Archive for the 'Businesses' Category

10
May

Gordon Ramsay: “Eat Locally. Or Don’t. Just Buy My Overpriced Meals.”

By The Oversneer 14 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Businesses and Foodies

gordo.jpgFrom “The Beeb” yesterday:

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season.

He told the BBC that fruit and vegetables should be locally-sourced and only on menus when in season.

Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.

For serious foodies, this strikes a big nerve. The latest fashion among culinary snobs is the conceit of believing you’re a better person if everything you eat was grown less than 100 miles from your dinner table. (Tell that to the impoverished farmers in East Africa who depend on shipping veggies non grata to Europe. And the same goes for South Americans exporting produce to the United States.)

But back to my point. And I do have one. Provided nicely by The Independent today:

By making his comments, the chef, author and television presenter was laying down a marker of his personal food philosophy. But he also risked accusations of hypocrisy because he fails quite brazenly to practise what he preaches in his own restaurants, which serve food from thousands of miles away.

Yep. One eponymous Gordon Ramsay restaurant in New York City offers:

  • roasted Scottish langoustines and manilla clams [from the U.S. West coast]
  • Fillet of Wisconsin veal
  • braised Kobe short rib [from Japan]

And Gordo’s UK restaurant at Claridge’s serves Pacific halibut. Got a map?

Yes, yes, I know — Ramsay is talking mostly about produce, not protein. Well, another of his NYC eateries is currently cooking with avocados, limes, cucumbers, artichokes, asparagus, English peas, green beans, white radishes, granny smith apples, beetroots, lettuce, golden raisins, cauliflower, pears, tomatoes, olives, chickpeas, fava beans, black barley, porcini mushrooms, morel mushrooms, baby shiitake mushrooms, onions, almonds, Swiss chard, and celery root.

I’d bet a year’s salary that at least some of these items aren’t in season within a day’s drive of New York City. I have no idea which ones. And you know what? I don’t care. I like being able to eat a diversity of stuff no matter what month it is. It doesn’t bother me that an airplane flies my broccoli in from somewhere else. That plane was probably carrying FedEx packages for someone else anyway.

09
May

Dove’s Campaign for a Really Challenging Photoshop Job

By Holly Won't 16 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses

dove_real_beauty.jpgA few weeks ago we called shenanigans on the Unilever-owned Dove’s Self-Esteem Fund (and before that, one of their save-the-children ads), but this is infinitely juicier.

Those underwear-clad “real women” in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty ads? Photoshopped!

Pascal Dangin is the Michelangelo of retouching fashion photography. The New Yorker did a meaty profile of him in their latest issue:

[R]etouchers tend to practice semi-clandestinely. “It is known that everybody does it, but they protest,” Dangin said recently. “The people who complain about retouching are the first to say, ‘Get this thing off my arm.’ ” I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”

But the excuse from the ad company that developed the campaign for Dove wasn’t exactly convincing:

“We are unsure right now what he did,” the Ogilvy spokeswoman said.

Ooh, Unilever is firing somebody today.

Thanks to the ever-faithful and always-sexy reader Cassandra for the tip! 

05
May

Posh Spice Suing Denim Company for $100 Million

By Holly Won't 6 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Fashionistas, Legal Messes and Musicians

posh_spice_jeans.jpgSince Victoria Beckham’s career as a fashion designer seems to have fizzled, perhaps she can support herself as a professional litigant.

As previously reported, Posh Spice’s denim line was dropped last month from LA fashionista havens Kitson and Fred Segal due to poor sales. The $290 jeans eventually popped up on sale racks at Loehmann’s for $70.

Now she’s seeking $100-million from Rock and Republic, the premium denim designer that helped her launch her own line, for loss of earnings, because she thinks the jeans should have sold better than they did.

However, the line was dropped reportedly because she declined to promote the jeans or do anything beyond putting her name on the label.

Is this the first time in history that Posh has avoided publicity? I can’t think of any other time when she’s turned down an opportunity to promote herself.

02
May

If Lindsay Loves In-Car Breathalyzers So Much, Where’s Hers?

By The Oversneer 7 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Entertainment, Movie Stars and Teen Idols

lohan-usa-today-ad.jpgLindsay Lohan’s handlers have their undies in a bunch over an ad in this morning’s USA Today. So, naturally, TMZ’s writers have their own panties in a twist over it too.

