Swiss Family Robinson's Barley Water
Given all the recent controversy over the drinking habits of leading politicians, I just wanted to demonstrate my remarkable powers of abstinence. This picture is taken in Zurich last year. I could have ordered some lethal local brew. But no. I chose orange juice.
01.06.06 @ 04:31 PM PDT [link]
Sleb Big Brother
I haven't watched it, but I read Mark Lawson's excellent article in yesterday's Guardian. His theory is that if God existed, there's no way He'd allow the programme to go ahead. So it must be that God doesn't get Channel 4.
The idea of a fake sleb ("Chantelle", the lead singer of a make-believe girl band called Kandyfloss) is a very good one. Continues the excellent genre of spoof reality TV exemplified by Space Cadets. No bribe would be big enough to persuade me to live in a house with George Galloway though. Not even the promise of meeting that lady who was friendly with Sven.
01.06.06 @ 04:20 PM PDT [link]
Spotted on 5th January 2006
Christmas Turkey soup for sale at a Pret a Manger branch in the Farringdon area.
Pete, an art director I've been working with this week, suggested that it might have been a very big bird and they're still working through the left-overs.
01.06.06 @ 04:08 PM PDT [link]
American academic textbooks
There's something about an American academic textbook. Just took delivery of one today via amazon for a course on business writing I'm teaching at a university. It was £7.00 and I expected it to be a harmless paperback. Turns out that it's a 700-page monster of a thing complete with the author's "world-renowned sidebars" - irritating annotations and call-outs that appear down the side. I'm hoping there will be some extra ammunition for my lectures and workshops. But if not, it has a lot of potential as insulation when the next cold snap arrives.
01.04.06 @ 04:10 PM PDT [link]
OK, so you want to give me all your money
Great e-mail today - a sort of variation on the 419 scams - from a character called Mrs Brandy Ritts. She claims she is dying (a bit sick as an e-mail gambit, I feel) and has decided to give me all her money. Well, she would, wouldn't she? Me and Brandy, we go way back. So far back, in fact, that I can't remember who she is. But she's selected little old me to get all her dosh. Probably heard about my Pret caffeine habit and wants to subsidise me.
I know that people do fall for this kind of stuff. But why? If someone came up to you in the street and said that God had told them to give you all their money, you'd be off like a shot. So why would you believe it when they say the same thing to you in an e-mail?
Brandy would prefer that I kept the correspondence confidential, as she doesn't want anything to jeopardise her last wish.
Ooops.
01.04.06 @ 04:00 PM PDT [link]
Let me get this one off my chest: oyster madness
I'm not obsessed with oyster cards, but I had to let you know about a ridiculous drawback to the system. If you top up the card online, it only becomes active when it's touched on a reader at a tube station. But what if you're out in the boondocks and have to get a bus and a train to the nearest tube? You have to pay for the privilege of getting your oyster activated! The bloke on the phone was apologetic and said it had something to do with Ken Livingstone being in dispute with the rail companies. But it's complete and utter madness.
Just wait until my oyster footwear gets going (see blogs passim). It will all change then, you mark Phil's words.
01.03.06 @ 03:20 PM PDT [link]
Blogger's nipple
A plug for a young copywriter called Alice (aka Aliche, Melisha and FBT) who's planning to run the London marathon this year. She's set up a website with the inspired domain name of www.bloggersnipple.co.uk I know just how inspired it is, as I came up with it.
She had thought of jogger's nipple, but it was taken. But the thing is a blog. So, smart alec here gave it the final Woodford twist.
She's been a great work colleague over the past eighteen months and is growing into a really strong advertising creative. So if she brings her begging bowl round, please give generously. I'm freelance, so I have to watch the pennies now.
01.02.06 @ 04:17 PM PDT [link]
I'm finally freelance
I left my job as joint creative director of an ad agency at Christmas time. In 2006, I'm self-employed as a writer, trainer and lecturer.
Here I am at my leaving do on 22nd December with Michael Silverman. He's a researcher who was leaving the agency at the same time as me to head off to New Zealand.
I'm the one at the back with the blue shirt and the dodgy looking fangs. He's the other one.
We went to the Nordic Bar in Newman Street, London. I thought it had a very interesting ambience as the only lighting was provided by candles. It wasn't until about 11 o'clock that I realised this was due to a power cut.
01.02.06 @ 04:12 PM PDT [link]
Phil's observations on life: 009 There are always words you don't know
As an advertising copywriter, I obviously have to know quite a few words. But I was out shopping recently for a protective case for my ipod nano and was quite thrown by the word 'lanyard'.
It seems to be something that hangs round your neck, but I'd never heard of it in all my thirty seven years. Yet all the rival ipod accessory companies use it, so it must be in common use. I'd heard of a barnyard, but not a lanyard.
I've just looked it up in the dictionary. Looks like some kind of cord that a seaman would have kept a knife on. But there's no way he'd have used it for an ipod.
The copywriter in me says that it should be a nanyard, when it's for your nano. That's copyright. No nicking the idea. If I see it in the shops, there'll be trouble.
01.02.06 @ 04:02 PM PDT [link]
I'm not a newly wed...
... but I get an e-mail once a week now from something called the Newly Weds Digest which claims I've subscribed. Typical content is as follows:
Creative Ways to Say "I Love You"
Write it on a steamy mirror--timing is important!
Fill his office, room, or car with balloons saying, "I love you."
Spell it on her desk with jelly beans or green M&Ms.
01.02.06 @ 03:55 PM PDT [link]