Body blow
SOME OF HER aromatic unguents — deeply nourishing, environmentally friendly and banana flavoured — would no doubt calm me down, but I have never found myself soothed by Anita Roddick. There is something about her more-ethical-than- thou approach to business that gets up my nose. (Does she do nasal sprays?) It tickled again the other day when she popped up in a televised commercial, doing well for Body Shop by doing good among remote tribes- men, thanks to her American Express card, which the tribesmen (if I got the point) are not too proud to accept. I gather that the next American Express ad in this series fea- tures Rocco Forte, and I wish him and Amex better luck, for Mrs Roddick's luck is out. A hostile article on Body Shop is expected to appear in Business Ethics, a journal new to me, perhaps because it comes from Minneapolis. This threat has fluttered the managers of self-styled ethical investment funds, and the unregenerate market makers of London have sent the shares down like an express lift. I am sure that Mrs Roddick's bathing bubbles are quite ethical enough for me, but that is not the test. Having taken up position on the ethical.wing, she risks being outflanked by those who claim to be more ethical than her. The same thing happened to the vege- tarians in The Napoleon of Notting Hill. Condescending to carnivores, they were rebuked by more ethical eaters for their cruelty to plants. These mineralarians, who ate nothing but salt, were outflanked in their turn and routed, with the slogan: 'Why should salt suffer?' Banana flavour would be no defence.
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