Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. My most celebrated, literary, sesquipedalian, notorious, delicious, under-rated, overrated novel of the 20th century. You made nymphetophilia, faunleterastia intellectually respectable. You sailed the perilous and uncharted seas of sexing up pre-pubescent girls. What are little girls made of? No longer sugar and spice and all things nice. But scarlet toenails, fishnet stockings, frilly knickers, eye-shadow and pelmet miniskirts.

But were you a good idea as the brand name for Woolworths range of children's beds? What next? The Harold Shipman doctor and nurse set? The junior Gary Glitter singalong guitar and karaoke kit? Our children grow up fast enough without being hurtled headlong into adulthood or adultery. The Lolita children's bed joins the catalogue of classic ad disasters. Birds Eye was within days of launching a new range of battered fish fingers under the name of Cod Pieces, until somebody spotted the double whammy. Advertising agencies should employ a philologist as well as bright young word-tumblers. Rolls-Royce called its successor to Silver Cloud, Silver Mist, until a pedant observed that Mist in German means something solider than mist. In Italian Schweppes advertised its Toilet Water. “Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation” was a great slogan until translated into Chinese as: “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”. The largest chicken farmer in the world advertised: “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken.” This was translated in Spanish as: “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.”

Who says there's no truth in advertising?