Here’s one of life’s greatest puzzles – How do you increase your market share in the meal solutions category among “Hedonistic Urbanites”? Hmm, it’s a toughie, I think you’ll agree.

Well, those fearless souls at Giovanni Rana are having another crack at solving it.

The more unfortunate amongst you might remember their previous, and frankly risible, ”Citizens for Fresh Pasta Justice” advert featuring Strictly Come Dancing’s resident sack of potatoes/pantomime dame, Ann Widdecombe. Seemingly though Giovanni Rana thought that Ann wasn’t quite inappropriate enough a figure to flog fresh pasta so for their new ad they’ve gone one better: the reverend Tim Lovejoy.

You see, if the internet’s to be believed (and I see no reason why it’s not…) Tim’s quite a divisive fellow. Many people apparently think that he’s no more than an arrogant, rude and self-absorbed man who’s got the face of a schoolboy having his first erection. But, genuinely, genuinely, he’s got more in his kitbag than that. To say he simply exists to make Danny Baker and Chris Evans seem like talented presenters and all-round decent blokes is just cruel. He’s got a lot of… a lot of… erm…

Ooh. Sorry, I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to type there.

Anyway, back to the ad and Tim’s up to his usual laddish tricks. He’s got a *friend* coming for dinner but he’s burnt his roast – did you learn nothing on Sunday morning cookery and lifestyle magazine format TV show “Something for the Weekend”, Tim? - and is knocking on the door of Sofia, his unfeasibly attractive Italian neighbour, desperate for a helping hand. Sofia is only too happy to oblige with some fresh pasta that blessedly takes only 60 seconds to cook – a fact illustrated by the unusually upward counting egg-timer. Yet despite it only taking 1 minute to cook, despite it only requiring a pan of boiling water, despite it being for Tim and his *friend*, Sofia cooks it there and then for Tim, plates it up and lays it on her table.

Fortunately Tim’s *friend* is spared a disgustingly cold plate of soggy pasta because this whole scene is a cunning ruse by Tim to get both a free dinner made by and then the pants off the unfeasibly attractive Italian neighbour.

Ha! Take that, romance!

So. Where to begin?

Tim is so badly miscast for this role – “Hedonistic Urbanite” and “Lad” are not the same thing. And whilst his abilities as a present might be up for debate but there’s no questioning his complete lack of acting talent. Which leads to he and Sofia having as much charisma between them as one of the bolognese tortelloni that’s been cooked for very nearly 2 minutes.

But potentially the worst is yet to come. Because in the wholly unnecessary behind the scenes ‘making of’ video on YouTube, Tim suggests that Giovanni Rana are going to try to do a BT just as BT tried to do a Goldblend. So baton down the hatches, it looks like we’ve got another storm to weather.

Just How Bad is this Ad?

(17 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)