Martin Clark wrote:
> Marjorie wrote...
>> Steve Brooks wrote:
>>> [..]
>>> I'm stunned. There must have been some fairly senior staff involved
>>> in choosing the name. And yet it appears not one of them had even
>>> heard about the book.
>>
>> It's not credible that they could choose that name by coincidence.
>> There are lots of cutesy names that are fashionable among little
>> girls, but AFAIK "Lolita" is not one of them.
>>
> They might as well have had a range of pink and purple bedroom stuff and
> called it "My Little Tart".

Shoosh, don't give them ideas!

"Steve Brooks" <steveb> wrote in news:GLZoj.109
$v04.108:

> Rosalind Mitchell wrote:
>>
> Trivial Pursuit - The Guantanamo edition.

A late arrival, curtesy of my other half: the Herald of Free Enterprise
door furniture.

Marjorie wrote:
> Steve Brooks wrote:
>
> It's not credible that they could choose that name by coincidence. There
> are lots of cutesy names that are fashionable among little girls, but
> AFAIK "Lolita" is not one of them.
>
> Someone senior must have known exactlly what they were doing, and hoped
> that the name would appeal in a subliminal way to parents who see their
> young daughters as an exended projection of their own sexuality.

Talking about this yesterday, we wondered if some - junior - bright
spark had made the idea in jest at an ideas meeting, and been too
ashamed to speak up when everybody took it seriously.

In message <60inl9F1re46sU1>, Siderius Nuncius
<matron.nuncius> writes
>"Alex" <alexkoval> wrote
>
>Or the stylish and practical Eichmann range of showers and ovens?
>Or the recently developed Bagdhad programme for the treatment of Downs'
>Syndrome?

The Gordon Brown remote control aircraft kit?

<http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=prime-suspect&method=full&objectid=20307827&siteid=93463-name_page.html>
if anyrat didn't catch a review of the papers this morning.

Woodlake wrote...
>The Gordon Brown remote control aircraft kit?
>
><[..]
>ctid=20307827&siteid=93463-name_page.html>
>if anyrat didn't catch a review of the papers this morning.

Sounds very unlikely to me. How come all the other aircraft approaching
Heathrow didn't fall out of the sky? And all the planes taxiing to take
off have their engines cut out? And how come it didn't happen every time
GB (and TB before him) passed through Heathrow?

In article <V$bRrnIkwfpHFwfa>, martin says...
> Woodlake wrote...
> >The Gordon Brown remote control aircraft kit?
> >
> ><[..]
> >ctid=20307827&siteid=93463-name_page.html>
> >if anyrat didn't catch a review of the papers this morning.
>
> Sounds very unlikely to me. How come all the other aircraft approaching
> Heathrow didn't fall out of the sky? And all the planes taxiing to take
> off have their engines cut out? And how come it didn't happen every time
> GB (and TB before him) passed through Heathrow?
>
Not to mention that the plane didn't 'lose both engines'.
The author couldn't really be ignorant of that basic fact, so they seem
to have little regard for accuracy or truth.

"Plusnet" <not> wrote in message
news:9c5c
> In article <13q8subpb1agk6f>,
> dontusethisaddress says...
>>
>> And what's all this "Playboy" stuff about? I recently overheard, with
>> some bewilderment, a group of three teenage (maybe 15-year-old) girls
>> boastfully listing all the Playboy merchandise they had - the duvet
>> cover, the bag, the tee-shirt, etc etc. Why do young girls want to
>> identify themselves with a brand that promotes nude pinups, and views
>> women as playthings and sex objects? And who buys them all this ghastly
>> tat?
>>
>>
> Adolescent girls looking for anything which isn't pink?

Can't claim expertise here, naturally, but I think quite a lot of the
Playboy stuff is.

Chris

While spitting out some home-made cheese, I heard Marjorie
<dontusethisaddress> say

<snip comment on the "Lolita" range of furniture for girls>
>
>And what's all this "Playboy" stuff about? I recently overheard, with
>some bewilderment, a group of three teenage (maybe 15-year-old) girls
>boastfully listing all the Playboy merchandise they had - the duvet
>cover, the bag, the tee-shirt, etc etc. Why do young girls want to
>identify themselves with a brand that promotes nude pinups, and views
>women as playthings and sex objects? And who buys them all this ghastly tat?
>
I think this phenomenon can be summed up in two words: "Sex Sells".

