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Charlotte Parsons

Censorship, oppressed rights, exploited women, famine and emergency airlifts.

It gets depressing, dealing with these sorts of issues day in and day out.

After a while, it can wear you down.

Lai See  wonders how those beer and cider vendors do it.

Take Foster's, for example. Yesterday, they fell victim to censorship.

Joe Bananas had produced an advert promoting both bar and brew.

For those of you who aren't Wan Chai warriors, Joe Bananas is a pick-up joint where the drunk and the desperate come to dance and shark. Their club motto: 'Joe Bananas - Don't let it slip away'.

When Lai See  heard that the bar planned to advertise in the Rugby Sevens  magazine, we weren't particularly surprised.

When that tournament is on, the south stand looks spookily similar to JBs at 4 am.

Foster's is a Sevens sponsor, so the advert showed an impressively endowed woman holding a pair of jugs in front of her . . . um, pair of jugs. Hence the text, which says, 'we can show you her jugs'.

And people say there's no subtlety in advertising.

Yes, it's piggy, but we're told the advert has appeared in several magazines with nary a complaint. Until yesterday.

That's when the ad team began frantically trying to cobble together a new, toned-down version.

The rugby union had banned it.

'They said it was inappropriate and that they wanted something more formal and traditional,' a Banana woman said.

That raised a Lai See  eyebrow. We go to the Sevens every year. We have even ventured into the infamous south stand, so we know what goes on in there.

Allow us to offer a snapshot: an inflatable sheep bounces across the surface of a crowd drenched with flung beer. Someone dressed as Superman rides outstretched hands from the top of the stand down to the field, where he's pursued by security.

And every year, the same chant: 'Come on girls, get your tits out for the lads.'

And every year, some of the girls oblige them.

That's why Lai See  was surprised by the sudden squeamishness.

We called up the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union to ask what it was all about.

'That advert might be okay in some places, but we didn't think it was appropriate,' said executive director Alan Payne. 'We thought it was pretty tacky.'

Meanwhile, back at the bar, the ad's authors were muttering darkly about freedom of expression.

And believe it or not, this isn't the only issue that ales the drink industry.

Hong Kong recently fell victim to a drought.

A cider drought.

We read of it in the Bristol Evening Post.

The headline: 'Chinese run out of Diamond Black, emergency airlift eases cider famine'.

Apparently the British tipple is the latest thing among Hong Kong hip and trendies.

It fell victim to its own popularity when local youths drank their way through the SAR's entire supply.

Six containers holding 250,000 bottles were on a ship bound for Victoria Harbour when the supply dried up.

But it would be days before they arrived.

This was apparently more than the cider set could bear.

Because Diamond Black's agent shelled out HK$1 million to send three bottle-filled jumbo jets hurtling Hong Kongward.

'We are now holding a meeting to decide how we can keep up with demand,' a company official said. 'Diamond Black has established itself as cool among young Chinese. It is seen as an international drink.'

It's not quite as international as they think.

The sickly stuff failed out of the market and off England's shelves two years ago.

But back to the beer fight.

Lai See  checked in with the combatants late yesterday evening to find out if the revamped, reworked version had Fostered better relations.

Nope. It still failed the rugby taste test.

'It doesn't look much different to us,' Mr Payne said of the beer-toting bar belle. 'I heard they'd threatened to go to the press and I said 'go ahead'.'

Oh dear. Sounds like trouble's brewing.



Beer babe brings froth to a head