Word: browne
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...internet search engines are a spookily accurate digital barometer of contemporary celebrity - in 2007, Google's Top Ten Search terms included Britney Spears, Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton; Gordon Brown didn't feature - Tussaud's is a clunkier analog version of the same thing. It conducts its own polling among its patrons (most visitors come from Britain, Germany, India and the U.S.) and also conducts wider market research to decide exactly which prominent people, living or dead, should be immortalized in a kind of tallow known as "Japan wax". Popularity among the patrons was what won Bollywood star Salman...
Addressing a crowd, debating in the House of Commons, or even just working a rope line, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown can seem pretty waxen. Brown's advisors have tried to counter this impression by showcasing the Prime Minister's human qualities. Until this week, that is. On Tuesday, in a startling reversal of its public relations strategy, Downing Street rushed to quash rumors that Brown might be less of a dummy than his predecessor, the consummate orator Tony Blair. A rash of media reports had claimed that Madame Tussaud's, the famous London waxworks exhibition with offshoots...
...confusion? In February, Tussaud's PR Manager Ben Lovett had told reporters that, in line with standard procedures, a Brown waxwork wouldn't be commissioned until after elections. (Brown inherited the job between elections, after Blair resigned.) A subsequent "significant swell of public support" for Brown triggered the request to Downing Street, says Lovett. That's a rare mismatch between Tussaud's own soundings and the wider world view, because opinion polls reflect no such swell - Labour, under Brown, has actually lost ground to the Tories...
...Brown joins this motley crew - and chances are he will (Tussaud's has been rebuffed only once in its history by a would-be subject, and that was Mother Teresa) - he can expect to be poked, prodded, kissed and possibly abused. In a world where fame is valued more highly than respect and pop stars take precedence over playwrights, it's an opportunity not to be missed...
...unexpected rise in food costs this past fall caused HUDS to phase out products like whole wheat bread and brown rice. Mayer said HUDS carefully chose which products would be removed from dining halls...