I was going through an old German magazine the other day and came across this ad, which I thought worth sharing:

At first it doesn’t look like much.  I mean after all, it’s just a train set, right?  Actually, it’s a little more subtle than that.  It’s called the “Stop-den-castor-start-set” which would translate as “Stop the nuclear train beginner’s set”.  The ‘castor’ refers to a canister holding nuclear waste that was sent to Germany for reprocessing.  Every couple of years these are sent from France and there are inevitable riots and then more riots.  Here’s a photo from the 2006 installment:

If you look closely at the ad, you can see the following:

  • A protester has tied himself to the tracks (top)
  • In the middle are farm equipment (used to block the tracks) and protesters (carrying placards saying “We’re against this”)
  • In the bottom is a sample of what the actual ‘castor’ looks like: a massive container mounted on a flatbed

I thought it a great ad and worth sharing.  The paper also gets a bonus for their slogan: “The traditional paper for the new philistines.”