I, with many others, have recently been converted from an evil, “grubby little man” to a life of wondrous joy where downloading anything is a sin, thanks to the highly successful “Knock-Off Nigel” campaign.

Oh yes. I realize that to an American reader, or in fact anyone from somewhere other than the UK, will not have a clue what the hell is going on in this ad. We here almost didn’t know until they rudely interrupted poor old Nigel’s life and ruined his reputation by singing a jolly old song. This IS the UK’s best attempt at combating piracy. Some bloke who looks like he recently came of the cast of “Life On Mars” or “Ashes to Ashes” strolls up and starts singing in some daft way as the whole office join in behind him.

Every time this advert makes it’s way on to my TV, I fail to see how it has stopped anyone from continuing to download or “knock-off” illegally. At all. It is just so badly done. Nothing like, “STOP - Piracy is a crime” or “Would you steal a car? Would you steal a movie?”. Just a message that has been poorly conceived by some idiots on some ad agency somewhere.

What’s worse is that this was probably funded by the UK Government, which means our money has been spent on producing this tripe. Still, I suppose on the bright side, you can get a quick kick out of just how devastatingly bad they really are.

And if you want to know more (I hope to God you don’t), check out Nigel’s very own site.