What ever happened to red nose day?
Allow me to delve into my childhood memories...
I still vividly remember the teacher at school handing out transparent plastic packages to each of us who signed up. It was an exciting time, but so was most of childhood really.
Each of us would eagerly unwrap the plastic packaging and pull out a impeccably sculpted piece of plastic that would be the home for our childhood noses for an entire day.
I still remember the sweet aroma of mass produced plastic greeting my nostrils as I attached the red nose to my face.
I also remember the condensation. Let's just say sharing noses was a no-no.
While I clearly remember the elation of looking like a clown for the day, I had to do some serious racking to recall exactly what the actual reason behind Red Nose day was.
Once I realised that my brain was not proving to be good reference material, I turned to my friend - the Internet (I have the Internet installed on my computer).
Red Nose Day in New Zealand (not to be confused with the British and American version) was all about raising awareness of Cot Death and funding for Cot Death research. The technical term for Cot Death is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS, of which there still seems to be a great deal of uncertainty as to the cause.
As to when or why Red Nose day got the boot? I'm not sure, if anyone can enlighten us then by all means do so.
I'm not sure how Red Nose Day would go down with our new generation of children.
I'd imagine before it even got to the kids you'd have health and safety groups ranting about blocking airways, you'd have environmentalists complaining about plastic waste and there would be people claiming that red noses were racist.
Not like the good old days when OSH didn't exist and we were free to jump off large playground and break bones as we pleased, the days where we could still put skyrockets in a jar and set them off, having to guess which direction they would fire off into.
No no, these are much safer times. No dangerous playgrounds, no skyrockets, and certainly no red plastic nasal blocking accessories.
Maybe the next red nose day will be done via facebook and iPhone apps. Who Nose?
Interesting picture!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting picture, indeed.
ReplyDeleteMy friend, these questions have plagued me for ages. I still have a Red Nose Day badge some where. Majory nostaligic. I'm pretty sure it wasn't axed because the problem was solved, ay.
I still put fireworks in bottles, but I put in a good dozen to get that 'skyrocket' effect.
Okay, I knew I'd get slammed for the lame picture, but I started getting the guilts for lifting images off Google, you know like royalties and digital rights... So this is a free image, can you tell?
ReplyDeleteLooking into replacements....
didn't it get the boot because the instances of it became greatly reduced in the mid-late 90's?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/newsl/cd-gas.html
ReplyDeleteGood work Rhys, 10 points. I believe that's the best answer.
ReplyDeleteI did have a read of that article prior to writing, quite interesting really. Although when he used the word 'elucidated' (which ironically needed clarification), I knew I was out of my depth.
I LOVED Red Nose Day.
ReplyDeleteI guess the fact that Red Nose Day is no longer around is due to the fact that, as Rhys said, cot death has been vastly reduced:
In the late 1980s there were around 280 NZ deaths a year caused by cot death (SIDS) but this is now around 40!
Remember the noses for cars as well?
Boy do I remember the car noses! That's actually what got me thinking about the whole topic.
ReplyDeleteI remember that heaps of people couldn't get the noses off, so for ages people had these massive red noses affixed to their vehicles, brilliant!
I loved those car noses!
ReplyDeleteWhat about the song - "you make the whole world smile"? Check it out below to reminisce about good times!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBCqXJbTTbE
I wish the Red-Nose day of my childhood was more like that picture.. Saucy!
ReplyDelete