Whatever you say, Julie, I'm listening. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
Julie Walters is saying "pull your finger out" and I'm listening. In fact I'm going to do exactly what she's says on this latest public service announcement. I will ensure that my smoke alarm contains a working battery. And not because I'm shocked by the sight of the fire-damaged kitchen behind her. No, it's the much-loved actress herself who has prompted me to heed this warning. Because I trust Julie Walters. I almost believe that she spends hours playing on her Nintendo DS. And that she did a few shifts at Asda over Christmas.
This latest Fire Kills campaign is actually a great bit of casting. There's no real compromise to be made: caring, cuddly Walters sat at the breakfast bar gently coaxes us in her Midlands burr to, like, avoid being engulfed in flames. This role hardly damages her credentials as a loveable asset to, well, the human race.
On the other hand, there's Carol Vorderman and the jobs she takes to top up her Countdown earnings. The woman who once urged us to embark on her detox programme is currently celebrating the low prices of processed food at Farm Foods, her confidence in the store's money-saving offers making her a more numerate version of Kerry Katona. Which naturally brings me to Vorderman's other controversial endorsement: those adverts for a loan company.
Now, forgive me, but I was under the impression that this woman was good at maths. Then why is she urging cash-strapped daytime viewers to "splash out a bit" courtesy of a hefty secured loan? How come June Whitfield is similarly using her own reputation as a delightful but bumbling octogenarian to persuade anybody over 50 to sign up for an investment plan for fear of leaving their family hard-up should they selfishly drop dead? And why has Michael Parkinson just become the face of that same scheme?
The question is whether such sidelines (particularly those within the tricky financial sector) are appropriate vehicles for the kind of celebrities that the public has somehow come to trust. Or is that just how it works these days? The bigger risk, the more "harmless" that spokesperson will be?
