From Chanel No.5 to Blair No.10

From Chanel No.5 to Blair No.10

In pursuit of fresh intellectual property news, the IPKat's whiskers trembled with surprise on finding this item on the Google News search. If it hadn't been for the integrity of Google's News rigorous selection of sources [note: Google has refused the IPKat's application for news source status], he would have thought it a spoof. The news item, from Deadbrain, reads, in relevant part, as follows:

"Tony Blair is to launch a range of cosmetics upon leaving office ... The first of those, Blair Foundation, has already been developed and was discovered by our intrepid reporter during a bored afternoon searching the internet.

Future releases are understood to include a concealer, given the codename 'WMD' ...

Mr Blair is not the first politician to use his name to cash in. Former President Bill Clinton famously lent his name to a dry-cleaning product after leaving office, while Boris Yeltsin had his own best-selling brand of vodka. ...

Downing Street declined to comment ...".

The IPKat, noting the Prime Minister's propensity for spin, wonders why the range of proposed products does not include a 'spin'-drier. Merpel adds, I always wondered whether Ford Motor Company had any legal basis for forcing the late President Gerald Ford to drop or change his surname on the ground that his irremediable clumsiness [see here and here] tarnished the image of the FORD trade mark.

Further information on the Blair Foundation, together with a full-size and legible version of the illustration at the top right hand corner of this post, may be found here.