UPDATE

To celebrate the release of The Simpsons Movie some waggish advertising types have painted a giant Homer Simpson in the field next to the Cerne Abbas Giant!

I couldn't resist this on b3ta.com...

Visitors to Gatwick Airport are being greeted by a naked pole dancer - but not everyone is happy about it  and the giant silhouette of a naked pole dancer painted on a field beneath the airport's flight path could land the marketing company behind it with thousands of pounds' worth of fines. 

The 100,000 sq ft ad for a risque website, designed by London-based marketing agency Sports Media Gaming (SMG), was painted on a field in Surrey last week.Although nearly invisible from the ground, the advert can clearly be seen by thousands of airline passengers flying out of Gatwick each day, which Tandridge Council says is illegal.

A spokeswoman for the council said it was painted on the field without proper planning permission and legal action would be taken if it is not removed. SMG is refusing to get rid of it, claiming it can be seen only from the air and so is not subject to council planning regulations. If found guilty the firm faces a fine of up to £2,500 plus an extra £250 for each day the advert remains in place.

Steven Johnson, commercial director of Flightpath Media, a subsidiary of SMG, said: "We are operating quite within our rights. We produce adverts that are only visible by people in the air. If the council own the rights to the airspace then we would be happy to hear from them." Mr Johnson said SMG was intending to produce similar paintings over the next few days on fields beneath flight paths out of Manchester, Leeds and Stansted airports.

But Paul Miner, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "It sets such a nasty precedent, using our landscapes just for advertisement."

Well it seems like the old maxim about there being no such thing as bad publicity is true. Purely for research purposes I tried logging onto the website in question and couldn't get in because it was too busty, sorry, busy. I wasn't too bothered as the whole concept of pole dancing leaves me cold. I just look at the pole and think for God's sake, woman, someone has to clean that...

Drop us a line below.

Daphne found a way around the planning regulations.

The original was here.