New & Improved

I've just seen an email warning of a certain sales tactic that cannot possibly be true. You will, I'm sure, have noticed the slogan 'New & Improved' on almost everything you can buy. Now when you think about this, if it is new, then it can't have been improved because if it's new, it can't have existed before and therefor can't have been improved. Using the same logic, if it's improved, it must have existed before so it can't be new. This brings me onto another problem with this kind of advertising, concerning washing powder, which seems to be new and improved every other week. You might well have the new, improved, all singing, all dancing, best ever in your cupboard after running the gauntlet in your local supermarket the night before. However, you can be sure that as you sit down to dinner in front of the telly and the adverts appear in-between the news headlines, it's been improved again and you've now got two weeks worth of sub-standard washing powder. What do the advertizers think your going to do, chuck out the full box of powder and rush out to get the latest improved stuff while your still chewing on a piece of roast pork?

Paul