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Woah, what’s this? There’s snazzy music and stuff happening. Hang on. There’s a car and… what the hell is real and what is an illusion? It’s messing with my head. My gums are bleeding. Arrgh!

Oh, it’s a Honda ad. I get it now – a bit like a Channel 4 ident meets Escher with some dude who paints trompe l’oeil pictures on a pavement. Anyway, coolly handled and a nice track, but the whole world takes over and I get lost as to what I am supposed to be taking out. My old man will like the visual trickery in a "how do they do that?" kind of way, though, but I still think he’d rather see the lovely Debbie McGee partaking in a few illusions with Paul. And what’s that you say, Garrison? "An impossible made possible" – is that possible? "Less fuel in for more miles out." Surely that’s the proposition all modern cars are working to? So, no, not impossible – just… possible. Now I really am lost.

On to E.ON – and hello, Sarah. I’m not sure if she’s jealous of her friend’s uber-cool fridge or not, but one thing’s for sure: she’s happy with her energy comparison widget-thingy on the new E.ON site. And I am a sucker for an animated graph. Within seconds, I loaded up the site. I couldn’t resist having a look at my energy consumption compared with next door’s, in graph form. What a shame it was so very complicated. First you need to have an account, then log in all your details etc, etc. I gave up. Very frustrated. I realised why I left E.ON aeons ago. Maybe I’ll just buy a snazzy fridge for when my friends come round. They’ll be dead jealous. Surely that’s an easier way to keep up with the Joneses.

On to the next couple of spots for Public Health England – blood-in-pee male "whistle" and blood-in-pee female "maybe". I’m looking forward to these two. OK, I don’t think I’ll send them to my friends, but it does a job: it’s now clearer that when you have blood-in-pee, male/female, you know what to do. Thanks, Public Health England.

Next up, a super-long ad for Volvo trucks. A new truck, painted red, drives through a small Spanish town chased by bulls. At least the truck wasn’t harmed – poor bulls. I can’t really work out the relevance.

Surely, you’re pretty safe from a stampede sitting in the cab of a big truck (just let them pass, for Christ’s sake). I don’t think the truck was running for its life, so it’s not much of a chase. I had a squiz at the online stuff too; it’s just the same but from lots of different angles – a 360-degree camera version.

Erm, please watch the Samsung ad and let me know what it’s all about. I don’t get it. The hit song by Lorde, Royals, is sung by a bunch of grotty kids in a Bugsy Malone/Annie/Les Misérables style and, for good measure, they’ve added Lionel Messi (of course). Bound to be a hit. I can’t wait to see the movie. It’s epic. It’s amazing. It’s a phone ad.

*Bonus ad. As I perused the spots this week, I had that awesome ad-before-an-ad thing you get online. I had the new ad for Adobe Marketing Cloud three times before I could watch each spot – really not annoying at all. Could be my favourite ad this week. Watch it (or tell me how to avoid it, ta).

On Radio 6 Music the other day, Frankie & the Heartstrings’ lead singer described how the indie band tries to get by. He ended with a nervous laugh, admitting they’d sold out, with one of their tracks on a TV pizza ad. On the other side of the woofers and Tweeters, I sighed. Advertising, yet again, consigned to the padlocked attic, the embarrassing offspring of the arts.

My first thought was: what do you expect if you write a song called Hunger? But my next was that, when we get it right, when we do Really Good Things, that’s when we can hold our heads high. When we create work that makes a difference. When we make people laugh or cry, talk or share. When we create work that shines. That’s when we can look across at the arts, and not up to them.

One shiny campaign is "the power of dreams" by Honda. The new ad is "An impossible made possible". No, not the task of writing the next in this glittering series, but putting less fuel in and getting more miles out. We’re treated to visual conundrums involving a Honda car. Trompe l’oeils and dodgy perspectives are not new in telly ads, but these are beautifully conceived and executed. After Garrison had piped up with his usual narcotic nonchalance, I wanted to watch this again and again. I also wanted it on my reel. Grrr, as an old ad once went.

I spent 12 years at DLKW before leaving London for the beauty of Bath and the bonhomie and brilliance of Bray Leino. So reviewing the new E.ON ad is like being asked how attractive your ex-wife’s new baby is. Fortunately, it’s a bonnie little thing. A dry proposition is enlivened by an amusing take on an energy comparison tool, where a mum is confronted with her friends’ ever-flasher fridges. Judicious use of slo-mo, sound and Olivia Colman makes this spot a breath of fresh air. And, God knows, the energy market could do with a laugh.

Does advertising need to be original? Yes. Does it need to be conscientious? Invariably. Sadly, this online film for Volvo trucks is neither. Another "running of the bulls" ad. It’s at least the fourth. As an idea, therefore, it’s a bit like beginning a meal with Wall’s Viennetta. A complete non-starter. And the end title, "No trucks were hurt in the making of this film", is a red rag to the animal welfare lot. It grunted along for two minutes, 40 seconds. As Grayson Perry said in his Reith Lecture: "An artist’s big work is rarely his best."

Samsung also supersizes for a phone-and-watch gizmo-combo but, this time, there’s strength in length. A 21st-century Les Mis has the cast singing to Lorde’s Royals while a slum building is demolished and a footy pitch built for street urchins by a developer played by Lionel Messi. It’s a big-budget bouillabaisse of popular culture that could have been hard to swallow. But it’s beautifully shot and even haunting. It’s a bigger idea than the product can live up to, but I didn’t care as long as I was watching those slum kids singing.

Finally, Public Health England with the message that you must see the doc if there’s blood in your pee. It’s well-enough observed with a touch of Mike Leigh, but feels quiet and missable. Precisely what you don’t want blood in your pee to be.

So. Five ads. Three quite shiny ones. Not bad.

It appears we do know our arts from our elbow.