemon in the direction of one of your dining companions. The tiny skewers with nice little green corn heads for sticking in the end of sweetcorn but which, just as you lift the hot buttery corn to your mouth let it go and it ends up burning and buttery in your lap. And can I be the only person who has ended up with a sore eye because she used the patent cherry stone remover the wrong way up and the stone shot out like a bullet?

So there are a few hazards in this kind of collecting - which now include eating a tin of olives a day just to get full use of the magnificent new olive/gherkin/onion strainer and storer. Pass me the dihorrhea medicine.