iSlaves

District line. Monday morning. 8.34am. The adverts in the carriage fill me with despair.

You can classify nearly all in-carriage advertising into just a handful of categories. There are the modern day magic potions - vitamins, breakfast bars, energy drinks - all promising such things as "vitality" and "life" to the daily herd of overtired, overworked zombies, when all they really need is a good nights sleep. There are the holiday adverts, to remind us why we do this every day. There are the endless mobile phone adverts - as if anyone who might possibly want or need a mobile phone didn't already have one. Don't even get me started on the smug spreadbetting adverts on the Waterloo and City line.

Of all the types of advertising I am subjected to during my commute, the ones I find the most intriguing are the ones encouraging us to volunteer - as a PCSO, or building schools in Africa, or to give to charity. Somehow, at our lowest point of the day (for the morning commute is surely that moment) rather than basking in self pity, it seems as if we are more susceptible to the the misfortunes of others, more charitable and giving of ourselves. Is self pity in fact the basis for charity? Are most charitable acts a result not of a desire to help others, but simply of the search for meaning in our own lives? And should we be worried by the fact that those advertising men seem to have cottoned on to this, and are selling us dreams of some better life, just like they sell us vitality and 2 weeks in the Carribean?