Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 18


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, could you just pause a moment?  You
     2        remember I raised the question of -- I have to say, subject
     3        to having heard what you have just said, subject to
     4        anything which the Defendants may wish to say, whatever the
     5        outcome of this application, I have come to the view that
     6        it would be unnecessary and probably, therefore, unwise to
     7        reach a conclusion as to what the relevant parts actually
     8        meant because that would quite unnecessarily mean that
     9        I could not hear further argument later on which might help
    10        me to the actual meaning.
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am not asking your Lordship to do it at
    13        the present time.  The only advantage it might have is that
    14        it might exclude some evidence which is still to come.
    15        That is all -- it might.  But even then, I am by no
    16        means sure that it would.  That is the only advantage it
    17        would have.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That would be the only advantage.
    20
    21   MR. RAMPTON:  I think it would be the only advantage.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It would; in some cases it is a very
    24        considerable advantage but whether it would in this case is
    25        another matter.
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I rather doubt it.  My Lord, one sees
    28        this is chiefly about advertising, of course, but one sees
    29        the consequence of the seduction which McDonald's are
    30        alleged to have perpetrated on children stated at the end
    31        of passage under "Toy Food" and above "Ronald's dirty
    32        secret".  In the last paragraph:  "Not a lot of children
    33        are interested in nutrition, and even if they were, all the
    34        gimmicks and routines with paper hats and straws and
    35        balloons hide the fact that the food", that must be to say
    36        McDonald's food, "they're seduced into eating", that must
    37        be to say by McDonald's, "is at best mediocre, at worst
    38        poisonous - and their parents know it's not even cheap".
    39
    40        My Lord, that said, perhaps I need not press the point very
    41        hard.  It must be a meaning of which the words in their
    42        proper context, the whole of this pamphlet, are capable of
    43        bearing this, that the meals which McDonald's serve to
    44        their customers cause them cancer of the breast and bowel
    45        and heart disease.  This leaflet is about one thing and one
    46        thing only, McDonald's and its supposed faults and
    47        defects.  The passages to which I have referred your
    48        Lordship are concerned both generally and specifically with
    49        the supposed ill-effects of eating McDonald's food.
    50 
    51        For all that the Defendants might wish it otherwise, this 
    52        is not a learned article discussing the aetiology of 
    53        coronary heart disease and cancer.
    54
    55        My Lord, while your Lordship has the pamphlet open, it
    56        might be as well to look at the bit about animals which is
    57        on the same page:  "In what way are McDonald's responsible
    58        for torture and murder?  The menu at McDonald's is based on
    59        meat.  They sell millions of burgers every day in 35
    60        countries throughout the world.  This means the constant

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