Beyond parody
Friday, January 10, 2014 at 18:53
Simon Clark

A few years ago we considered launching a spoof campaign.

The name we came up with was Action on Sausages and Health (ASH, geddit?).

The idea was that every anti-tobacco campaign would be replicated by a similar anti-sausage campaign or soundbite.

Concerned that it might upset sausage manufacturers, we then considered adopting the name 'Fingerwaggers Alliance', a term first coined by former MSP and journalist Dorothy-Grace Elder.

I wrote and asked her if we could use it. I still have her response:

Hello, Simon. No objection to Fingerwaggers Alliance but give me a credit!

As parodies go, however, nothing can beat Action on Sugar and tweets such as:

H/T Chris Snowdon

Satire, it seems, is not dead. It's risen from the dead and is stalking the world disguised as 'public health'.

Article originally appeared on Simon Clark (http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/).
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