John Scalzi: Listening to the Bob Dylan Christmas Album, because, honestly, WTF. I think these days Bob’s just screwing with folks for fun.
John Scalzi: To answer the question: The Bob Dylan Christmas album is, in fact, terrifying. As in “stop it, you’re scaring the reindeer.”
. . . by allegedly firing the model whose Photoshopped-to-stick-insect proportions drew the criticism in the first place:
The model featured in the Ralph Lauren Photoshop stick insect outrage — in which she was Photoshopped to within an inch of her life — claims she was sacked by the company for being “too fat”.
Filippa Hamilton suffered such an extreme digital makeover in an ad for the fashion company that BoingBoing was prompted to gasp: “Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis.”
Ralph Lauren quickly threw DMCA takedown notices at BoingBoing and PhotoshopDisasters for exposing the folly, but subsequently decided to apologise.
Michael Pinkus has a couple of anecdotes about the marketing sleight-of-hand that allows certain Canadian wineries to sell foreign-sourced wines as if they were Canadian:
Picture, if you will, a classroom of about 30 adult students. Teacher stands up at the front and writes the words “Cellared in Canada” on the blackboard, he then asks, “Who has heard this term?” Head nods of agreement, they have heard of this. The teacher then writes these three letters “V-Q-A” on the board, “Who’s heard this term?” he asks. Everyone again nods accession. “What’s the difference?” Silence ensues. There are then some attempts to explain the difference, but there always seems to be a little confusion in the definition. The words, “no, but thanks for playing,” escaped my lips on more than one occasion. Yes I was that teacher and this happened less than 2 weeks ago. With all the media hype surrounding Cellared in Canada the only thing anyone knows for sure is that somehow cellared wines are bad; but VQA, has somehow been lumped in there too, the term has gotten lost in all the hype. Truth is, these two terms should be as clear as night and day to Ontario wine drinkers.
Now picture this. A man driving down the road, his cell phone rings, he answers, pleasantries are exchanged, then the question is posed, “What’s up?” The person on the other end of the phone is a winery owner with a very real concern, “We’re getting hammered here by irate customers telling us that they are disappointed with us and angry about being duped over our use of foreign grapes and off shore wines.” He pauses for dramatic effect, “We don’t make cellared wines, we’re strictly VQA, always have been always will be. Mike is there anything you can do?” Oh how I wish I could. My worst fears are now being realized; all Ontario wine is being painted with the sloppy broad-brush strokes of Cellared in Canada.
The two stories above are true and have come about due to the continuing controversy surrounding Cellared in Canada wine. Let’s be crystal clear about these two products: Cellared in Canada and VQA. Cellared in Canada is the foreign blend with 30% Ontario content (0% in B.C.); it is a bastard child with no home, an orphan with no earthly parentage. VQA, on the other hand is a purebred, it is 100% from the province it states, Ontario or B.C., currently the only 2 provinces with VQA regulations in place. A VQA wine has the flavour of its origin, it has a home, it has that aspect of “Terroir” the French so rightly hype. Terroir means soil, but it means more than that when talking about wine, it’s a combination, a culmination if you will, of everything mother nature brings to the table in any given year that goes into making that wine — the soil, the climate, the environment. VQA is Ontario wine — 100% — always has been, always will be — if it says VQA, it’s A-OK.
Following up on an item posted a couple of months ago (“The Billionaire’s Vinegar-scented lawsuit“), Michael Broadbent wins his lawsuit against the publisher of The Billionaire’s Vinegar:
This week, the man who authenticated the Lafite and presided over its auction won an apology and damages from the publisher Random House over a bestselling book, which, he argued, had suggested he had sold the wine knowing its provenance to be suspect. Michael Broadbent has retired as the senior director of Christie’s wine department but remains, according to Adam Lechmere, editor of decanter.com, “among the top three most respected wine critics in the world”.
Broadbent described the ruling as a “great relief”, adding that he planned to celebrate with a magnum of Mouton 1990 over dinner at his club.
The settlement relates to a book called The Billionaire’s Vinegar by American journalist Benjamin Wallace, which outlines the now notorious case of “the Jefferson bottles” – and which Random House, according to Broadbent’s lawyer, Sarah Webb, must now remove from bookshop shelves in Britain.
Also, Felicia Day’s commentary on this episode.
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