Friday 13 January 2012

That Non-Existent Slippery Slope Again


Because only a conspiracy theorist would predict that anti-smoking methods will be used on other products.

Thirty years after health activists in Perth gained notoriety by spraying graffiti on cigarette billboards, fast food has become the new target of a consumer backlash.

A Hungry Jack's billboard in North Perth promoting its premium range of burgers has been daubed with the message, "Obesity has never tasted so good".

A group known as Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions, or Buga Up, defaced tobacco billboards in Perth from the late 1970s.

[Chief executive Maurice Swanson said] "So while the Heart Foundation doesn't condone this graffiti, as was the case with tobacco this type of action could become the catalyst for legal restrictions, this time on the avalanche of junk food marketing and advertising that we're all exposed to, especially children."
Hey, at least they only want advertising restricted. I mean, once they have that, they'll be perfectly satisfied. Yep. With that small concession gained, attacks on fast food will cease, offices will close and the public will be left to make their own decisions.

Only a fool would think otherwise, eh?


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no,not another pestering Pict
who has crawled out of his rain sodden croft ,slithered through the heather,kissed the bones of
Calvin and spread more despair
along the glens.Is he of the same unwashed clan that spewed up that other tartan tosser from some Satanic Kirk,Salmond(excuse me while I wretch up my partly digested Cod in Parsley Sauce)
(No meat on Fridays)????

Waken up Scotland ,get shut of the
meddling idiots.

Sunnyside of the Wall

FrankC said...

Let your stomach be at ease. The story is about Perth in Australia not Scotland.

Bandit 1 said...

That is one tortured recursive acronym. And one sad band of motherfuckers.

I've asked it before and I'll ask it again (rhetorically): why don't all the legions of fucking miserable cunts who hate everything that the West stands for just FUCK THE FUCK OFF to North Korea - where everything is just as grey and communist and miserable as they seem to like it - and leave the rest of us in peace?

Why, God?

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

@ FrankC re Anonymous

That's Australia this week, everywhere else next ...

Enjoy.

DP

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author.

Goodbye Mr Puddlecote and have a Happy New Year.

DP

W/v letants - do what? Build ants’ nests?

Twenty_Rothmans said...

I am Australian, and well I remember the antics of BugaUP - graffiti on overpasses, a bunch of smelly hippies with nothing better to do.

At my alma mater, the decision to choose a new catering outlet was given to the yoof - the SU. They chose a vegetarian venue, which haemorrhaged money (subsidised).

I knew someone in the SU and was invited to quite a few of their parties. What was chopped up with Daddy's gold card had to be bought. The Drambuie and other delicacies were paid for.That was where I had my first Rusty Nail.

My sister-in-law is a lovely girl but a vehement antismoker. I hope she won't mind if I bring to her attention the 'unhealthy' meals my nephews are allowed to eat.

I am such a twat that I might insist on vegan food when I stay with them and ask how she feels about giving her children cancer with all that red meat. I'll also drum into the boys that people who eat meat get cancer. That should be good sport!

I might also point out that smoking, in its legitimate sense, is taken up by adults voluntarily. When you're a child, you can't refuse those carcinogens Mummy serves up.

As an added bonus I could claim that the smell of steak makes me nauseous/makes my clothes smell, so veggies all round please.

Oh, I digress. Some of these lefty birds were extraordinarily dirty in both senses of the word. Sootikins.

Chief executive Maurice Swanson
You mean, like, chief executive of ICI? Chief executive of BHP? Chief Executive of Google?

No, Chief Executive of a heart charity. It's funny when you google his name and 'heart' - you get
Camden Advance Journal: Thursday, January 28, 1909

DROPPED DEAD IN THE HIGHWAY
MAURICE SWANSON SUCCUMBS TO HEART FAILURE


This Quisling control freak can only justify his miserable position by making mission statements about as useful as mule jism.

Some twat with a computer just writing any old shit to anyone who'll listen. Oh Christ, that's us! But old Maurice is on a MISSION!

SO

Anonymous said...

"... fast food has become the new target of a consumer backlash."

I do not for one minute believe this is "consumer backlash". I would instead find it more reasonable to believe that operatives against the fast food industry (either current fake-charity operatives or operatives in the making, on the hunt for funding) are themselves or paying others to spray paint on fast food adverts - so they can they claim "consumer backlash" - then get funded - then proceed to do a confidence trick on the politicians who are as dumb as doornails and haven't the foggiest clue they are being played for chumps. And the end game will be to revert us to North Korea status, everything banned, gray and dreary - everything "under control". But that is how I see it, not coming from "grassroots", but more likely astroturfed.

Anonymous said...

I am surprised Australia has become such a puritanical ghetto
as the urinical blood in its
veins is the legacy of murderers.
pimps,child molesters,pickpockets,
thieves,bankrupts,swindelers,
bandits,perverts,highwaymen and
leaping rodent fanciers.
Contributions to the human family
Skippy,Ned Kelly and Les Patterson
and billions of tons of planet choking high carbon coal.

Pommus aeternam

Snowman said...

I've just read that BBC 'news' piece from 2002 about the ban on tobacco advertising in the UK.

Fuck. Me. What a sickening blast of concentrated smug self-Righteousness (with added hyperbole and bullshit estimated 'figures').

And, as you correctly suggest, what a devastating counter to those who doubt the existence of the slippery slope.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how long it’ll be before disgruntled smokers in Oz (who, let’s face it will be the only ones to know where there is going, ultimately, won’t they?) form a counter movement to follow these graffiti-sprayers around with spraycans of their own, adding “BugaUP should BugaOFF” to the message …