Interweb hijinks at Grauniad

Oh, the joys of webvertising. You're engrosed in an article about the threat posed to the ice caps by global warming, and are just learning that scientists think that it may be too late to save them (regardless of how many MPs jet off to see them - stand up Mr. D. Cameron).

Now someone in the Guardian's marketing team clearly thought the public needed an advert to break up the tedium of an article about - eugh - science, so they've reminded us that Guardian Unlimited Travelshop lets us "Compare flight prices and hotels from over 120 providers". Great! Now to book my trip to the Maldives - after all, they won't be around for long once those icecaps melt...

Turns out the ad is on rotation - you can also get ads by Lloyds TSB, and a video of a man in a room full of snakes. Here's a screengrap.

This just highlights the fundamental contradiction in having ads for products interspersed with news - particularly when this means car and flight ads juxtaposed with articles on climate change. But the Grauniad / Observer's editors seem not to have grasped this yet. Here's the Observer's reader editor lamenting the abuse they got from their ridiculous article on the top 10 places to see before climate change destroys them. And here is the juxtaposed advert making a mockery of their non-apology.