When you are watching television and it is time for the advertisements do you rush out to make a cup of tea in order to avoid them?

Do you feel you cannot stand one more showing of the clever, clever films - sometimes so clever you end up with no idea of what was being advertised - some of which are so patronising you might think the audience was made up of folk who were severely challenged in the brainbox department.

Most days in the post comes a shower of promises for anything from a free packet of detergent to a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to Australia - as long as you promise to use this or that till death do you part.

But worst of all, in my humble opinion, are the targeted ads aimed at the older age group.

I sometimes wonder if the perpetrators of some of the stuff aimed at us ever had a mother or father and if they have ever asked them if they think the advertising is effective.

It has been estimated some 80 per cent of the wealth in the UK is owned by the over-50s age group, 80 per cent of the most expensive cars are bought by them, they spend large sums of money on luxury goods and foreign travel.

And yet many of the advertising agencies ignore them totally or patronise them, which in some ways is worse. Either way, they are ignoring a large and growing market.

But it looks as though help, or at least a small voice crying in the wilderness, may be at hand in the shape of a Frenchman who has started an advertising agency expressly aimed at the needs of the over-50s.

Called Senioragency it is run by a man who has yet to reach that magic milestone but who is very alive to a huge gap in the market, which he is now trying to fill.

Jean Paul Treguer has hitched his wagon to the cult of the older consumer and seems to be doing very nicely thank you.

He found very few surveys had been done to find out exactly what the older market was seeking and he was also horrified at some of the very negative attitudes which were portrayed in much of the advertising aimed at the older market.

He runs seminars worldwide to bring home to the marketing men what a largely untapped market there is out there, just waiting to be asked what it is they really want from the purveyors of the good things in life and how they can go about using their enormous clout to get them.

If he is successful in his mission to the advertising gurus it can only benefit those of us who have long felt it was a world geared to the needs and aspirations of the young, who, if all the research is to be believed, are going to be in a minority by 2010.

One can only wish him luck in his campaign and wait for the results to filter down to the TV screen and then maybe you will be able to watch the ads rather than make that extra cuppa.

On another subject entirely, I don't know if it was as a result of the remarks in this column about loud music in a restaurant making life difficult for older customers to have a civilised conversation but a recent visit was magically untroubled by such aggravation. Hooray!