Now, first up, this is not me having a go at the Observer, which has been my Sunday newspaper of choice for many years, on and off, and one I used to writer for. I'm just using their magazines to illustrate something that has yet to stop bothering me. Yesterday it was the turn of Observer Music Monthly, one of whose biggest features was The 50 Greatest Cover Versions. Nothing noteworthy there: magazine fills up eight pages with list. However, here are the words that struck fear into my heart: "OMM, in association with Audi TT Remastered, presents ..." This sub-clause appeared, contractually, on the title page, and in the main blurb, and even in the text of Gary Mulholland's introductory piece ("... with the help of Audi TT"). Plus, the Observer's dedicated webpage turns out to be ... a great bit advert for Audi. "The Audi TT Remastered Project" is helpfully explained thus: "The OMM and TT Remastered collaboration, featuring our 50 top covers vote, is part of a wider campaign celebrating the relaunch of the musically inspired TT. To celebrate the fact that the remastered Audi TT was initially inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Audi commissioned 14 emerging and cutting edge artists to reinterpret and remaster classic tracks, including etc. etc."

Well, since eight pages of editorial in my magazine had been paid for by a car manufacturer, I felt duty bound to investigate further. A click takes us to the Audi site, where we find a sports car, whose "sleek design and blistering power reflect an uncompromising vision of sports car perfection blah blah the 6-speed Direct Shift Gearbox blah blah Quattro four-wheel-drive blah blah rich racing pedigree." I don't know about you, but I bought one. Oh, by the way, the Hendrix link is tenuous. Apparently the blokes who designed this car, in the 90s, listened to a Hendrix CD while doing so. Hmm. Well, it was enough for the marketeers at Audi to go for a music angle in the advertising, hence their link-up with the Observer. What bothers me, as an old purist who worked in magazines in the late 80s and early 90s when all this was just starting to creep in, is the way an advertiser can now so easily insinuate itself and its product into the editorial of a publication.

The first Observer Film Magazine was completely bought and paid for by a car manufacturer, Volkswagen, who have also creatively climbed into bed with The Bourne Ultimatum this summer, hence the sponsorship of a movie supplement. In neither case will the editorial have been actually influenced by the advertiser, but in both cases, money has changed hands, a deal has been made, and everybody wins: client, ad team, publisher. Except, if you ask me, tiresome old curmudgeon that I am, the reader, who thinks he is reading that which his Sunday newspaper has generated for his pleasure and information, but is actually reading an eight-page advert for a sports car. It may be subliminal, but it's there, not even between the lines. Gary Mulholland's suddenly a copywriter (albeit not as well paid). I like my editorial and advertising to be clearly boxed off. This is becoming more and more of a rarity. During my time at Q, we fell under increasingly pressure to do "advertorials" - in other words, the advertiser would pay a higher rate than normal and we'd basically make their ad up for them, so that it looked and read like a page of Q. This meant more work for our designers, and for the editorial staff, but it secured a client, who might otherwise have taken their money elsewhere. A magazine cannot survive with advertising revenue. But the insidious nature of advertorials used to make my skin crawl.

Anyway, I got out before such arse-selling became a way of life. I was lucky enough to host the Q Awards before they became the Q Awards in Association with Orange (or whoever it is this year), and had to be billed that way. (We got some free beer for the awards in 1996 and had to thank them on the page. That was it.) As an Empire reader I am constantly tripped up by what look like features but turn out to be promotions for some client or other. A successful advertorial is one that fools the reader. I don't like being fooled by a magazine I like. It bothers me less on telly, funnily enough, where bumpers are wrapped around programmes to tell us that An Insurance Company sponsors (or "supports" as they like to say) Channel 4 drama, or that Coronation St is "brought to you" by Cadbury's. At least the programme and the ads are separated. Not so in magazines and newspapers, where the lines are blurred.

Get used to it. It's the way of the world. But I don't have to like it. And the idea of a "remastered" car is fucking stupid.