It’s amazing how the innocuous seems to stir the blood rage of the prohibitionist. Over the past few years, the Coca Cola trucks travelling the country has stirred the ire of the health fascists.
Because this is not any old truck — this is the Coca?Cola Christmas truck. And to many people here, this is as much a part of Christmas as turkey and mince pies.
To health campaigners, however, it is a deeply depressing monument to the clout wielded by the junk food industry in a country where one child in three now leaves primary school classified as obese.
Ah, yes, the old obesity crisis. Clearly the morons peddling this crap haven’t actually watched children streaming out of the school gates at three in the afternoon. My trip home passes several and it is rare to see a child who is chubby, let alone obese. Also, bear in mind that children often go through a chubby phase during development. Still, little things like facts and biology don’t get in the way of the miserablists. If people want to go to the truck and queue for a free can, then they should, in a free society, be able to.
Indeed, thousands of British children are now so morbidly overweight that they are developing diabetes.
Some are, but it’s not enough to get worked up about.
And what has been the response of Britain’s leading charity in this sector? Astonishingly, Diabetes UK recently announced a £500,000 ‘partnership’ with Britvic, makers of two of Coke’s biggest rivals, Pepsi and Tango.
So?
Chief executive Chris Askew has attempted to defend the deal, saying: ‘We cannot tackle the diabetes crisis in isolation.’ The arrangement to fund the charity’s education programme, he insists, offers ‘opportunities to influence industry’.
Fair enough. After all, the usual response is to demand that the government use more of our money. A voluntary partnership with a commercial organisation is perfectly reasonable.
In which case, why not just wave the white flag now and hand round the crisps and fizz?
Please do. Then shut the fuck up and go away, leaving the rest of us free from your incessant shrill screeching.
We are in the midst of a huge health crisis, for Heaven’s sake.
No we aren’t. The obesity crisis is manufactured by fiddling BMI statistics and shifting the line for normal ever lower. It’s a con. A fraud. A lie.
The days of trying to ‘influence’ this slick, multi-billion pound industry are long past. What is needed is a tough new set of rules, not a friendly chat.
Ah, yes, there we go. The crux. “I don’t approve, so it must be regulated, banned or preferably both”.
No one, absolutely no one, is forcing people to drink Coca Cola. No one is forcing people to go to the trucks and take part in the free giveaway. It is a voluntary exchange, but this so enrages the health nutters that in their nasty, spiteful, twisted little husks of a soul, they scream and shout and stop their feet in a tantrum for something of which they disapprove be banned. The Grinch is positively cheerful compared to these people.
Many of those involved in the fight against child obesity have been appalled at the charity’s decision, likening it to a cancer charity jumping in to bed with Silk Cut.
Did you see the sneaky link to smoking there? But, so what? Seriously, why should we care if these nasty creatures are appalled? Indeed, ignoring them and carrying on enjoying life despite their screams and tantrums is precisely the way to carry on – and if a charity (assuming it is a genuine one) chooses to go into business with a food supplier, then jolly good for them. That it enrages the Health Nazis is a bonus.
‘If the charity does not hand back this money, it’s a disgrace. We’ve got to have some consistency on this issue,’ says Helen Clark, author of the All?Party Parliamentary report on a ‘Fit and Healthy Childhood’, published last month.
Likewise politicians. It’s not a disgrace and if they are getting money from industry, they aren’t getting it from me. Win win.
Supported by politicians on all sides and with input from five universities, the lengthy document insists that the Government needs to be much tougher on the food and drink manufacturers when it comes to targeting youth.
Nasty, freedom-hating, authoritarian politicians who make work for themselves by introducing unnecessary legislation in order to justify their bullshit non-jobs want to introduce more nannying, freedom-hating legislation. Well fuck me! I didn’t see that coming.
Look at the way manufacturers use online channels such as YouTube to reach young consumers. Significantly, YouTube is not subject to regulation by Ofcom.
See? Because their usual routes are sidestepped, so they try to widen the net. That YouTube is not regulated is a good thing. Long may it continue.
