September 2009

Was the doomed trade name iSnack 2.0 really the choice of an open competition or was Kraft up to something craftier?

The trade name for the Vegemite-based spread, which was abandoned today amid a hail of ridicule, was registered in Hong Kong two weeks before the competition closed, The Punch can reveal.

Kraft registered iSnack2.0 along two other trade names, Snackerific and Crackertime, on July 30. The competition closed on August 14.

Continue reading "iSnack was a registered name before Kraft closed comp" »

The good people at Kraft have just released the following press release announcing that they are scrapping the name iSnack2.0 for their new spin-off spread and holding another competition.

We’ve run their statement in full - and we want to know from Punch readers - has this whole exercise been one big con job?

30 September 2009: Kraft Foods Australia/New Zealand has today announced that it will change the name of the new Vegemite. Since the new Vegemite hit supermarket shelves in July 2009, Australians and New Zealanders have been invited to come up with a name for the new product; just as Australians did when Vegemite was first launched in this country in 1923.

Continue reading "Vegemitegate: was it all one massive con job?" »

Another highly instructive sex survey has been released out of Britain.

According to a world-wide survey of 15,000 women, Germans are the worst lovers with Englishman, Swedes, Dutch and Americans rounding off the worst five. Spanish, Brazilians, Italians and French were rated the best in bed, with Australians rated the seventh best.

By my reckoning to have participated in this survey a woman would have had to have slept with at least one man from every country assessed.

Continue reading "How much sex can these women possibly be having?" »

There’s a tsunami warning. What do you do? In New Zealand, people go to the beach.

Okay so the family above are Germans. But others in the photos below are locals, pictured this morning at the North Shore beach of Takapuna in New Zealand. The shots were taken as a tragedy was unfolding in Samoa, where the tsunami generated by an earthquake crashed ashore, flattening whole villages and killing dozens of people, including a 50-year-old Tasmanian woman.

It has been almost five years since the Boxing Day tsunami that killed some 230,000 people across 11 countries. Since then tsunami warning systems have become much more sophisticated and are reported with urgency. As I write another warning has just been issued for Samoa, where you can bet people will be seeking high ground with some alacrity given what has already happened.

Continue reading "Big turn-out in NZ to watch apocalyptic tsunami" »

Nowhere is the disconnect between the business fraternity and the wider community greater than on the issue of executive salaries.

Forget trying to explain a $10m-plus pay packet with references to “international benchmarks” and “long-term incentives”. The public simply doesn’t accept that anyone, no matter how brilliant, is worth $190,000 a week - or 150 times the average salary.

Given this depth of anger among voters towards the occasionally obscene salaries received by our corporate leaders, the Rudd government has shown remarkable restraint on the issue.

Continue reading "On the pay divide, opinion counts as much as coin" »

Now the movie Australia was long. Really long. Which might explain why when I saw it at the cinema the guy down the row not only answered two phone calls, but smoked two cigarettes inside the cinema during the flim.

I wish now The Drover had turned his head from the dusty plain, stepped down through the silver screen into the cinema and said to the guy what I was too shy to say: turn it off you selfish idiot! (Just to clarify this Drover dream sequence of mine was all about mobile phone etiquette, nothing else, really.)

Harry Connick Jr, however, would have been as useless as me. Sitting there wishing the battery would go flat but politely soldiering on “in character”.

Continue reading "Turn your phone off you inconsiderate twerp" »

As teenage sailor, Jessica Watson, makes a second attempt to embark on her 27,000 nautical mile journey around the world, it’s timely to reflect upon the way in which the she, her family and the notion of the trip has been discussed in the media and society. For, there’s no doubt, that on the water or land, since Jessica and her intentions were first touted, she’s been a walking headline.

Her attempt to be the youngest solo sailor almost ended before it had begun when, on her way to Sydney to commence, she collided with a Chinese cargo ship in the early hours of the morning and limped back to port with a broken mast.

The report on the collision indicates that Jessica does not have the experience everyone initially believed, and so a once very supportive tide has begun to turn against the teenager and her family.

Continue reading "PC rubbish allows a teen to try sailing the globe" »

I did something pretty unusual on Saturday night.  Well, unusual for me. I had a quiet one.

I declined various invitations to meet up with mates at a gig, a house party and a pub.  Instead I grabbed a likeminded friend whose liver also needed a night off. We headed to the cinema, donned some 3D goggles, sat through a pretty enjoyable movie and then headed home.

Why did I ‘waste’ a perfectly good weekend party-night? Truthfully I was tired and completely happy to just throw on my comfy jeans.

Continue reading "I saw myself plastered and it wasn’t pretty" »

Australia’s creative industry has again shown its canny ability to frame a debate.

The recent dispute over lifting restrictions on parallel book importation has been cast as a classic good versus evil battle. On the one side, we apparently have the noble educated patriots, boldly standing on the last line of defence for Australian culture, and on the other we have a mounting tide of sub-standard (foreign made) literature and a cabal of neo-liberal charlatans hell-bent on unleashing it on the young impressionable minds of Australian readers.

Author Tim Winton says the Productivity Commission is “hostile to Australian rights.” Louise Adler, CEO of Melbourne University Press, launched a shrill attack on the Productivity Commission as “neo-liberals and economic fundamentalists.” 

Continue reading "Spare me the artists’ pain, change book import laws" »

When my little cousin waltzes into my room and asks me for nail polish, it doesn’t really bother me. Perhaps her decision to forego my sexy reds and vixen blacks for the playschool razzle dazzle of my fluro pinks and purples fills me with a little confidence that her safe and happy childhood is very much intact.

Then there are the other times, when she waltzes in my room wearing blue eye shadow and shiny pink lip gloss, and asks me for help in adding more artificial crap to her face.

Those are the times I know we have a colouring-outside-the-lines situation – and not just because she misses the outline of her lips.

Continue reading "Lambs dressed up as mutton" »