This is an old promotional slogan for that giant of a brand, Coca-Cola

I have had another one of those little strings of coincidences over the last few days that has culminated in the inspiration for this photograph.

It started on Friday when I was at my celebration ‘do’ for winning my award. There was a guest speaker at the event whose messages were chilling in all sorts of ways. He was, I’m sorry to say, a Brit scientist who now works for the US government. He had three basic messages – the first was that third world and developing world poverty will kill us all in the end. His assertion that the new breed of infectious diseases will come from unsanitary conditions in the developing world but will transmit into the west because of the ease of modern travel and these will kill millions of people in the next 20 years or so. His point is that in places where people don't have clean water and proper ways to get rid of waste, germs breed and mutate. We don’t have any defences in the form of drugs for these illnesses because there are no new antibiotics in the pipelines of the drug companies and the bugs are resistant to the existing ones – overuse has seen to that.

His second point was equally chilling but in an entirely different way. It was of course a political one as you might expect from someone in the employ of the US government. Although he didn’t actually say so in so many words, the point he made was clear to me – he was trying to say that the USA will stop at NOTHING to rid the world of corrupt regimes and dictatorships because then the USA can protect its own citizens from these diseases by cleaning up the water supply and sanitation in these countries. HHHmmm – so we are to expect the USA to continue its moves towards world domination by pretending to be the friend of the ordinary people in the fight against corruption. Do you see why I was scared? Yep – our patsy lapdog Bliar will be peeing himself to help his pal across the pond again won’t he and we will be sucked into another nightmare situation. I wonder what proportion of the ordinary Iraqi population has access to clean water more than two years since their country was invaded under the pretext of stopping terrorism?

The third point was the most disgusting of all really – it was that donating money to the ‘do-gooders’ like Geldof and Bono is not just wasted money but that they are actively contributing to the corruption by increasing the bank balances of the dictators. So, as I see it the US Government’s agenda is clear – watch out the rest of the world – you will live by our rules or we will come after you and get you sooner or later. If you dare to dissent then your name will be dragged through the mud until some of it sticks and if you are considered an enemy of the USA then woe betide you.

Scary in the extreme.

This guy did say one thing that got me thinking – it was that the Coca Cola Company’s mission was to get everyone in the world access to the sweet brown fizzy stuff. He showed photos of hoardings in squalid slums advertising Coke. His observation was that you can get access to a Coke anywhere in the world but two thirds of the world’s population have no access to clean water. That was Friday.

I came across Coca Cola again today – I read a paper given by one of my colleagues at an American conference and he quoted the Coca Cola brand as the biggest in the world, worth $70billion, with Microsoft snapping at its heels at $65billion. I suppose when you put together Friday’s photo of a billboard in a slum in the third world and this fact then you come out with some interesting possibilities.

Coca Cola do, of course, have a bottled water brand of their own – a remarkable piece of (I believe cynical) marketing……I can just imagine how it happened…..

Someone at their head quarters is looking at the skyrocketing sales of bottled water and thinking ‘I want a piece of that action, let’s launch a bottled water of our own’. He may well have considered the fact that many of his consumers are incredibly gullible in as much as they will happily decline another cheaper cola in favour of Coke, the real thing of course. He probably decided that it wouldn’t be noticed if his bottled water was in fact nothing more than tap water, shoved through a giant Brita Filter type of thing. Pricing the bottles at the same price as a mineral water or spring water wouldn’t be a problem would it – no one would notice. Dasani was duly launched in the world’s major markets – hell, I even was duped into buying a bottle of it myself in the USA in the spring – I plunged my hand into a chiller cabinet, pulled out a bottle of water and then discovered what it was after I’d paid for it. I’m pleased to report its grand launch in the UK was scuppered by some scandal over the contents of the bottle. It was withdrawn and I’m not aware of it having made it back onto our supermarket shelves. Still, it’s probably no more or no less than you’d expect from a company whose brand was built on a formula that included cocaine.

I'm not saying I despise Coca Cola for their money making - far from it - if people want to drink that stuff then let them - everyone has a choice and I really can't believe anyone in the west doesn't know how much sugar, chemical and other unsavoury stuff goes into a can. as my Mum'd say 'you pay your money and you make your choice'.

Anyway, what I was thinking was if enough pressure was put to bear on a company like Coca Cola then maybe they could be persuaded to slot Dasani into their drinks cabinets alongside Coke in those third world countries – free of charge of course – then they could claim some modicum of social responsibility which may even counterbalance some of the teeth rotting and obesity of the children of the countries that have made them rich and fat. Surely one day one of these huge corporations is going to get a conscience and do something good with some of their cash? Who knows, Coke could even be responsible for preventing another world war if they can provide clean water to people who go without at the moment – one day we might herald them as heroes for reducing infectious disease……….

….somehow I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath!

In deference to my Mum and to DM, I've gone back to black on white!

Last year's shot was the ONLY shot I've ever regretted posting on pbase - as many of my pbase friends already know. Weirdly for a stroppy bird as I am, I felt intimidated by peer pressure to do it - I won't make that mistake again. Strangely two years ago, I was also posting a pic with a blurry secondary subject!