Interesting Facts

A Norwegian city, Trondheim, has banned adverts that show semi-naked models, male or female, in public spaces. (The new policy says: “No advertising that conveys a false image of the model/models’ appearance and contributes to a negative body image will be permitted. As a minimum, advertisements in which body shapes have been retouched should be marked as such.” This is seemingly an attempt to reduce the impact such adverts could have on people with body image issues. It reminds me of the "Beach Ready" controversy on London Underground.)

I like accents, I think they make language interesting and varied, but all accents are not equal, and it seems supermarket chain Morrisons agrees with me.  They issued a callout for actors with northern accents to feature in a campaign for the supermarket, but they went on to specify that “nobody from Liverpool” should apply. (The advert, which appeared on the Casting Networks International website, read:- "These films will focus largely on people’s facial expressions. Therefore, it’s vital that their faces have character – something interesting and captivating that will make the film watchable, but nothing glaringly obvious, and we don’t want caricatures. We want quirks: freckles, bushy eyebrows, etc. They should all be warm and likeable. They should be proper working-class people, but not at all like the characters from Benefits Street. They should not sound or look posh, and we should skew towards northern accents." It concluded: "And nobody from Liverpool, please....