A restaurant trade group is targeting LiLo because apparently she’s the perfect poster-brat for why some people (Exhibit A: spoiled repeat-DUI drunks) should probably have to blow into a plastic tube to start their cars, but the rest of us who just have a beer at a ball game shouldn’t have to deal with the mandatory hassle. At least I think that’s their point.

Here’s what Lindsay’s spokes-Hobbit told TMZ:

“Drunk, old, white businessmen, drunk cougars out for girls night out, and drunk wedding parties should be kept off the roads of America. Lindsay Lohan fully endorses ignition interlock devices that have been well-proven to save lives.”

The last time I checked, she started wearing one of those alcohol-sniffing ankle bracelets last July 13 — but never had a breathalyzer installed in her car. And US magazine recalls that the ankle monitor only lasted 11 days before LiLo got another DUI (July 24).

So maybe she is a great example of someone who needs to prove her sobriety — ahem, I say again, her sobriety — every time she turns the key. But if she “fully endorses” the devices, where the heck is hers? I bet it’s in storage along with her anti-DUI public-service announcement.

lilo-in-her-mercedes.jpg

Can you spot the breathalyzer? Me neither.

02
May

Disney Sends Miley Cyrus to Her Room

By Holly Won't 11 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Bad Boys & Girls, Businesses, Musicians and Teen Idols

miley_cyrus_disney.jpgMiley Cyrus made an appearance yesterday at Walt Disney World, in Orlando. As you can see in this Disney-approved image, the teen idol is wearing clothes for the first time in weeks. They must be thrilled.

However, continuing the biggest overreaction in Mickey Mouse history, she will not be attending as scheduled the Disney Channel Games, a media event where young Disney stars compete to win money for charity. The cancellation seems to confirm a rumor that the New York Post reported earlier this week:

“You won’t be seeing her for a while,” a highranking Disney employee was overheard saying this weekend at a luncheon in LA, according to Page Six. “The company is keeping her away from events and wants her to keep a very low profile for the next four to six months. They’re trying to keep her contained.”

Contained? She’s 15 years old. Does she have fangs? Yes, I gave her some crap the other day for her whole “Praise Jesus!” schtick, but Disney is not her parent. So why are they grounding her?

30
Apr

The House of Mouse Shows Another Child Unbloused

By Simon Scowl 9 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Musicians, Television Actors and The Naughty Bits

Apparently I am the only person in North America who doesn’t care what Miley Cyrus did or did not wear in some dumb magazine, or anything she does anywhere else for that matter. But Disney is outraged, Bill O’Reilly is outraged, everybody’s outraged about the supposed sexualization of a 15-year-old girl. Even Deceiver is a little bit outraged! Disney has sent lil’ Miley into hiding to try to protect their franchise from the media storm.

But that’s just in the West. In China, apparently Disney is a lot more nonchalant about kids showing too much skin. Daniel Brooks, writing in Slate, brings news of a creepy Chinese ad campaign for Disney underwear, featuring an even younger girl in bra and panties. When he asked Disney about it, in light of their reaction to this Miley Cyrus debacle, a Disney spokesman said the Chinese ad (which is months old) was an oversight on their part and would be discontinued immediately. That’s great, but if Disney is so concerned with their kid-friendly image, why are they letting this stuff happen in the first place?

29
Apr

PETA Helps Struggling Animal Actors Find Unemployment. Sometimes.

By The Oversneer 12 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses and PETA

aflac-duck.jpgI know I’ve been harping on PETA a bit much lately, but it’s hard to ignore this gem from Columbus, Georgia:

PETA has nominated Aflac for a PETA Litterbox Award for using a live, young ape in one of its latest commercials, “Orangutan.” The annual “awards” single out companies that portray animals negatively or use creatures like apes in advertising …

[PETA spokesdweeb Kristie] Phelps admitted PETA does not know which agency the orangutan used in the Aflac ad came from. But the animal rights group is now pushing Aflac to pull the ad and pledge to never use apes again in its advertisements …

In the “Orangutan” commercial, an employee asks her boss if the business has Aflac. Her boss tells her they have “something else” and gestures to an unruly orangutan hanging from a factory light, which represents another insurance company.

Aflac used the commercial — which first aired in January — to convey the idea that there is no substitute for Aflac. It was the 33rd installment of Aflac’s commercial series produced by the New York-based Kaplan Thaler Group.

Has PETA never seen the AFLAC commercials?

