La Redoute In Advertising Blunder - SALES NOW ON!!!!

Modern Art In The Form Of A Cock Up!

We love blunders on this site when it comes to the news, yesterday we bought you the story of Simon Holt and his twitter howler, today we're heading over to France to take a look at La Redoute - Francais' biggest mail-order fashion retailers.

Take a look at the picture to the right, now look a bit closer paying attention to the swimmer in the background.....
Yes that's a nekkid dude who unknowingly ended up in the limelight of the latest viral photo to hit the net!
But the guys not the issue here, it's the fact that there's 4 kids in the foreground!
La Redoute posted this image on their website in the hope of promoting a new line of children's summer clothes, little did they know just how much of a stir this would create!
Naturally they have now removed the image and made the following statement to the public:

“apologises (La Redoute) for the photo published on its site and is doing what’s necessary to remove it”. 

Personally I think it's all a bit of a set up! Who knows what lengths companies would go to in order to get a bit of extra publicity! and really, when you think about it, who in their right mind would release a photo like that and not see that "thing" in the background!
Either it was a publicity stunt to coincide with upcoming sales, or someone at La Redoute HQ has an outrageous sense of humour!

Related articles

• La Redoute left red faced after publishing photo of naked man in children's ad (mirror.co.uk)
• La Redoute website caught with pants down (thesun.co.uk)

Texan Student Shot Dead By Police Over A Pellet Gun

Jaime Gonzalez Learnt the Hard Way

News emerged in the early hours of this morning of a teenage boy shot dead by police in Texas after waving a bb gun in the wrong place and definitely at the wrong time! (Though I don't know if there is a right time for this kind of scenario!)

The horror story began at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday morning after reports of a student with a handgun.

Whilst within the school police were called and when they arrived 15 year old Jaime Gonzalez pointed the gun at officers in the schools hallway, at this point the police opened fire with 2 shots in fear of theirs/others safety.

Gonzalez was later rushed to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.

Witnesses later told how Jaime had earlier been involved in a confrontation with another student that day and made it clear to others that he was prepared to "engage officers with the weapon"

Hard lesson learned here, sad for the students family and the school alike, maybe it's peer pressure that makes kids think they need to do things like this? I'd love to say that this would serve a good lesson to other young teens out there but the likelihood is that it won't, it's a sign of the times that when a schoolkid has to pull a gun (real or not) to sort out a problem then there's something real wrong with the world!

Related articles

• Boy holding pellet gun killed by Texas police (abclocal.go.com)
• 8th-grader killed by Texas police had pellet gun - CBS News (cbsnews.com)

Twitter: Simon Holt YOU LEGEND!!!

Simon Holt Race Commentator

I barely knew this guy as I'm not a huge fan of horse racing but after reading some weird news on The Times website I have to say that this guy is now one of my newest hero's!

@PlumptonRaceDay was the Twitter account that Simon was using Tuesday afternoon whilst commentating on a horse race at East Sussex racecourse.

Now I've been guilty of it in the past as I'm sure many others have, that awkward moment when you go to send a private message but accidentally compose and send it on your public profile, well that's exactly what happened here, but wait for it, what did the #1 commentator for one of the biggest UK television stations say to all those followers?

"Oh and by the way, I want your hot body tonight babe. xxxxx,"

YES OH YES!!

Now the message that was intended for his wife was quickly followed up with an embarrassing withdrawal saying:

"The previous message was sent in error! Please ignore ...... unless you are Cameron Diaz or my wife." 

Poor Simon, but thankfully he had a sense of humour and his 100 followers did also, thanks to the blunder his followers increased to over 300 in less than an hour!

Now there's a novel way to spread word about your profile and get some much needed attention!
 

Related articles

• 'I want your hot body babe': TV horse racing commentator's racy Twitter message (mirror.co.uk)

Microsoft Catches A Comet!

Bill Gates loves to shop here!

Oh dear, I love these kind of stories, they make me smile, but only for the fact that someone tried to do over Micro$oft, even though they weren't aware of it!

It has come to light that Comet have been selling Microsoft products that they weren't licensed to sell so Mr Gates and his merry men have decided to sue the UK electronic retailer Comet.

Comet are accused of selling recovery discs for XP and Vista systems back in March 2008 through to December 2009, the retailer did this solely (So they claim) to help customers recover their legitimate pc software as the software giant Microsoft had decided not to provide such CD's after a while.

Comet after a while ceased making the products available in their stores as the turnover was only worth around £1 million from the sales.
Comet agree that they did indeed sell the discs but say that they are not guilty of piracy.
In all 94,000 discs were sold throughout the stores chains in the UK.
Sorry but good on you Comet, hope the case falls through, your actions were only to help people out at the end of the day, had Microsoft continued to ship the discs with the product they sold then there wouldn't have been a problem!

Related articles

• Microsoft to sue Comet over sale of "counterfeit" Windows discs (mirror.co.uk)
• Comet 'sold 94,000 pirate Windows CDs', claims Microsoft (go.theregister.com)

Kodak Bankruptcy? Recession Claims Another Big Name!

I remember the days way before digital camera's hit the scene, the days when my mother used to take the film out of the camera and bag it up in a prepaid envelope and send it off using snail mail to wait 21 days for the photo's to magically return through the letterbox along with 3-5 more prepaid paper envelopes!

This is obviously a blast from my past but the point is that "Kodak" was plastered all over these envelopes and the film that loaded the camera, and if I remember correctly the cranky old camera itself was made by Kodak! But the point is this is how I remember and know the brand, and I'm sure alot more people can relate to that.

But unfortunately it would seem that this a**hole of a recession is about to claim this iconic brand as the company is now struggling and about to file off for bankruptcy within the coming weeks unless it can turn itself around and flog a few patents that it holds.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Many companies have bowed to the increasing pressure of this economic crisis all around the world (apart from China as they seem to have an abundance of cash!) and although many might not really care I find it kinda sad that a company like Kodak with a 131 year history just crashes to the ground, makes me wonder how many more will fall to this cash stricken world we live in!

Lets hope the guys in charge of the company can turn things around and save some of the 19,000 employees that work for them.

URGGGGHHH please for christ sakes will someone give some good news for a change!!!

Related articles

• Kodak shares plunge after report that firm preparing bankruptcy filing (business.financialpost.com)