Would you like sexism with that?
A burger restaurant in Sydney, Australia, has been forced to defend its advertising campaign after it used a digitally created picture of a burger in the shape of a woman's naked bum. Bondi Junction's Goodtime Burgers wedged a burger patty, lettuce, tomato and cheese squeezed between a woman's gluts. "It's highly inappropriate for a food business to promote their concept using vulgarity, toilet humour and sexism," said Corinne Mossati, of the food blog, Gourmantic. A representative of the burger outlet trotted out the usual justification, blah, blah, lighten up, it was a joke.
Look not for gongs
"Hamish, I hear you," a reader writes. "But please go easy on dumping on state schools. When I attended a state college we were made to welcome every private school failure, from rampant firebugs to sexual misfits, as the "good" schools purged their social failures and made it our problem. Attending our school reunion I was quietly satisfied with the achievements of my class - a tsunami of degrees, international awards and attainment in the arts including opera and literature ... What will drive your academic achievement will be real rewards and real personal achievement and not fraudulent player-of-the-day gongs. Work hard, be an individual, be comfortable in yourself, earn money and help others."
Conservative's figurative faux pas
After Colin Craig's lurid description of a Rankin/Bennett ticket being a "catfight" (because ladies competing will inevitably end in scratching and hair-pulling), he yesterday issued a press release describing the Labour and Greens approach as "schizophrenic". Egads Colin! Politicians who use a literal mental illness as an adjective are retarded. You don't want your political career to be stillborn, do you? Helen Clark learned to choose her words carefully when she referred to Don Brash as cancerous; so did Marc Ellis when he claimed to be "sweating like a rapist" and John Tamihere's political career wasn't aided by calling the Governor-General, the PM, the Chief Justice and the Speaker "front bums" .
Customer service carries the day
In lieu of anything to complain about, regular contributor Andrew would like to give a huge thanks to Farro on Constellation Drive. "I think they were having IT issues on Sunday so the queues were twenty deep. Farro walked down each queue, taking free coffee orders and handing out plates of food. By the time I got to the front, I'd had a large mocha, biscuits, hokey pokey, chips and all sorts of other stuff, all free. Not great for the waistline, but second-to-none in terms of customer service!"
Stats Hyperbole: Fendall Hill feels someone has to question when they say that 200,000 attend Christmas in the Park. "I once used an aerial photo of the domain to show that there is only about 68,000m2 of the park within the sight lines of the stage. Even a crammed in standing crowd would not be more than 100,000. Considering aisles and the fact that each person is occupying about 2m2 each, I would estimate the capacity to be around 25,000. I would be happy for people to challenge me, but I'd rather they challenge the promoters and the media for being so outrageously misleading all these years. PS I just did a similar analysis on the Brisbane concert, where they estimate 100,000 squeezed into only 26,000m2 of roads, streets and squares."
This year why not give a GIF? The 2013 Holiday GIF Guide...
Picture this: Glow in the dark lingerie...
Video: Politics the Opera (composer Robbie Ellis and opera singer Andrew Grenon) take the words of Colin Craig and transform them into an operatic comedy....
Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz.