Farangland News

Victoria's Secret has quickly pulled an Asian-themed lingerie collection called Go East that was ludicrously accused of trading in sexualized, generic pan-Asian ethnic stereotypes.

The item nutters found most offensive? The $98 Sexy Little Geisha teddy. This item was part of the lingerie giant's Sexy Little Things product category

The Sexy Little Geisha teddy boasted an obi-style belt and was accessorized with chopsticks for your hair and a paper fan. Your ticket to an exotic adventure: a sexy mesh teddy with flirty cutouts and Eastern-inspired florals, read the promotional blurb.

However Mimi Nguyen, associate professor of women's and Asian American studies at the University of Illinois flagged the collection as a set of stereotypical images that use racist transgression to create an exotic edge.

She pointed out that all of the models wearing the Go East lingerie are non-Asian. Asians can't wear things like the 'sexy little geisha' outfit without looking ridiculous, she says.

Following this nutter uproar, Victoria's Secret promptly yanked the Sexy Little Geisha outfit, and then obscured access to the whole Go East collection.

Mandatory warning to travellers about the dangers to health caused by Australian Customs

Passengers arriving in Australia will be fuming about new duty-free tobacco restrictions that came into at the beginning of September.

Airports have warned inbound passengers can expect long delays in customs halls around the country as officials attempt to enforce a new limit of just 50 cigarettes, down from the current limit of 250 cigarettes or 250 grams of tobacco products.

Any brought into the country from over the limit will have to be declared for payment of federal duties or be surrendered.

The move comes just weeks after the High Court rejected big tobacco's challenge to the federal government's plain packaging laws, clearing the way for the new-look packets to hit Australian shelves. The new laws will require cigarettes to be sold in olive green packs without trademarks and with graphic health warnings.

The Australian Airports Association, representing the nation's airports, has slammed the rushed implementation of the new duty-free allowance, saying it will divert already-stretched customs officers from the front line of passenger processing.

Cruise lines may have to start censoring on-board comedy routines. The Guardian reports that an Irish man who brought a civil claim against P&O owners Carnival in a UK court has won an out-of-court settlement

John Wolfe a retired builder from Dublin, complained to P&O after he and his wife Joan sailed on a worldwide cruise on the Oriana five years ago when, he claimed, two comedians entertained passengers by telling a series of Irish jokes in their routines. The Guardian says he claimed that he found the jokes deeply offensive and left him feeling humiliated.

After allegedly receiving reassurances that such jokes would be banned and they were given £ 1,000 of vouchers, the Wolfes were surprised and upset to hear similar jokes when they took another P&O cruise in 2008 to the Caribbean on board the Artemis, reports the Guardian.

Wolfe brought a civil claim against Carnival Plc - the owners of P&O - under race relations legislation as well as the European Union's race directive. The case was settled out of court, reportedly for a five-figure sum.

A software engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy -- with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were -- so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

...Read the full article

Vietnamese officials have fined a budget airline for having beauty contestants in bikini-tops dance aboard a plane without authorisation, state-run media has reported.

VietJetAir was fined 20m dong ($956) for the Hawaiian-themed dance on its first flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang.

A statement on the company's website says that it wanted to capture a holiday atmosphere for its new flight route to Nha Trang, one of the country's most popular holiday destinations:

Once passengers stepped on board they were met by flight attendants dressed in beach holiday attire [who] performed a sexy Hawaii dance.

Nguyen Trong Thang, chief inspector of the country's civil aviation body, was quoted as saying that the airline had violated the local aviation regulations by organising unapproved show on a plane .

The Naked Rambler Stephen Gough has been arrested three days after he was released from prison.

Gough, a former Royal Marine who hikes across the country naked, was arrested in Townhill, Dunfermline, by policemen from Fife Constabulary.

He was released from Perth Prison on Tuesday, having spent the past six years in the Scottish jail.

A spokesman for Fife Constabulary said he was arrested following complaints from members of the public and has been charged with a supposed breach of the peace.

The Naked Rambler's supporters on Facebook have made an official complaint to the Fife Constabulary

Re Arrest of Mr Stephen Gough on the afternoon of 20th July 2012 whilst in the course of peacefully eating his lunch unattired

I refer to the ruling on Breach of the Peace, in 2001 in the High Court of Justiciary, where Lord Coulsfield held that breach of the peace required conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community and that mere annoyance or irritation were insufficient .

Misapplication of the legislation governed by this ruling would in itself constitute Breach of the Peace by any individual(s) conducting such misapplication. Fife Constabulary is hereby on notice to provide indisputable evidence, including a physical witness, of serious disturbance to the community .

In this regard, this message is being copied to Professional Standards and constitutes a formal complaint.

Update: Jailed for at least a month

24th July 2012. See  article from  bbc.co.uk

Stephen Gough, the man known as the naked rambler, has denied charges concerning nudity 'close' to a play park near Dunfermline.

Prosecutors said he refused to put on clothing or move away and supposedly committed a breach of the peace on 20 July.

Gough chose to represent himself and was naked during the court appearance.

