That vile place, Piccadilly Circus, is famous for its billboards. Always has been. Because 23 million tourists mill around there all day every day and night, you can’t actually get in there now if you’re a uk passport holder. Sorry, them’s the rules. But we don’t wish to go there anyway, its horrible. They can keep Eros. When they replace him with Harry Kane I’ll think about returning.

But due its rather large footfall, Piccadilly Circus has become a evolutionary history of the billboard, pretty much in my lifetime. They used to have massive posters, with lights shining on them. Then they went to screens with stationary images. Then flashing images, changing every so many seconds. Which morphed into full-fledged big screen technology with moving images, changing messages, all kinds of display wizardry. But now they’re become ‘interactive’. But not ‘interactive’ like you get to have a go as well, or you can push some buttons, no. This is more devious, sinister, surreptitious type interactive.

They have installed cameras which scan the crowd and work out the changing demographic and control the advertising content accordingly. So if a bus full of pensioners from Grimsby arrive, the ads would be for… things they like and need. Wheelchairs. Nursing homes. Soft food that doesn’t require too much in the way of teeth. Surgical supports. Then they get displaced by 17 coaches from Tokyo and the ads change to those for cameras, pizzas (Japanese love pizza), sex-bots, ladyboys, all the things culturally and age specific to their demographic. Football fans get beer ads with lots of lovely, semi-naked white women on them. Nothing ‘gay’ like clothes or body products.

The next step, surely, is to ‘reach out’ to the phones of those collected in the square and quickly search their browsing history and present up-to-the-minute relevant ads. Bit of a problem with school trips because they’d have to advertise porn sites but this is obviously the way its headed.

Just a quick mention of last night. At the Bernabau. In Madrid. 1-all draw. Which is, for Spurs, simply MASSSSSSIVE. To go to that temple of Madridista Magic and not lose 4-0 is a victory. To come away with a draw (only the 3rd team to do so in the Champions League in the last 24 home matches there) is the stuff of dreams. And despite the Times printing the group table wrongly, with Real at the top, Spurs in fact top the group due to higher number of away goals.

Pinch me.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx