StrangeSights

Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been named as the winner of the UK-based Plain English Campaign’s annual Foot in Mouth Awards for a comment she apparently made in June in which she said: “I love England, especially the food. There’s nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta.”

She joins an illustrious line-up of past winners including Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Gere, Alicia Silverstone and Tracey Emin.

Winners of the accompanying Golden Bull Awards (given for the “worst examples of written tripe”), meanwhile, included Germaine Greer, who wrote in a column for the UK’s Guardian newspaper that “The first attribute of the art object is that it creates a discontinuity between itself and the unsynthesised manifold”. Any ideas anyone on what she is talking about?

How about this Golden Bull winner from Eastleigh Borough Council in the UK: “Hereby in accordance with the provision of the Building Act 1984, Section 32 declares that the said plans shall be of no effect and accordingly the said Act and the said Building Regulations shall as respects the proposed work have effect as if no plan had been deposited.”

What’s been your worst experience of “gobbledygook”?

Australian university academics Dr Andrew Leigh and Dr Amy King have found that “beautiful politicians” have a better chance of getting elected.

Dr Leigh, from the Australian National University, and Ms King, a student from the University of South Australia, asked an independent group of “beauty raters” to assess the looks of 286 major party candidates who ran in the 2004 Federal election based on “how to vote” images.

They found that voters tend to opt for the better looking candidate.

“For both male and female candidates, it helps to be better-looking,” says Dr Leigh. “But we find some evidence that beauty benefits male candidates more than female candidates. This may be because female beauty carries negative connotations in the minds of some voters.”

According to the raters, the top 10 most attractive major party candidates were (drum roll please!):
Nicole Campbell (ALP, Bennelong),
Adam Giles (Liberal, Fraser),
Victoria Brooks (ALP, Riverina),
Andrew Laming (Liberal, Bowman),
Julie Bishop (Liberal, Curtin),
Kate Ellis (ALP, Adelaide),
Sarah McMahon (Liberal, Reid),
Michael Keenan (Liberal, Stirling)
Pat Farmer (Liberal, Macarthur), and
Sussan Ley (Liberal, Farrer).

We’ve opened a forum on the subject of whether beauty affects your vote - you can either comment here or on our forums here - www.sightmagazine.com/forums/