He was jailed until 23 August. Gough did not ask for bail.

A Swedish Christian Democrat youth leader has protested the censorship of a sexually-suggestive food stand advertisement in southern Sweden by taking to the streets with red lips and painted nails to deliver her own sausages.

The supposedly offensive advert, with a close-up picture of a hotdog, two hands, and two red lips wrapped around the tip of the sausage, was taken down after a member of the local council responded to a complaint by the municipality's 'gender expert'.

This move prompted Felicia Lundqvist from Uppsala to protest against the local municipality in Simrishamn, which she claims is wasting tax money by employing a gender expert.

She stood in a busy square in the town with a sign over her chest which read: Felicia's hotdog stand. Suck on that gender experts! She said that she found nothing to be offensive about the original advert.

Britten Dehlin was the 'gender expert' who had taken issue with the street vendor's initial picture, causing its removal. She spouted:

This is a sexualized picture. A prime example of an poorly-thought through act and a traditional gender approach with the aim of drawing in customers.

Lundqvist, however, was shocked that politicians could remove an ad for reasons of gender equality without even reporting it first to the advertising ombudsman. Furthermore, Lundqvist says that she can't understand why gender experts are given such lofty platforms to speak, claiming that Simrishamn's gender expert's salary should be donated towards preschools in the area instead.

Stephen Gough, nicknamed the Naked Rambler, has vowed to continue walking around Britain with no clothes on after tasting his first day of freedom after being jailed by Scotland for 6 years.

Former marine Stephen Gough has spent the vast majority of the past decade behind bars because of Scottish intolerance and injustice.

He initially earned the title Naked Rambler by walking unclothed from Land's End to John O'Groats after quitting his job as a lorry driver.

He was spoken to by police immediately after his release, but was then allowed to go on his way in an apparent shift in Tayside Police force policy. On the last few occasions he has been immediately arrested by officers waiting for him at the gates, but yesterday he was given the go-ahead to walk off despite being naked.

Following his release he said: My opinion is that the police have thought 'the guy's not going to give up so let's have a think about it.

He revealed that he had spent the vast majority of his time in solitary confinement in maximum security Perth Prison - although he said life inside flew by.

Offsite: The naked truth

19th July 2012. See article from fleetstreetfox.com , thanks to David

A good article about Stephen Gough and Scottish injustice.

A commenter also makes the point that 6 years spent in jail is the equivalent of a 12 years sentence with 50% remission.

...Read the full article

Elf and Safety extremists pulled the plug on a concert by Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band and Paul Mccartney citing ludicrous bollox that they had run 8 minutes past their allotted time.

Fans were left angered after the Hard Rock Calling event ended prematurely after Paul Mccartney joined Bruce Springsteen on stage to perform Twist and Shout and I Saw Her Standing There. 

As 80,000 rapturous fans yelled their delight under the pouring rain, the microphones were switched off after the health and safety curfew was breached by eight minutes, leaving the singers to leave the stage in silence.

While organisers defended the unfortunate decision last night, it provoked a storm of protest from fans and even members of Springsteen's entourage.

Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist with Springsteen's E Street band, said:

One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did England become a police state?

Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, also wade into the row, criticising the excessively officious decision .

Last night, a spokesprat for Live Nation, the event's organisers, spewed:

The curfew is laid down by the authorities in the interest of the public health and safety.

A Westminster Council spokesman said it was concert organisers, not the council, who pulled the plug.

Update: Oops Wrong Jobsworths. It wasn't Elf & Safety after all. It was the department of Petty Bureaucracy and Clock Watching

18th July 2012. See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

Promoter Live Nation released a statement in the hours after the plug was pulled on Bruce Springsteen, claiming the curfew was in place as a result of safety issues.

However Kevin Myers, the deputy chief executive of the Health and Safety Executive, who was actually at the gig, said it was not true to blame the end of the show on those grounds. He said:

The fans deserve the truth. There's no health and safety issues involved here. While public events may have licensing conditions dictating when they should end, this is not health and safety.

Hundreds of Olympics officers of the Brand Army

Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will begin touring the country today enforcing sponsors' multimillion-pound marketing deals, in a highly organised mission.

Almost 300 enforcement officers will be seen across the country checking firms to ensure they are not staging ambush marketing or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald's, Coca-Cola and BP.

The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, refused to rule out that even more soldiers may be called upon to help with security. However, as well as the regular Army, the Olympic brand army will start its work with a vengeance today.

Wearing purple caps and tops, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand repression operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £ 20,000. The ODA seems to comprise of council workers seconded from Trading Substandards.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including gold , silver and bronze , summer , sponsors and London . Publicans have been advised that blackboards advertising live TV coverage must not refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympics deal, while caterers and restaurateurs have been told not to advertise dishes that could be construed as having an association with the event.

The scale of the brand enforcement squad is likely to intensify criticism that the Olympics has become too corporate. Paul Jordan, an expert in brand protection at Bristows solicitors said they were almost certainly tougher than at previous Olympics: No other brands would have people walking the streets being their eyes and ears, protecting their interests.