The Woolworths Lolita Bed, And More Horrors

Following neatly along from the "provocative schoolgirl" used in the Ryanair advert come Woolworths, who yesterday withdrew bedroom furniture for young girls which was being marketed under the brand name "Lolita".

With breathtaking idiocy, this marketing strategy takes us into the same realms of the lack of corporate responsibility as previously demonstrated this week by that worst of budget airlines. The company claimed,"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."



Whether citing the cultural ignorance of their staff is sufficient defense remains to be seen, but further investigation reveals other companies also selling dubious items - high street retailers WH Smith selling children's stationery branded "Playboy", BHS selling "adult" underwear, i.e. thongs and padded bras, and leading supermarket Tesco selling a pole dancing kit for young girls, withdrawn from sale in 2006.

As my friend Sizemore said, with just a touch of the sardonic, why stop there? Let's start marketing penis enhancement pumps to young boys, because, after all, young girls don't have a monopoly on vulnerability.

Such a focus on the very young seems to be a developing trend during this final, sickest phase of the post-Cold war period. The triumph of capitalism over idealism has put Mammon in place of aspiration, and the unchallenged markets are seen as a de facto international legislature, totally replacing concepts of social cohesion, accountability or ordinary human morality.

Watching the Cash Machine's excesses become ever more blatant, as endless scientifically determined detail is applied to extracting pitifully small amounts of cash from the mass underclasses, one can only hope that natural revulsion might be eventually translated into concerted, active resistance by those of us clinging to the vestiges of an alternative way of living.