One of the small pleasures in life is flicking through the adverts that regularly appear in our postbox. Most of all I look forward to the newspaper-format electrical goods chainstore ads, of which there are a number.

It was during one such instance of paper perusal a few days ago that I chanced upon a page dedicated to the next generation of games consoles, the Wii, PS3 and XBox 360.

The PS3 was at the top of the page, despite (or, perhaps, because of) its higher cost and low sales figures. Although I have no plans to buy a PS3 (the XBox would be my inclination for a second system), I read the accompanying blurb, which, translated, went something thus:

“The PS3 is a very powerful games machine. It has a powerful cell-processor that can be up to ten times more powerful than other processors. It has a powerful RSX graphic chip…“, blah, blah, blah.

The XBox 360, without a single adjective in its blurb, is 1000 crowns cheaper. This, in my mind, gives the word “powerful” a value of about 250 crowns (£20). I only hope this is the writing of a Sony fanboy madman, whose last task at work in the real world before being carted off to make small strips of metal out of larger strips of metal was to sell the PS3 to the ignorant public, one that is apparently swayed by the repetition of powerful adjectives.

And another thing, while I’m being facetious: making a statement that the PS3’s cell processors is “up to ten times more powerful than other processors” is irrelevant. Firstly, because no-one who plays videogames should seriously give a rats arse; secondly, I could write an advert about the N64, stating the same about its 93.75MHz processor (comparing it to, say, the first generation of games machines, for example); thirdly, I’ve forgotten.

So, if I were to take away the extraneous adjectival usage, along with any flimsy filler statements, the above PS3 blurb would go something like this:

“The PS3 is a games machine. It has a cell-processor and an RSX graphic chip.”

Were I really harsh, I’d take away the obvious words and any techno-babble that hints of trying to impress, leaving:

“The PS3.”

Sadly, not even a proper sentence, but I’ll allow such a grammatical faux-pas on this occasion. Still, such logical editing wouldn’t make my advertisement reading past-time as enjoyable, though I’d get through a hell of a lot more adverts.