Loose cannons

@columhead = It worked for Howard

"The NSW Coalition plans to keep its policies hidden from voters until the last month before the 1999 State election ..." — Sydney Morning Herald, January 20.

@columhead = Truth in advertising

"We thought nobody in America would know what he said." — an embarrassed Nike spokesperson after an anthropologist disclosed that a Kenyan tribesman, speaking in the Maa language in a Nike ad, was not mouthing the Nike slogan "Just do it" but was saying, "I don't want these. Give me big shoes."

@columhead = Balance

"It is important to get the right balance between individual rights and social order for the good of the entire community." — Tung Chee-hwa, who will be chief executive of Hong Kong when it returns to Chinese rule, explaining why he wants to restore British colonial laws which, until 1992, restricted protests and political organising.

@columhead = March of progress

"It's going to be huge. People aren't irritated by it at all." — Peter Broden of Gratistelefon, a Swedish company which provides free phone calls in exchange for putting advertising messages on your line.

@columhead = Sharing

"The latest Commonwealth Gazette ... reveals that Treasury picked up a catering bill of $3450 for a [Treasurer Peter] Costello Parliament House party on August 20. That was Budget night, when Costello announced $7.2 billion in cuts over two years, the pain of which he said would be 'fairly shared' around the nation." — Margo Kingston in the Sydney Morning Herald.

From GLW issue 260