Kinder Bueno

< pooter >I like to think I have a sense of humour< /pooter >, but seriously, fuck the team behind this.

Complaint submitted to the ASA: The advert must have been simple to pitch. Two women see a good-looking man enter a sauna. They eat some of the product, which apparently inspires one of them to open the door of the sauna and steal the man’s robe. The man is forced to leave the sauna naked and cover himself as best he can while the women giggle at him.

I don’t know if the ad is homegrown or a redubbed European effort, and I don’t really care; either way it’s unacceptable because of the blatant double standard it is upholding. Very simply, if the ad depicted two men stealing the clothes of an attractive woman and forcing her essentially to run a gauntlet, there would be uproar, and deservedly so.

If that isn’t considered reason enough to censure the ad, how about the fact that a product which, for all that it has tried to brand itself across Europe as “sexy”, is still aimed at children—hence the bright colouring of its packaging and the fact that its brand name includes the word “KINDER”—is here encouraging behaviour that amounts to straightforward bullying?

Menezes “suicide” sensation

METROPOLITAN POLICE ISSUE LONG-AWAITED REPORT ON MENEZES SUICIDE

Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair last night declared his force’s investigation into its handling of the reckless and violent suicide of Jean-Charles de Menezes “a glittering success”.

“I feel vindicated,” he told reporters on the steps of New Scotland Yard. “I’m glad it has finally been proved that my force is, in some respects, more blameless than the infant Christ.”

The Met chief put to rest lingering questions about de Menezes’s motive for apparently running amok in July 2005. “He had rage and hatred in his heart,” said Sir Ian. “He knew his UK visa had run out, and he hated our freedom. We can only imagine the carnage his cocaine-fuelled rampage could have resulted in. But the moment our officers intervened by politely asking him to stop, he knew the game was up. From then on it was simply a question of self-defence.”

Sir Ian played down claims that the outcome of the investigation might have been different if it had been conducted by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. “That’s absurd,” he said. “The IPCC would quite naturally have arrived at exactly the same conclusions. No-one can doubt our impartiality and professionalism, thanks to the recent Aspersions (Police, Armed Forces Etc.) Abolition Act.” [BBC]

The force has also released a picture showing how de Menezes had transformed his appearance to look as much like a black man as possible in order to fool the police into thinking he was bombing suspect Hussain Osman: