A fine example of marketing types lashing a branding exercise together with the foresight of a particularly sheltered 7 year old comes from Seattle, where the people behind the South Lake Union Streetcar, a light rail system due to open in December with upwards of 50 million dollars poured into it have had their noses dusted by residents upset city developers spent little time on their concerns.

The locals have turned the SUAS acronym on its head, refusing to forget the project's earlier use of "trolley" instead of "street car" - leaving it with the acronym SLUT starring them back in the face, twisting like a knife in their eye. Now with popular posters and t-shirts selling like hot cakes, the slogan they are using to promote its usage"ride the slut," gives the project its own weighted humour for a Dublin audience.

I know that less than gracious Dublin insult "wagon" owes more of its origins to a disproportionately large female posterior, than suggestions that anyone might be riding her - but surely if there was even a half decent acronym that spelt out WAGON/SLUT for a Dublin project, something like the Luas say - it wouldn't get by the monkey crew management responsible for our own public transit?

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