… Olympic chiefs seem to be unconcerned with the illustrious history of HMS Belfast if the latest advertisement for next year's event is anything to go by./facepalm
The warship has been airbrushed from the Thames in this poster to advertise the festival that will accompany the Games.
Their excuse is rather predictably lame:
A spokesman for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games said that HMS Belfast said: 'HMS Belfast was unfortunately excluded from one of the seven adverts for the London 2012 Festival. This has now been rectified‘Unfortunately excluded’? They make it sound like it was just an unfortunate choice of camera angle, or something!
No, airbrushing this out would have taken several meetings and discussions before the job was ever even handed to the graphics guys.
He would have been better off blathering something about wanting it removed to better show the majesty of the River Thames, or some such nonsense…
Inspired analogy!
ReplyDelete'Unfortunately excluded'? They might as well have claimed that there was a real-life unified field theory experiment going on aboard HMS Belfast at the time...
Exactly my thoughts on reading that. What an incredibly dire excuse.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of bare-faced lying which we're supposed to just accept. They know they're lying, we know they're lying, and the journo knows they're lying, but that's the story and they're sticking to it. I remember first seeing this phenomenon on the TV news in the 70s as a kid, in my uncomplicated eyes, adults were all effing crazy!
This doesn't surprise me in the least .. but it does anger me ..
ReplyDeleteAs a young Royal Marines Recruit, I underwent & completed my "seamanship" training in HMS Belfast, when she was Flagship of the Reserve Fleet (collectively known as HMS Bellerophon) and based in Portsmouth ..
Admiral Sir James Eberle was also Captain in HMS Intrepid, when I served in her as part of her Royal Marines Detachment in the Far East & Devonport ..
He was a "highly thought of" Captain amongst the ship's company..
I wonder if they'll airbrush the statue of Britannia and replace her with Kylie Minogue?
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell for?
ReplyDelete"I wonder if they'll airbrush the statue of Britannia and replace her with Kylie Minogue" ?
ReplyDeleteMore likely Hattie Hatesmen or that abominable old trout Tessa Jowell ..
The Evening Standard's report yesterday finished with:
ReplyDelete"A spokesman said the reason HMS Belfast had been omitted from one of the designs was because it was underneath one of the letters in the text."
...which is an equally bizarre excuse.
HMS Belfast was taken out of the picture because there are weedy little nations who think the sight of a moored, out-of-commission warship threatens them in some way.
ReplyDeleteThere will be Iranians and Venezuelans frothing at the mouth and filling toilets at the sight of what the Royal Navy once was, because it sends a message:
We don't like your shitty regimes and if only we could get our act together you'd find out all your devious posturing is worth nothing.
GalaPie, yes that is bizarre, and it sounds like bullshit. Easier to move the text than to paint out a bloody great WW2 cruiser. Anon's seems more likely, but although it's a bloody great WW2 cruiser it's only a WW2 cruiser - a supercarrier with airgroup and escort vessles it ain't. Unless... WW2? You don't think it was because someone was worried it might upset the Germans, do you?
ReplyDeleteOther London landmarks we won't be mentioning:
ReplyDeleteRide 'em Cowboy
"Another example of bare-faced lying which we're supposed to just accept."
ReplyDeleteI know! I don't know what's worse, that they lie to us, or that they can't be bothered to put effort into it...
"...which is an equally bizarre excuse."
Indeed, especially when the text in the example shown goes nowhere near the space where the ship was!
"Other London landmarks we won't be mentioning"
Ooooh, there's a site I could happily spend a few hours on...