Hint: There’s a freakin’ DUCK in every single one. All 33 of them. And if that annoying voiceover from Gilbert Gottfried isn’t an example of “portraying animals negatively,” I don’t know what is. But it took a hairy ape to get PETA’s attention.

I guess the pigs from Animal Farm were right: Some animals are more “equal” than others.

All together now, with feeling … AFLAC!

22
Apr

How Can You Save the Earth? Buy Stuff!

By Simon Scowl 3 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Businesses and Environmentalists

Yay, it’s Earth Day!

What’s that? You didn’t know today’s Earth Day? Well, now ya do. Come on, you don’t want to miss out on all that pedantic scolding you could be doing, huh?

Let’s go on an Earth Day shopping trip! All sorts of companies are cashing in on your credulity looking into their hearts and doing what’s right for the planet:

  • The place to start, of course, is Amazon Green. That’s right, Amazon.com has a section strictly devoted to products that will save the Earth! From recycled bumwipe to dim, flickery, eye-reddening lightbulbs to baby clothes made out of freaking soybeans, they’ve got everything you need to convince yourself you’re making a difference. And it’s all shipped to you, anywhere in the country, via Santa’s magic sleigh. Zero carbon emissions!
  • Then you’ll want to hit Whole Foods, where as of today, the clerks who ring up your overpriced produce and flavorless hemp snacks will be asking you, “Paper or… paper?” No more plastic bags! Of course, you’ve probably preempted their mute disapproval anyway by getting some of those canvas shopping bags. (Isn’t hemp awesome?)
  • Don’t forget to pick up today’s paper. Almost 50 of today’s comic strips, from Arctic Circle to Zits, have an Earth Day theme. I know what you’re thinking: “What about all those murdered trees, you dumb hippie?” Nice try, fascist, but all Earth Day newspapers are printed on a special blend of pixie wishes and unicorn dreams!
  • Once all your shopping is done, maybe you want to relax and unwind at a baseball game. Well, you can’t, because Major League Baseball is honoring Earth Day by tearing down all their parks, plowing them under, and planting trees on them. Just kidding! They’re starting some sort of “Greening Program.” Presumably it doesn’t involve encouraging fans to reduce their carbon emissions by staying home.
  • Of course, I found all this stuff via Google:

    The logo means they care! Can’t help but notice there are no salmon… this must be downstream from one of Google’s hydroelectric plants.

I don’t know about you, but now I feel much better about not taking the quickest and most obvious step to save the planet: Killing myself and my entire family.

And don’t forget: “At least they’re doing something!”

(Thanks to the Unsuitablog for the inspiration)

22
Apr

Historic Green Border Demonstrates TIME Magazine’s Newfangled Attitude Toward Killing Trees

By The Oversneer 11 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Environmentalists and Writers

time-self-promotion-cropped.gif

Courtesy of a friend who buys advertising for a living, this is the gratuitous self-promotion that TIME magazine is sending its real customers this week (the ad buyers, not the subscribers).

Ooh! Nothing shows commitment to the environment like using green ink instead of red ink! Never mind how many trees we killed to print 5 million green-colored copies. Nothing to see here… move along.

When was the last time a news organization actually declined to publish a dead-tree edition of its magazine or newspaper, or offered it only online, in homage to Earth Day? Now that’s something I could respect, even if the whole “going green” thing is a bit overdone these days.

And don’t get me started about the Iwo Jima reference in the cover photo.

14
Apr

Posh Is Officially Out of Work

By Holly Won't 3 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Fashionistas and Musicians

posh_quits.jpgRemember how Victoria Beckham quit the Spice Girls because she wanted to be a fashion designer? If not, it’s your lucky day because I have a memory like an elephant. In February:

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’m not in the music industry any more. I’m in the fashion industry.

“I’m putting together a team of people now so it will be my main project when I finish this tour in a month.”

Turns out, much like ombre maxi dresses (oh they may be hot right now, but trust me on this one), Posh’s dVb line of jeans was a passing fad.

The denim has been pulled from Los Angeles stores Kitson and Fred Segal after she refused to make any public appearances to promote the line:

“We asked her PR people so many times for her to appear but she didn’t,” said Kitson owner, Fraser Ross. “Celebrity lines are no different from an album or music tour. They have to be promoted to sell.”

Maybe the jeans came only in Posh’s size 00. Might have been a contributing factor to poor sales?

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