Inaudible War Cry Spares Burger
The Age
Thursday July 15, 1993
AS `THE Age' reported exclusively yesterday, the Salvation Army pulped 60,000 copies of `War Cry', its weekly newspaper, due out today in revised form, because of a front-page reference suggesting that McDonald's products were not necessarily the greatest boon to mankind since anti-acne cream and that local stores could produce a better Australian-style hamburger.
Spokespadres for the Salvos admitted the act of destruction, saying that McDonald's was a great and generous sponsor and that it seemed a bit nasty to get up the company's nose.
But what is the link? Well, there's a hint in the prospectus for the float of the Channel 7 network. The proposed director Peter D.
Ritchie, the chairman of McDonald's Australia, is described as having been for the past eight years the chairman of the annual Salvation Army doorknock appeal. We don't suggest that Mr Ritchie came the heavy; rather, we believe, the Salvos themselves practised a form of heavy-handed censorship.
Keep an eye on `War Cry' for the next time it talks about the ownership of Australia's press and the pressures that therefore follow on stories and content.
WITH friends like that who needs ... The Diary column of `The Guardian' in London has been taking an interest in the claims for the 2000 Olympics of Sydney, Beijing and Manchester, that town just up the road. The column reports: ``Not surprising that Olympic president Juan Antonio Samaranch is leaving impressed but not `100 per cent happy' with the Manchester bid _ he never saw the best bits.
``Imaginative suggestions for a uniquely Mancunian flavor at Olympics 2000 are sprinting around the Manchester office block masterminding the bid. Hurdlers, for example, might carry a video recorder under one arm while being pursued over the sticks by police dogs. Remember the Barcelona archer? Well, there's a lyrical proposal for the opening ceremony, at which a shell-suited youth would light the Olympic flame by lobbing a petrol bomb in a graceful arc.
Strange, that. The newspaper seems to have forgotten it was originally called `The Manchester Guardian'.
THEY'RE a grubby mob, the girls and boys who have come together, under the patronage of the Australian Customs Service, to pop up a project in the Young Achievement Australia program. We're talking here about kids from hoity-toity schools such as MacRob, Scotch, Santa Maria, Parade, Shelford and Trinity.
These year 11 students set up a company to make unisex boxer shorts.
It is called YAWS and MINE. Says Helen Waters, the student marketing director: ``What do we know about making boxer shorts? Well, certainly more than when we started the company a couple of months ago ... YAWS and MINE shorts have been designed for people who can't keep their hands to themselves. They feature a distinctive `black hand imprint'.
Disgusting! It's bad enough that these 16 and 17-year-olds seem to understand the facts of life; it's monstrous that they should also have a fair grasp on the facts of marketing. They will be exhibiting their wares tomorrow week at Chadstone Shopping Centre.
THE federal shadow minister for schools and vocational education and training, Mr Kevin Andrews, impressed the gathering of the National Catholic Education Commission at Melbourne University yesterday with his mention of his days at St Patrick's in Sale and later, meeting his future wife on the steps in front of St Mary's College, the conference venue. But, Dan Quayle-like, a copy of his speech handed to journalists failed to impress with its spelling.
The confusion about whether there should be a second ``u" in bureaucracy is excusable and the Victorian Minister for Education, Mr Hayward, has been called Mr Haywood enough times now to make him tolerant of a Mr Heyward every now and then.
The reference to the Dorothy Parker quote about Katharine Hepburn was apt but lost something in its written form. Hepburn ``ran the gamut of emotions from a to be", the speech read. But the best was when Mr Andrews obviously got caught up in the spirit of the gathering while describing the breakdown of subject disciplines in schools and referred to ``collapsing the disciples".
GREAT Corrections of our Time (a continuing series): from the `Community News', a paper circulating in the north-western suburbs ...
``A Flemington man found guilty in the Moonee Ponds Court of indecent exposure at Essendon's Queens Park toilets is not a fruit shop proprietor at the Moonee Ponds market, as reported in last week's `Community News'. (The man's name) runs a kitchenware shop at the market. `Community News' regrets any embarrassment this may have caused fruit shop proprietors at the market.
© 1993 The Age