Santa - guilty as charged?
The Australian academic who blasted Santa for being a poor role-model, was today attempting an embarrassing climbdown.
Dr Nathan Grills produced a report for the British Medical Journal titled ‘Santa – A public health pariah’. Poor old Santa was accused of encouraging obesity, drink driving and failing to wear a seatbelt.
“Given Santa’s universal appeal, and reasoning from a public health perspective, Santa needs to affect health by only 0.1% to damage millions of lives.” the report stated, suggesting that Santa instead swap his reindeer for a bike in a bid to shed some weight and adopt a healthier lifestyle.
Now Dr Grills says that the report was only intended to be tongue-in-cheek and he accused the media of misrepresenting his original report. “I hoped to spread a bit of Christmas cheer, but with a tinge of seriousness to provoke a bit of health Christmas dinner table conversation.”
He even claims to be a believer and lover of Santa himself and says that he has donned the red and white suit on a number of occasions for local schools in Victoria.
He was speaking after his report attracted a barrage of criticism from the media and the public. Dr Grills himself has been inundated with emails from incensed members of the public who failed to see the funny side of his satirical report.
Santa mows into town.
We feel this Santa however may have got the wrong message. For he’s swapped his reindeer not for a bike, but for a lawnmower? He was snapped alongside the Stuart Highway near Palmerston in the Northern Territory this week riding in style atop his festive mower.
The man in the suit was in fact Jono Johnson, a Santa enthusiast known to locals for his habit of donning the red suit whenever it suits!
He certainly brought a smile to passing motorists, many of whom thought the spectacle was fabulous. “People are loving it, hey. There’s really good Christmas cheer out there.” said Mr Johnson.
In the past Mr Johnson has taken his Santa act literally anywhere: “I wear it just anywhere where you might get the urge to do it – why not? It’s a bit of cheer.” He admits that he’s worn it to work and even on holiday. He’s also splashed out an extra $12 for a new suit because the old one was getting a bit tatty and worse for wear.
Well I do hope the lawnmower is fitted with a seatbelt, we don’t want to encourage recklessness now do we?
Love Australia? Let us keep you informed...
- Join the Embrace Australia community today. Have your questions answered by our experts, start your own blog, get vital migration information and gain valuable insight from those who have already made the journey.
- Subscribe to our RSS Feed and have all our daily news and features delivered straight to your news reader.
- Join our mailing list -
