Day 041 - 28 Oct 94 - Page 46
1 really where it stops. They try it and then they decide
2 for themselves.
3
4 Q. The pizza is a good example really; it does trouble me
5 because -----
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have to ask you, I think, where you are
8 going because it is very easy in this case to stray away
9 from -- I understood your changing culture point, and that
10 you might say that that is not desirable and then you might
11 simply relate it to something said in the leaflet. But at
12 the moment you seem to be going down another avenue: Could
13 they not have just sold the things Briton's have been used
14 to eating for generations? At the moment I do not see what
15 you are getting at on that tack with this witness, what the
16 point of it is.
17
18 MR. MORRIS: It might become apparent in the next two or three
19 minutes.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right, go on for two or three minutes. If it
22 is not apparent to me then, I will take a five-minute break
23 while you think about just what you are aiming for, because
24 it really has to be something which is to do with an issue
25 in the case ---
26
27 MR. MORRIS: I am sure it is.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- rather than just general interest.
30
31 MR. MORRIS: I will just carry on quoting from that section
32 then: "Rather, he decided to sell the hamburger to the
33 Japanese as a 'revolutionary' product. He gave lectures on
34 it at universities and attracted considerable press
35 coverage by making outrageous statement about the
36 hamburger's properties and by revealing his plans to put
37 hamburger outlets throughout Japan. 'The reason Japanese
38 people are so short and have yellow skins is because they
39 have eaten nothing but fish and rice for 2,000 years', he
40 told reporters. 'If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and
41 potatoes for 1,000 years, we will become taller, our skin
42 will become white, and our hair blonde'." Is that a
43 responsible statement to make?
44 A. I do not know -----
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you know whether it was made first of all?
47 A. I was just going to say, I do not know if it was made
48 or, indeed, if it was what context it was made in. I
49 really cannot comment.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It does not sound very responsible on the
52 face of it, but do you know whether it was actually made?
53 A. I do not know.
54
55 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am getting increasingly impatient now.
56 I know that your Lordship does not necessarily welcome
57 interventions. The suggestion has to be, if this matter is
58 to be pursued, that McDonald's entry to these islands
59 subverted the traditional British diet into something which
60 was, at any rate, significantly more unhealthy than it had
