Pesky pop-up ads are driving me crazy!

This bag is following me around!

I appreciate that advertising is a necessary evil.  In the UK, independent TV channels rely on advertising to pay for all the programmes that their viewers enjoy. It's the same with Spanish TV, where they often tell you how many minutes you have until the programme that you are watching returns, so at least you know whether you have time to make a cup of tea during the break for adverts. Occasionally, TV adverts are entertaining and actually worth watching!

My son is one of four young people who have launched a free newspaper in London called "The Peckham Peculiar", and they are obviously relying on advertising to cover their costs. I don't have any problems with this and neither will their readers, as this is what people expect, especially with free publications.

I buy women's magazines from time to time (living in Spain, I find it helpful for improving my Spanish) and most of these are full of adverts.  That's fine, as all I do is turn over the pages until I reach the articles that I want to read and for the most part I ignore the adverts.

We are surrounded by advertising in the modern world, so why do I find it particularly annoying when I come across adverts on-line?

I go into my email account, and I see sneaky little adverts there that are based on the content of my emails. Facebook is even worse: currently I am being tempted by mobile phone deals in both English and Spanish as well as shoes, jeans and car insurance. Sometimes the offers are so embarrassing that I couldn't possibly share them with you!

How about the La Redoute advert above, that popped up on my screen when I was looking at another blog? Is it just a coincidence that I had looked at the La Redoute website last week? If I want to buy something from their website, I don't need them to send me not-too-subtle hints. I'll make my own mind up, thank you.

I swear that the bag I've shown at the beginning of this post is following me around. I see it everywhere and I'm convinced that I'm going to start dreaming about it soon. There's no escaping from it, however it's a pointless advertising ploy, as I've already bought a different bag from that website and have no intention of buying another one.

Does anyone else find these advertising tricks really annoying? Far from encouraging me to visit their websites, it actually has the opposite effect and makes me want to avoid them like the plague. I considered signing up for adverts on this blog, in the vague hope that I might earn a few pennies from them, but I don't want to annoy my readers.  If I did so, would it put you off and stop you looking at my blog? Am I the only one to be annoyed by all these adverts that keep popping up?