Yet the All-Party group has found it is now the most popular channel for youngsters of all ages. Certainly, my three — all under 12 — invariably go straight to YouTube to find something rather than fiddle around with terrestrial channels.
These days so do I. Because it isn’t subject to regulation. Because you can get past the fake news peddled by the mainstream media. Because it isn’t regulated by Ofcom.
The nationwide Coca-Cola truck tour is just another example of this cynical exploitation. If that does not count as a child-centric advertising campaign then what does? Not that the people in Leeds are making that connection when I arrive.
They are a company that provides a product. It is consumed by adults and children alike. Companies that sell products engage in advertising and promotion. Get over yourself, you obnoxious little puritan. If you don’t like Coca Cola, don’t buy it. If you don’t like the Christmas Trucks, stay at home. End of problem.
Increasingly, local authorities feel that it is simply no longer acceptable for one of the world’s most famous brands to forge an association in young minds between Father Christmas and tooth-rotting sugared fizz.
There’s that word – acceptable – again. This is what happens. These self-appointed, self-righteous busybodies set themselves up to decide on behalf of others what is acceptable. What is not acceptable is being hectored, lectured, nagged and legislated against by evil puritans who think that what is acceptable is in their remit to determine.
Some might argue that there’s something pretty Bah Humbug-ish and petty about picking on Coca-Cola when all parts of the food and alcohol industries are inviting us to indulge in Christmas gluttony and excess of one form or another.
It is. As far as diabetes in children is concerned – likewise dental health – that is a parental responsibility. It is not for the state to intervene. It is not for the nasty, nannying puritans of the health charity industry to seek to tell us how to live, to lobby parliament to ban or regulate our choices.
At this point I gave up with this cockrot. And, no, it’s not the Guardian…
Thank god these campaigners didn’t see the amount of fat that just went into my flaky pastry, now resting in the fridge for tomorrow’s mince pies & sausage rolls….
Fat isn’t the demon that it has been made out to be. By the same crowd that have a problem with fizzy drinks it has to be said. The reason seems to be that your body doesn’t metabolise fat very easily. Your body metabolises carbohydrates quickly, carbs are the thing that the health nazis have been telling us to eat because they are good for us.
I don’t suppose it would cross their minds to try to get facts before launching into Coke.
More than half their sales in 2017 were of the sugar free kind.
https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/newsroom/press-releases/half-of-coca-cola-sales-coming-from-no-sugar-for-the-first-time#ath
And Coke are too experienced to just stock their truck with products that don’t sell.
But hey that sort of information doesn’t fit their narrative and no journalist will bother to find it themselves, so crap studies and rubbish claims go unchallenged
This is another reason for the long slow death of the mainstream media. No challenge to this kind of crap comes from them, they simply copy and paste press releases without comment. The only informed commentary comes from blogs like this one and from their followers.
All my kids are bloody whippets as are a majority of their school friends, but lets tar us all with the same brush hey instead of targeting the fat feckless fucking parents of the truly obese.
I have made the same observation as regarding children leaving school. My wife goes for her hair do at 2.30 pm fortnightly and I collect her again at 3.30 pm. I am on foot. I see the primary kids coming out. This has been going on for years.
I have yet to see a really fat child exiting the school. Very, very few are even a bit plump.
What I find incredible is that no one ever seems to check the fundamental data on which figures are based, and upon which policies are based. Look at any school class photo and you probably see zero fat kids.
My own three daughters were quite different in their anatomy when they were little. The eldest was nicely built and stayed that way; the middle girl was quite skinny and only started to add pounds when she got older; the youngest was not as tall as the other two but nicely built. Now in their early fifties, all three are quite plump!
I totally distrust ‘Public Health England’. It is not in the least interested in individuals. Only in population-wide effects. All must suffer for the sake of a few affected people, and if statistics need to be ‘manipulated’ to create a problem, they will take that path.
Who is there to call them out?
