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|1-D!ck rants on...


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                         Written by D!ck (doh!)
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It  seems  that  nobody  can do anything on the telly these days without
some old busybody taking offence and writing in to either Points of View
or Right to Reply to have a bloody good moan about it.  Take for example
the  latest  Allied Dunbar advert.  It features a man on a train getting
very  stressed  about  work he's got to get finished, his heartbeat gets
louder and ore rapid, and all of a sudden Death appears in the middle of
the  carriage and gives him a yellow card, then the bloke sings that now
famous song, "There may be trouble ahead..."

I couldn't believe my ears, someone was moaning that it was in bad taste
because  they had lost their father to heart desease only recently.  The
ad  had absolutely nothing to do with heart attacks (even my 14-year-old
sister  knew  that  when  she saw it) but with stress attacks, and Death
gives  him a warning to slow down a bit, in the form of a yellow card, I
thought EVERYBODY knew what a yellow card meant!

Good  grief, this is my second favourite advert at the moment (after the
"Wise  Tribesman"  goldfish advert...), and I'll wager that if the EXACT
same  advert  had  been  used  to  warn  people about stress, instead of
selling  life insurance, then nobody would have said a bloody word about
it.   Death even appeared selling scratchcards once (albeit disguised as
Ronnie Corbett), I bet nobody complained then!

                               -=-=-=-=-

What gives, Camelot?  The Winsday drawer is upon us and to entice people
away  from  Saturdays - possibly to ease pressure on their over stressed
computer  system  -  they have guaranteed jackpots of 10m for the first
few weeks.  What I want to know is where this money has come from in the
first  place?   It  must  have  come from profits that Camelot made as a
result of the Saturday draws!  Why didn't they offer us more and more of
these  guaranteed  10m  jackpots on a Saturday then?  And where did all
the  money  go when it wasn't going into superdraws?  That's right, they
have been KEEPING it!

Play  the  game,  Camelot.   You  are making profits of a million quid a
week,  more  so now that we're spending more on TWO draws a week instead
of  just the one.  Don't you think you ought to even things out a little
bit?  And why do you want another draw anyway?

I'll  tell  you  why,  so that they could reach their target for charity
donations  withing  their  6-year  contract.  They COULD have done it by
cutting  the  massive excesses from their profits and giving THAT to the
good  causes fund, but oooohhh no, Camelot LIKE earning a million quid a
week don't they?
                               -=-=-=-=-

I  hear  that Myra Hindley has been told that she will spend the rest of
her  life  in  prison.  I am not sure what to make of this news, Hindley
and  her lover,  Ian  Brady, tortured and killed several young children,
they  were  both  jailed  for "life", and in Hindley's case than meant a
minimum of 30 years.

Now  that  the  time  is all but up, there are those who want her to rot
inside  and  those  who say she should be released.  I personally do not
know  where  I stand on this matter, rather a first for me I think!  No-
one  can  be  in any doubt as to the fact that she committed some of the
most  atrocious  and  horrific  acts imaginable, and she has admitted to
them and done her time, but on the other hand she is, by all accounts, a
changed  woman.   Certainly there is no way on Earth that she could ever
commit  such  an  offence  again  and  hope to get away with it, and why
should she want to?

She  has  also  spent  over half of her life in jail, and will be almost
completely  unable  to  adjust  to  modern  life, people will harass her
wherever  she goes and lives, the press will hound her and her life will
be made hell, yet she herself still wants her freedom.  The Myra Hindley
in jail at the moment bears little or no resemblance to the monster that
tortured and killed those kids years ago.

What  would  YOU do if you were Michael Howard?  It is said that no Home
Secretary will ever have the balls to free Myra Hindley...

                               -=-=-=-=-

O.J.Simpson  has  been  found  responsible  for  the murders of his wife
Nicole  and  her friend Ronald Goldman (as if you didn't know!), and has
been  ordered  to pay something like $25m in damages, an amount which by
all accounts will leave him flat broke for the rest of his life.

Everybody  knew that he had done it in the first place, or rather, every
one  SUSPECTED  that  he  had, but he was correctly aquitted because the
police  had  tried  to frame him.  If they hadn't tried to them maybe he
would  have  been  found  guilty.  As it is, he is still free and on the
streets  (he  may well end up LIVING on the streets after this!) and has
been  labelled a murderer.  He SHOULD be in jail, but the US cops made a
right balls-up of the original investigation.

And  why is this?  Because the majority of Americans are racist, more so
within  the  police  force.   You  only have to remember the Rodney King
incident to realise that.  Those pictures - you must have seen them - of
Mr.   King raising his hands to ward of a series of viscious baton blows
will  stay  in  the minds of millions of Americans for years, especially
the  blacks,  who will distrust the whites, and the whites who live away
from  the inner-city areas and so can distrust the blacks in the comfort
of their own homes with a complete lack of personal experience.

                               -=-=-=-=-

How  fickle  are some people?  Remember the "Hunchback of Notre Dam" run
by  McDonalds  a  while  ago?   If  you were really sharp you would have
noticed  that  the  two  characters that were opushed to the fore in the
adverts were actually Esmerelda and Mr-I've-got-a-big-sword-Knight-Dude,
but  that  the  actual  "star" of the film - Quasimodo - was kept in the
background and hardly noticed at all!

Could  it  be that McDonalds were worried that the grotesque features of
the aforementioned wee hunchie might upset some of the children and stop
them asking their parents to spend money in McDonalds?  Surely not?

                               -=-=-=-=-

Woof woof, would you CREDIT it?  This morning on Teletext, another of my
favourite  adverts has attracted complaints, 15 of them!  Yes, it's that
excellent  Peugeot  306  advert  featuring  the  couple "on their second
honeymoon" with the kids at the grandparent's house.

Apparently, the advert is just too damned sexually explicit.  Excuse me?
Have I been watching the wrong advert all this time?  Maybe it's because
it  features the music from Bottom?  Or was it the scene with the water-
pistol and the PVC bodysuit?  The bit where the couple sit up in bed and
you can see their (gasp!) shoulders?

Good  grief,  most  nappy  adverts are more sexually explicit, what with
women  wiping babies bums and what have you!  At least the advert hasn't
actually  been  banned, so I suppose someone at the ITC has got at least
some common sense...

                               -=-=-=-=-

I  love  having a good moan about stories in the news and what have you,
but  if  you think that I am talking out of my arse, please feel free to
write  in  to  The  Word  and  put your views forward, I look forward to
hearing  from  readers  all over the country - even the world - and hope
that we can use this forum to start a series of lively debates about the
news today and the world we live in.

-!-

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[Recently our university web server has launched a questionnaire to find
out  if  students  think companies like Calvin Klein are too sexist with
regards  to  their advertising.  I don't think so!  Get yer kit off Kate
Moss pronto!  ;) Kei]

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