AW^B-'riSDsTa (page 8)
PETE TOLLITT: Welcome to this week's Round Table. The discussion topic this afternoon is Advertising, and my first guest is Angela Wright. Now, Angela, what do you feel about advertising?
ANGELA: In my opinion, advertisements make you buy things you don't need and can't afford. I've got a cupboard full of clothes that don't suit me and I'm in debt. And the reason is that I see ads showing beautiful people in beautiful clothes and I think I have to have those clothes. PETE: Dave Simmonds, do you agree that ads make people spend too much?
DAVE: Not always. If you ask me, the best ads are works of art. Like the Benetton ad showing the new born baby. It's a fabulous image. And it doesn't try to make you buy a product. You don't see any beautiful people in Benetton clothes in the picture.
PETE: What's your view, Diane Richardson? DIANE: Personally, I think too many ads exploit women. It makes me very angry. Take a recent bra ad. It doesn't say the bra is comfortable or well made. Instead it implies that a woman will be happy to greet "the boys" while wearing it. In my view this is a male fantasy. I bet the ad was made by men. ANGELA: It seems to me that a lot of ads make people feel bad. They can't afford the expensive things in the magazines -you know, luxury apartments or holidays. A mother can't buy her kids the big new computer, and she feels guilty about that. PETE: Well, after the break we want you, the listeners, to give us your views on advertising. Lines are open now and the number to call is...
A^IHAL #lGin?S (page \Z)
As a believer in animal rights, I am opposed to fox-hunting. The fox doesn't stand a chance against the hunters on horseback and the pack of hounds trained to tear it to pieces.
Trapping animals for their fur is another terrible practice. Did you know that animals caught in traps sometimes bite off their own paws to get free? Wearing fur coats isn't glamorous. The people who wear them are selfish and insensitive.
It makes me sick when I read about poachers killing rhinos and tigers and selling bits of their bodies for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Because of these poachers, rhinos and Siberian tigers are in danger of extinction. And tiger bones and rhino horns don't work as medicine.
Many experiments on animals are unnecessary. Testing face creams on rabbits is wrong. Sending monkeys into space with electric wires attached to their brains is immoral. I'm sure that being cruel to animals is bad for our own souls.
A£*r AND AGISTS (page 16)
I started when I was about 12 years old. Like a lot of kids, I just wanted to see my name on a subway train. I got a big black felt tip pen and put my tag on the inside of a subway carriage. It was a fantastic feeling. Then I got on to spray cans. That's much more creative, right? You can do bigger and better graffiti. Beautiful colors.
For some kids subway trains are the big thing. Basically because it's dangerous... Kids hide in tunnels and get killed by trains. Or they run away from the police and fall on the live track - that's 24,000 volts - you are dead as soon as you hit that track.
I gotta say that doesn't interest me any more. I don't want to be famous and dead. I like to do big works on walls and buildings, real public art, you know - murals. Sometimes it's legal - like a school invites you to do something. Sometimes it's illegal. It's the same to me. What's important is the quality of the work.
This is democratic art - art for the people, by the people. We are not like the painters who get $50,000 for their pictures in a gallery in Manhattan. We don't get paid. If anything, we have to pay - with fines or with prison. But everyone gets to enjoy the art that we make.
bzaXS*?**: (page 20)
Ideas of beauty are different in every culture. In Ethiopia, for example, it's important for Surma girls to have a very large lower lip. So first they have their lip pierced with a sharp stick. Then they have a piece of wood put in the lip. Every month they have a larger piece of wood put in. In the end the lower lip is stretched with a very large wooden plate. In the Sudan, some tribes decorate their bodies with scars. First, they have their skin cut with knives and needles. Later, the cuts become small, round scars which cover their bodies. In Kenya, Masai girls have their ears stretched with heavy weights. They think long ears are very beautiful. And in Burma, Padaung women use brass rings to stretch their necks.
Scarring the skin, stretching the lips, ears or neck - it all sounds painful and the results don't look very good to our eyes. But how different is it from us? We go on diets and we have braces put on our teeth. There's no doubt about it, all over the world people are willing to suffer to be beautiful.
&£--Ll£fS (page ^4)
ALICIA: My name's Alicia. In science we've been studying Darwin's theory of evolution. So of course I don't believe in Adam and Eve and the creation story in the Bible. But I do believe in God. I go to church three or four times a year. My faith does help me. I pray, especially when I'm having problems. I believe in an afterlife where I'll be able to look back and see what was good and bad in in my life. GEORGE: My name's George. I'm an atheist. I don't have any religious beliefs so of course I don't believe in an afterlife. We get one life and we have to make the most of it. But I do think it's possible to have a sense of right and wrong without a religion to guide you. Many religions are too narrow about what's right and wrong. For example, the Catholic Church disapproves of contraception. It's crazy when the world is already overpopulated.
PIPPA: My name's Pippa. I'm not interested in organised religion but I believe in God. I meditate and do yoga and I dc believe in reincarnation. I'm also a bit superstitious. I know it's silly and irrational but I can't help it. I won't walk under a ladder and I hate going out on Friday the thirteenth.