Re: Latest ANL stupidity (firebomb)

Date: 8th Aug '02

Name: White Noise

Country: UK

Telegraph 7/8/2002
Yachting store pays price for BNP blunder

Cowes is awash with conspiracy theories after an arson attack on the town's oldest yachting outfitters.

Ocean World, which supplies sailing and crew gear to the Aga Khan (among others), was petrol bombed on the morning of this year's Round the Island race. More than 100,000 worth of stock was destroyed and the store - in the heart of Cowes high street - was shut for several weeks.

Peterborough now hears that suspects may include anti-Nazi campaigners, who have targeted Ocean World after the shop unwittingly supplied the youth wing of the BNP with its uniform.

"For quite a while, we've been selling unofficial England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland rugby shirts," says Ocean World's proprietor, Paul Bertie. "They sell pretty well, so we decided to stock similar football-type shirts for the World Cup.

"Someone suggested we took out adverts, mostly in the tabloid press but also in a magazine called Freedom. I phoned up and it seemed fairly cheap - about 250 - so we went ahead.

"A few days later, we had a call from a chap who wanted a load of the England shirts with his own logo embroidered on the chest. It was a fish and some triangles, I think.

"Anyway, it turns out that Freedom is the BNP magazine and this fish-and-triangle symbol is the logo of its youth wing. We'd unwittingly been supplying its new kit.

"The next thing we know, there's a huge scandal over the whole thing, and then we had the fire. But I suppose you've got to look on the bright side: there's no such thing as bad publicity."

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