WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Friday, October 22, 2010

OLL LEWIS: Unicorn-ed Beef?

During my life I have tried many unusual foods, from chocolate-coated mealworms to Impala while I was in Kenya. If fact, while I was in Kenya I was intrigued to see 'lion steaks' on the hotel's laminated lunchtime menu and inquired of the waiter as to just how many people order the lion meat.

“We get this a lot,” came the chap's reply, “It is a typing error it should read 'loin steak'...”

Anyway, I digress. The reason I mention unusual food is because of a certain product that was featured on the Think Geek website last April: Canned Unicorn Meat.

As you might well have guessed, this was an April fool made by the website. The website's description of the product is as follows:

Pâté is passé.
Excellent source of sparkles!

Unicorns, as we all know, frolic all over the world, pooping rainbows and marshmallows wherever they go. What you don't know is that when unicorns reach the end of their lifespan, they are drawn to County Meath, Ireland. The Sisters at Radiant Farms have dedicated their lives to nursing these elegant creatures through their final days. Taking a cue from the Kobe beef industry, they massage each unicorn's coat with Guinness daily and fatten them on a diet comprised entirely of candy corn.

As the unicorn ages, its meat becomes fatty and marbled and the living bone in the horn loses density in a process much like osteoporosis. The horn's outer layer of keratin begins to develop a flavor very similar to candied almonds. Blending the crushed unicorn horn into the meat adds delightful, crispy flavor notes in each bite. We are confident you will find a world of bewilderment in every mouthful of scrumptious unicorn meat.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/unicorn-meat.shtml

It also included the slogan 'Unicorn meat: the other white meat.'

And this was when things got really interesting...

In June this reached the ears of the USA's National Pork Board and they were not impressed. In their anger that one of their slogans ('the other white meat') was being used to apparently market this new meat they rattled off a cease-and-desist letter to Think Geek. However, they didn't stop to question whether the flesh of a mythical animal not recognised or discovered by science could really be farmed and sold by the can. The letter was, according to Think Geek, 12 pages long and well researched, so probably made some lawyers a lot of money, but in no place mentioned that the 'product' was actually non-existent and a parody. As a result of the product being an obvious parody that in no way caused harm to the pork board, there was no actual legal case to answer and the letter overlooked this. Think Geek were good enough to issue a public apology for any confusion caused:

It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet. In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity.

Companies do have to protect their trademarks from being used by others in for nefarious purposes but this is perhaps the funniest example of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut that I have seen.

No comments: