Santas warned 'ho ho ho' offensive to women

..Apparently Birmingham City Council proposed the idea of Winterval in 1998, but backed down in the face of protests from the local Christian churches-Not a myth..

daithi
 
daithi said:
..Apparently Birmingham City Council proposed the idea of Winterval in 1998, but backed down in the face of protests from the local Christian churches-Not a myth..

daithi
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The myth isn't that it happened, the myth is that they replaced Christmas with Winterval to avoid offending non-Christians. Christmas was still very much celebrated by the Council. The Lord Mayor even sent everyone a Christmas card! Winterval ran from October to January and encompassed many events, such as Halloween, Diwali and New Year's Eve.
 
Perhaps the most notorious of the anti-Christmas rebrandings is Winterval, in Birmingham, and when you telephone the Birmingham city council press office to ask about it, you are met first of all with a silence that might seasonably be described as frosty. "We get this every year," a press officer sighs, eventually. "It just depends how many rogue journalists you get in any given year. We tell them it's bollocks, but it doesn't seem to make much difference." According to an official statement from the council, Winterval - which ran in 1997 and 1998, and never since - was a promotional campaign to drive business into Birmingham's newly regenerated town centre. It began in early November and finished in January. During the part of that period traditionally celebrated as Christmas, "there was a banner saying Merry Christmas across the front of the council house, Christmas lights, Christmas trees in the main civil squares, regular carol-singing sessions by school choirs, and the Lord Mayor sent a Christmas card with a traditional Christmas scene wishing everyone a Merry Christmas".
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This contemporary report from the normally-reliable BBC News tells a different story

Monday, November 9, 1998 Published at 11:41 GMT

UK

Winterval gets frosty reception

Church leaders have clashed with a council over its decision to call Christmas festivities Winterval.

Birmingham City Council used the phrase to describe its programme of festive family events over Christmas and the New Year.

The change is being made because city council officials hope to create a more multi-cultural atmosphere in keeping with the city's mix of ethnic groups.

But critics have attacked the move as political correctness gone mad and have accused council officials of trying to take the Christ out of Christmas...
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/210672.stm
 
I don't see that it tells a different story. Christmas was still celebrated by the council, alongside other events as part of the festival. The claim was that Christmas was replaced to avoid offending people.
 
To repeat, the BBC said, on November 9, 1998:
The change is being made because city council officials hope to create a more multi-cultural atmosphere in keeping with the city's mix of ethnic groups.
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There is no record on BBC News or elsewhere of their news report being rebutted or contradicted by the Council (as "bollocks" or otherwise) in its immediate aftermath.
 
From the same BBC report:

Birmingham City Council wants people to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is the very heart of Winterval," she said.
"Far from not talking about Christmas the events within Winterval and the publicity material for it are covered in Christmas greetings and traditional images, including angels and carol singers."
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I don't see how that qualifies as Christmas being replaced. Are we arguing different things here?
 
Perhaps. However imho the attempt by the Council to dismiss the story on the pretence that it was invented by "rogue journalists" speaks for itself.
 
If that story is that Winterval happened as I think it did, and they're trying to deny it then I agree with you.
 
PC madness...anyway I'm off to polish my shoes, go for an Indian or maybe a Chinese and polish (there I go again) it all of with a scotch (or a paddy). Lord help me if I want to order a full Irish tomorrow morning.
 
after 911 , the Indians will have to change the name of Bombay too !
 
Caveat said:
:D

I further propose that because of the risk of offending Polish people, "poles" (as in ESB poles etc) should be renamed.
I think we should instead refer to them as "erections" - who could possibly be offended by that?
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And I for one think that you should stand firm on that Caveat!!!!!!
 
gipimann said:
eh.....they did, didn't they? It's been Mumbai for some years now!
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I bow to your superior knowledge :)


But, similarly to Santas' traditional greeting in the original story. we can still refer to Bombay until someone in authority with nothing better to do says we cant, reasoning because it could be misconstrued by a minority of idiots as some sort of incitement.
 
There is a pub in Ballyhale, Kilkenny called Pakie's Pub. What do you do when your name is politically incorrect?
 
daithi said:
..didn't some English town come up with the bright idea of replacing Christmas with a festival called "Winterval" so as not to offend non-Christian residents of the town? Political correctness gone competely mad...
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This is not a case of political correctness. It's a case of being pragmatic and secular, which many people would think is a good thing.

What's so mad about giving a festival a more accurate description/name? The vast majority of people in so-called Christian countries do not practice religion, but celebrate the holiday anyway because we all enjoy a good festival.

And anyway, Christmas, in terms of its December timing, was imposed by the church in order to overpower pagan festivals which were celebrated at that time (they were less successful with Halloween, which never gave way to All Souls Day as hoped by the church boffins).
 
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