Walt beats the Bard in a time warp

If, like the Diary, you spent a good proportion of the Christmas break doing an impression of a couch potato, the New Millennium Experience Company ad may have got you thinking about that noble tuber as well.

In NMEC agency M&C Saatchi’s rewrite of civilisation’s timescale Sir Walter Raleigh brings his potato back from the Americas “in time for lunch”, but it takes Shakespeare until early afternoon to finish his sonnets.

According to the British Potato Council, Walter’s potato arrived on these shores in the 1590s – the same time William started scribbling sonnets.

Perhaps M&C Saatchi came over all dewy-eyed while choosing ten highlights from this millennium’s human achievements and began reminiscing instead about Eighties ad industry lunches which lasted half the afternoon.

Shakespeare must have been munching his way through a mountain of pommes frites instead of polishing off his copywriting.