01 February 2008

No bed for Lolita

As I experience a frisson of rage each time I am in the school stationery area of WHS or other similar store and observe the prominently displayed "Playboy" range, I empathised with a story in the Times this morning describing how Woolworths has withdrawn bedroom furniture aimed at 6-year-old girls because it has the brand name "Lolita". (As in a bed called "the Lolita Midsleeper Combi".) Mothers at the raisingkids.com website protested and the furniture has been withdrawn. As well as empathising, I laughed out loud to read this:

" Whereas many mothers were familiar with Vladimir Nabokov and his famous novel, it seems that the Woolworths staff were not. At first they were baffled by the fuss. A spokesman for the company told The Times: “What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either. We had to look it up on Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now.” "

According to the article, Tesco was made to remove a pole-dancing kit from the toys and games section of its website in 2006. Maybe there is yet hope that the ghastly Playboy range of school stationery, which has been selling for several years, will suffer the same fate.

1 Feb 2008 09:04:41 | Media

1 Comment

Norm

"What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either."

They will probably reissue the bedroom furniture as the Britney Spears or Amy Winehouse range.
What is happening in our schools if people can come out and get jobs who are just so ignorant?

Posted by: Norm | 02 February 2008 at 10:16

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Maxine

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