Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Trademark my words

The BBC informs us that an exhibition of pirated goods in Brussels has as its centrepiece a fake Ferrari P4 that was cobbled together in Thailand. This, and the presence of Yasmin Le Bon, is presumably intended to alert us to the dangers of fake product.

But I'm more intrigued by the NGO that gets namechecked in the story: The Authentics Foundation. How frightfully post-postmodern. They sound like the faceless baddies in a Philip K Dick story, ensuring that a passive population experiences not just reality, but the correct reality.

Either that, or it's an early-80s synth band.

5 comments:

Mangonel said...

Well, it's nothing to do with make-up. I checked.

Jun Okumura said...

A "fake Ferrari P4 that was cobbled together in Thailand... and the presence of Yasmin Le Bon" could be a movie adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. On the other hand, fake pharmaceuticals in Nigeria could be an Elmore Leonard novel; unless they're good-as-the-real-thing counterfeits from emerging economies, which would land them on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

There are layers.

Tim F said...

That's a relief, Mangonel.

If everybody found out that the counterfeits were as good as the real thing, Jun, capitalism would pretty much fall to bits.

Billy said...

My cousin used to work for the Corporation of London, always referred to by those who work for it as simply "The Corporation".

That always sounds Dick-ian to me.

Tim F said...

Somewhere between Dick and Dickens, maybe.