Newspaper language for some people have been circulating images, BTW, is 'viral'.
But it would appear Dubai Municipality has taken the images seriously, with GN's story calling the syringes 'illegal' and claiming they have sparked a 'sharp response'. Geddit? Syringe? Sharp response? You gotta love those GN subs, they nail it every time!
A spokesman for 'the company' (Gulf News is too precious to name distributor Arabian Oasis or manufacturer Nutella. The National cites both) said "It could seriously tarnish brand image and we will take action against it", according to GN's somewhat breathless report.
I'd like to see them do that. What are they going to do, sue the Internet?
I can't argue with Dubai Municipality's action in the name of protecting the public, although the words storm, tea and cup do tend to spring to mind. You can never be too careful and some nutter deciding to pack medical syringes with Nutella is just the kind of thing that could only happen here.
It's not the first time this type of image has been made, a simple Google Image Search will confirm that. In fact, the first search result is a popular image that's altogether more graphic, showing a man 'shooting up' Nutella. The gag's a simple one, 'I need a fix of Nutella'. If the local image were 'viral', it'd show up on image search, incidentally. And it doesn't.
What does show up if you do a comparative image search is an classified entry on Arabic website souq.dubaimoon.com advertising the syringes at a price of Dhs10 each. That post, linked here, hadn't been taken down at the time of writing and does, indeed, seem to confirm that some nutter is selling Nutella repacked in syringes. Of course, it could well be a hoax or prank, but the entry has a phone number against it and it would presumably be well worth a follow-up by a journalist with half an ounce of enquiring mind.
But then again, such a journalist would already have looked into the origins of the image and... oh, never mind.
