Advertising: Amstrad on retro thrust

There's the communications revolution. There's the information superhighway. There's e-world. There's Silicon Valley and Silicon Glen – and Silicon Fjord probably. There's nerds and geeks and hackers and day traders. There's torrents of filth and tons of fun, chat-room Babel and God knows what else. And then there's Amstrad.

Amstrad is from another universe. Not so much cyberspace as warehouse space. There's nothing high-conceptual about the brand because every Amstrad appliance does exactly what it says on the tin. And then there's Sir Alan Sugar, which reinforces that wonderful 1970s market-trading feel to things. Early Amstrad is the kind of brand they talk about in retro-hell programmes, where secondary comedians affect to remember every bit of prole-ephemera from 25 years ago.

No surprise then that the new Amstrad E-Mailer Plus commercials are presented – new-tech commercials don't normally have presenters – by John Bull in a Union Jack suit. He walks to stage front in a huge white-out space like a jerky giant doll and he's Darren from Dagenham, late 30s, plumping out, highlighted hair, done a bit of this and that. "Fellow Britons," he says (what is Sir Alan's position on the EU?), "there's giga drives and killer bytes and mega confusion. But Amstrad believes it doesn't have to be like this." The E-Mailer looks like something you'd see at a "pay here" point in Bhs and does a variety of useful things. It's an answerphone, it emails and sends text to mobiles, it accesses some internet sites and it lets you download and play Sinclair Spectrum games.

Hold it right there – Sinclair Spectrum. That takes us back again to those wacky British technology days. A joint venture between Sir Alan and Sir Clive. Why don't they do a joint ad, with bugles and banners and an announcement? Anyway, the gizmo is classic Amstrad, a limited combination of functions in an all-in-one (it's an egg-beater, it's a coffee-maker, it's a sauce-sifter), and for you not £500, not £200, but less than £100. The question is, are they the functions you'll want? Are they invaluable to housewives, sportsmen, OAPs or corner tobacconists? Or has the great electrical editor lost his touch? There's a part of me that's very 1977 and wants it already.