Peter Bromhead: Confessions of a trainspotter

"I've decided to start collecting really bad television advertisements, my mobile video replacing my train-spotting manual." Illustration / Peter Bromhead

As a child in England, I collected train identification numbers as a hobby.

It was a harmless holiday pastime, spending endless hours sitting on a creosoted fence close to our local village railway station, waiting patiently for the big express trains to thunder past so one could happily tick them off in small books that identified the rolling stock of that particular railway company.

One proudly showed off one's book to other childhood friends, who were also "train-spotters", as the pastime was called.

Interestingly, I don't recall other kids cheating on their spotting claims. It was clearly a matter of honour that you really had identified a valued prize, such as the Flying Scotsman, as it roared past your village station, belching steam and coal sparks.

Now I'm old and crabby and steam trains hardly exist any more, I've had to find a new holiday hobby, particularly because I'm bored and idle and the caregiver has scuttled off with my little ones to the swimming pool.

Being stuck in an American hotel, I've decided to start collecting really bad television advertisements, my mobile video replacing my train-spotting manual.

Much to the bewilderment of the caregiver and children, I've been enthusiastically videoing junk food promotions, which appear to make up about 70 per cent of all US television advertising.

Unlike New Zealand TV marketing, gloomily preoccupied with pre-paid funeral insurance schemes, American advertising is relentlessly upbeat and optimistic, even when the offering is appalling - such as a burger featuring giant sweetened buns, chock-full of bacon, pre-coated in brown sugar, plus a thick slab of pork belly, all glued together with six layers of processed cheese.

To make sure you're consuming enough sweetness, the burger is topped with a sweet fruit pickle, guaranteeing the equivalent of 8 teaspoons of sugar per serving.

A burger without fries is naturally unthinkable, so the advertisers suggest you'll be further wowed when you order jumbo fries coated in melted cheese with more helpings of chopped-up sweet-coated bacon to accompany your calorie dynamite burger.

I've now collected 14 gems from various promotions, including another sweetened bacon takeaway aptly called "The Terminator".

When I cautiously suggested to the caregiver that perhaps we should try one of the more exotic junk foods advertised, she tartly said that would be fine, as long as I first agree to a New Zealand pre-paid funeral plan.