If you look at photographs of groups of Brits on VE day, after they had been subjected to six years of really harsh rationing, you note the following:
Very few were stick thin
A small proportion of them were quite plump, so that it shows in the face.
Most were just normal.
Now if you look at old photos of members of your own family from wartime, and later in the sixties onward, you see the same effect. The plump ones from the postwar years, had been plump during rationing. And a gradual filling out of their figure as they aged.
Rationing was hell. We have a local wartime fortress where we have an annual exhibition weekend, and you get to see what a week’s rations consisted of. Punitive.
So why didn’t they all look like greyhounds?
Saw that Robert Hardman “nanny state” promotion in DM. Was it a PHE paid for piece?
Shame on Robert Hardman for abandoning principles for bribes.
Sugar war is a plaster, not a solution. Solution is stop the “no risk” culture and let children be free.
Big Zed Update Comments Closed
Thanks for update
Bikini Fairing – told you so 🙂
Bag on pillion seat always works for me – does it have (fold out) bungee hooks?
Tank bags are good, but used so rarely used I secure with bungee net.
Low seat – I’m 5’8″ so need that too. Short was always a prob on MX bikes.
LED Headlight – what is “bulb” H4, H6, H ?
Chain lube choice?
Sorry for delayed reply
OT
BBC The Little Drummer Girl
Bike is a Ducati 900 Super Sport Desmo “Darmah” – not convinced sound track was.
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The bungee hooks are static, but I had to remove them to fit the carrier.
LED headlight – no idea what the bulb is. It works well enough.
I’m using Silkolene dry lube on the chain.
As for the tank bag. I used them for a while in the eighties and nineties but stopped as they tended to flop about and obscure the instruments. The latest click fit types are semi rigid and stay in place. I’ve got a small one that is ideal for phone, wallet, glasses and so on and doesn’t obscure anything. Works well.
Hate to be critical, but imo floppy tank bag your fault. I use an old “Rucanor” school bag on top of a towel secured with bungee straps/net tensioned so it won’t move.
Works fine on 400 mile rides to MC GPs. Yes, hi-speed too inc in 80s plod signalling 125mph me to “slow down” as they passed me in pursuit of mate on GPz faster than their car.
Your plea is like lorry driver saying not his fault load fell off and….
Nah, it’s not a plea, just an observation of fact. I used bagsters. They had clips to secure them to a tank cover. There was no way they were going to fall off. They just flopped about a bit. Enough to be irritating. Didn’t matter how I loaded them. It was a basic design flaw as they were designed to be easily removable for refuelling. straps or bungees would undermine that facility. The only way to stop it was for the base and sides to be semi-rigid. The Givi I use now is rigid, so won’t flop. The clip is more secure. Time and technology has moved on.
Good point on refuelling.
I solved that by attaching front bungee hooks to welding rod looped round steering stem. Unhook those two and bag moved back enough to refuel.
Yep, bike gear 1980/90 vs 2000/10 is very much improved.
Disclosure: first thing I do to a new bike when ridden home is strip it down to frame with engine. Then inspect, modify/protect and reassemble so I know everything is correctly aligned, attached & torqued.
OTT? Probably, but reassures me. I do all my own maintenance too, inc warranty work*. It’s my skin on the line.
* Dealer mechanics dropped bike once, fixed cosmetic damage but not chassis damage. Boss denied until I bin-raked in front of him and found parts I’d modified inc a hidden key.
Were I given a choice, I’d probably choose something like Kofola (Czech cola with a strange but lovely taste – less sugar, more caffeine) or Vita-Cola (beautiful lemon/lime cola) – yes, I know they’re a legacy of Communism in those countries. Really, Coke hasn’t tasted the same since the sugar tax. There are times I’ve had Coke and it’s been beautiful, but that’s when I was a child. On a regular basis though, I’d choose Coke in glass bottles, pre-sugar tax but really either Cola or Pepsi are fine. Lidl used to do an awesome cola before they changed the recipe.
As for the Cola truck – rock on!
Puritans eh?