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Spectrum and Camel cigarettes - it actually happened!

Mike's Pith & Wind - Celeb endorsements
I was standing near the Coles’ checkout when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw this bloke leering at me. The leer was so insistent I eventually turned my head to eye-ball this rude fellow – which was when I realised it was one of those life-size cut-out cardboard celebrities endorsing some Coles’ product or other - only I failed to recognise the celebrity which, for me at least seemed to defeat the purpose of the exercise.
So, I’m out of touch with the big or even middle-sized knobs on network TV, but it got me thinking about the whole notion of celebrities endorsing products that appear right out of their spheres of interest let alone expertise.
I suppose it’s conceivable that the principal Australian Swisse spruiker, former test cricket captain, Ricky ‘Punter’ Ponting might have been interested in the possible benefits of Swisse products, especially at the end of his playing career when he was struggling to rediscover his timing and balance, but did he actually do the research into the validity of Swisse’s claims? Or did he simply follow the advice of his manager / financial adviser and sign the contracts? Have other Swisse endorsees, including Nicole Kidman, Lleyton Hewitt, John Bertrand, George Calombaris, Karen Martini and Tommy Hafey done due diligence? Do they need to? Or, as Nicole suggests*, is endorsing an Australian owned vitamin supplement company simply a warm and fuzzy thing to do? read more

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Dick's Toolbox - Sectarianism
I’m not prejudiced but…….
You grow up not being aware of your prejudices; they are as much a part of you as pimples or the air you breathe. Growing up in an apparently strait-laced non-conformist community of particularly Anglican persuasion, which was probably as simmering salaciously as the then hot novel ‘Peyton Place’, mild anti-Roman Catholicism was mother’s milk, made more enjoyable as it enabled one to celebrate Guy Fawkes’s Day with uncompromised fervour. My thoughts about religious difference were non-existent apart from the fact that ‘they’ wore ornate regalia, celebrated (in those days) their observances in Latin amongst clouds of smoke, had an infallible old fart in Rome and didn’t believe in birth control. The latter was potentially a problem in the soon to be swinging sixties. Yet.. read more