TV adverts featuring sunny barbecues should really include jet packs, it has been claimed.
Shops filled with charcoal and marinated meat on a stick are continuing to insist that cooking outside in Britain remains a viable option.
But a survey found that most people now believe that barbecue-based adverts are trailers for a new film based on a story by Philip K Dick.
Wayne Hayes, from Stevenage, said: “There’s an M&S one where the sun is beating down on a British back garden which looked so fantastical I expected Edward Norton to jump over a hedge while being pursued by flying robots.”
He added: “My nan talks about this summer tradition of outdoor cooking, but she also reckons Christmas adverts used to start in December.
“She’s not allowed sharp things.”
With the growing market for summer-based fantasy, Danny Boyle will direct White Heat, starring Ewan McGregor as a man with just 24 hours to get his barbecue hot enough to cook something.
McGregor enlists the help of a diverse range of quirky characters in his bid to cook a chicken breast all the way through, but fails because none of them have ever been outside for more than 20 minutes at a time.
