MARMITE IS launching legal action against the far-right British National Party (BNP) after an image of the spread was used in a political broadcast without the company’s permission.
The famous pot-belly black jar appeared in the top-left corner of the screen while party leader Nick Griffin was addressing viewers in a BNP general election broadcast on the web. The 4m48sec video then ends with an image of the spread alongside the words “love Britain, vote BNP”.
Marmite’s advertising is based around the slogan “love it or hate it” – an idea the BNP, which many people think specialises in the hate bit and not a lot of love, appears to have been trying to adopt.
“We want to make it absolutely clear,” said a company spokesman, “that Marmite did not give the BNP permission to use a pack shot of our product in their broadcast”.
The only thing the BNP and Marmite have in common, it seems, is both are rather smelly – one nicely so and it ain’t the BNP.
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SYDNEY WOMAN Sarah May Ward has raised road rage (not to mention drink-driving) to a whole new level.
She told the judge that, in turning her car into a weapon, she, well, like, only wanted to scare the bejazus out of 21-year-old Eli Westlake because he had thrown some cheese crisps at her vehicle. So that’s okay then, huh?
Well no. You see, the lovely Ward (39) had drunk two bottles of wine and used cannabis, amphetamine drugs and anti-depressants before getting into her car in Sydney’s northern suburbs, as one would of course after downing that lot.
She decided impulsively to use the vehicle as a weapon after Westlake threw the snacks at her car as a joke while walking home with his brother and a group of friends.
The judge said that, while there was more involved in the June 2008 incident than Westlake’s brother and friends claimed, an “incensed” Ward had driven directly at Westlake after a brief physical altercation with the group, running him over and killing him.
Happily, the judge was having none of her loopy justification and send her down for 25 years for murder.
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THE DANES, meanwhile, stick to bicycles. Much safer for all concerned.
The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, 15 minutes from the centre of the Danish capital and five minutes from Scandinavia’s main airport at Kastrup, is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators.
Guests will be invited to jump on and start pedalling – and if they produce enough electricity they will be given a free meal.
From June, they will be able to race against the 366-room hotel’s solar panel system in a bid to produce the most electricity.
“Anyone producing 10 watt hours of electricity or more for the hotel will be given a locally produced complimentary meal, encouraging guests to not only get fit but also reduce their carbon footprint and save electricity and money,” the hotel said in a statement.
Aren’t the Danes simply the biz?
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DOWN THE road in bicycle heaven Holland, burglars have taken a shine to breaking into . . . a minimum-security prison.
They’ve done it twice in the past few weeks and stolen televisions from cells while prisoners were on weekend releases, according to a spokesman for the justice ministry.
The prison, in the town of Hoorn, 42km northeast of Amsterdam, is for inmates near the end of their sentences.
The facility is what the Dutch government calls a “very modestly protected environment”, where prisoners transition back into society. They are typically allowed weekend leave – which is when the burglars decided to take advantage. A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office in the region confirmed only that a break-in at the prison had been reported to police and added that no arrests had yet been made.