If you want to sell something, give it some sexual connotation. So,
if you want to attract an audience to a cookery programme, you call it
something like "The Naked Chef" or "Gordon Ramsay's F-Word". If you
want to attract an audience to a makeover programme, you call it "How
to look good naked" or "Trinny and Susannah undress...". If you want
to sell an ice-cream cornet, you get an attractive young woman to
sprawl across a bed, licking it sensuously. And so on.

However, if you are trying to sell to young girls, there's a potential
problem. If they aren't sexually aware, the "sex sells" marketing
ploy won't work. The solution? You do everything you can to awaken
sexuality in your "target demographic". You use [1] magazines aimed
at pre-pubescent girls to promote the idea that it's cool to be sexy.
You fill them with articles on make-up, how to chat up boys, how to
snog and (because they are fundamentally responsible) how to have sex
without getting pregnant. Then you're off and running - your
favourite marketing technique is now viable.

Looked at in that light, I don't think there's anything at all
surprising in the association of brand names like "Lolita" and
"Playboy" with products aimed at young women.

[1] The magazines are only too happy to be used in this way. It's in
their interest for their readers' sexuality to be awakened. They
depend on advertising revenue to make a profit, so what's good for the
marketeers is good for them. Also, they can improve their own
circulation by using the same "sex sells" technique.

"Tony Gardner" <invalid> wrote

> If you want to sell something, give it some sexual connotation. So,
> if you want to attract an audience to a cookery programme, you call it
> something like "The Naked Chef" or "Gordon Ramsay's F-Word". If you
> want to attract an audience to a makeover programme, you call it "How
> to look good naked" or "Trinny and Susannah undress...". If you want
> to sell an ice-cream cornet, you get an attractive young woman to
> sprawl across a bed, licking it sensuously. And so on.

<snip>

Everything you say in this post makes excellent sense to me, Tony, but I
can't really see how an attractive woman licking a bed would sell ice-cream,
however sensuously she did it.

While spitting out some home-made cheese, I heard "Siderius Nuncius"
<matron.nuncius> say

>
>"Tony Gardner" <invalid> wrote
>><snip>
>
>Everything you say in this post makes excellent sense to me, Tony, but I
>can't really see how an attractive woman licking a bed would sell ice-cream,
>however sensuously she did it.
>Well, Sid, this is an area where everyone's tastes are different. I
must confess I was assuming that bed-licking is a universal turn-on,
and that ice-cream sales would rise if you could get the audience to
associate it with ice-cream eating.

Clearly, and perhaps surprisingly, there are some people who are *not*
turned on by bed-licking. AIAOU? or AYAUO?

On Feb 4, 11:15 am, "Siderius Nuncius" <matronnunc>
wrote:
> "Tony Gardner" <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote
>> <snip>
>
> Everything you say in this post makes excellent sense to me, Tony, but I
> can't really see how an attractive woman licking a bed would sell ice-cream,
> however sensuously she did it.

Your comment has provoked a series of strange images in my head.
Please make them stop.

On Feb 2, 1:40 pm, Jane Vernon <clothandcla> wrote:
>
> However, I do think the whole thread deserves a BUMRA nomination.
>
<bumrette flits in...>

All tucked away, thanks for the tip-off (a reference to the Bobbitt
scissors?)

Kimbo xx

<... and flits out>

"Siderius Nuncius" <matron.nuncius> writes:

> "Tony Gardner" <invalid> wrote
>> <snip>
>
> Everything you say in this post makes excellent sense to me, Tony, but I
> can't really see how an attractive woman licking a bed would sell ice-cream,
> however sensuously she did it.

Isn't much of the point to make people pay attention to the ad, in whatever
way?

73, doug

Plusnet wrote:
> In article <V$bRrnIkwfpHFwfa>, martin says...
> Not to mention that the plane didn't 'lose both engines'.
> The author couldn't really be ignorant of that basic fact, so they
> seem to have little regard for accuracy or truth.

The definition of a modern journalist.

On 2 Feb 2008 13:43:50 GMT, Jim Easterbrook
<nospam> wrote:

>Marjorie <dontusethisaddress> wrote in
>news:13q8sco7gvpn66d:
>
>> And Halfords will have to withdraw the "Diana" seatbelt range.
>
>But she wasn't wearing one. The only person in that car who did wear a belt
>was the one that survived. A point that has clearly not been made often
>enough, given the number of people I see still not wearing seat belts.

That's reminded me of this morning's Toady item about the Munich air
crash. IIRC everybody who survived that had been seated facing
backwards. When I first used to fly Basel-London there were still
planes (Tridents?) with backward-facing seats, but they were phased
out because passengers didn't like them. It's true that taking off was
an odd sensation, but landing was more comfortable.