Here in my car

A recent edition of the excellent CBC news programme As It Happens included a report on the Russian car manufacturer Dartz and their proposed new luxury car. I say 'car' but, in the words of Chris Howden, the show's presenter, it's more of a "steroidal Humvee-slash-Transformer," and would come with diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhaust pipes and three gold flasks containing some unbelievably expensive vodka. Oh, and the seats would be made of whale penis leather.

The seats would be made of whale penis leather.

There has been an understandable backlash since Dartz's announcement in October - why would anyone want gold plated windows after all? - and consequently the company issued a press release from which I present an excerpt here:

One month ago DARTZ presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior. As the world's resonance was very huge and DARTZ got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, DARTZ make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior.

We just looking for most expensive products for this car -- and that's why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all. We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: 'Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales - we will keep You live! We don't Earth fall down to Ocean!

One of my students' current assignments is to correct the grammar and spelling of this press release, an exercise that should keep them busy for a while, and in the meantime I'm sure that our "Sea Brothers" will, to quote Chris Howden again, appreciate the company's circum...spection!