Norway, Jose.
As stag dos go, this one could easily be described as having taken a proper stab at the idea.
Though introducing sharp objects to this particular weekend might have tipped the balance of our actual survival.
Julian has, of course, already had a stag do. The one I arranged in London. The one where I enjoyed myself enormously by dressing up in tweed and hoping for boyish larks tipping Bobbies' helmets off with my brolly and that kind of thing, while wondering innocently why everyone else in said stag do was looking at me expectantly by 1.00am with very clear 'And...?' expressions on their faces. Like they were expecting something else or something. Like a nice meal and a few spirited hijinks with voddy glasses didn't constitute the full stagging monty or something. The stag do where I did an uncomfortably good impression of Will from The Inbetweeners, in fact.
Yes, well apparently these larks weren't quite enough. Not for an international chap like Jules.
I can picture us talking about it now. As light dawned, I had said, crestfallen: "I'm sorry, old thing, I don't think we have time for a whole Grand Tour of southern Europe and the Latin peninsular."
To which he had replied: "Get on the plane, doofus."
---
He hadn't, obviously. It was a made up scene. Plus, I've never once heard Julian say the word 'doofus'. And anyway, the second gig was always planned because there was always a second Best Man.
A man who had, I understood all too well as the date loomed, a secluded house in the wooded, wild countryside of Norway.
---
Angela had once recently said to me with an unnerving amount of gravitas: "I'm relying on you to keep Julian alive in Norway." As well she might have done it seems, for she has met Anders and been to Norway and seen what happens there.
In the event, however, Anders himself wasn't the primary protagonist Story Creator. All great stag dos – in fact, all great memoirs – need at least one good Story Creator. Someone so unpredictable, energetic, creative and oblivious to appropriate times of day for being sense-spankingly pissed that Things Simply Happen.
Yeah.
Enter John-Magner, stage left. Wheelying quadbike. Wearing permed wig. And Russian General's hat. Waving beer can like World Cup. Doing big thumbs up.
---
I can offer some advice when it comes to the safe operation of a quadbike for the very first time: have a fair bit to drink first. Everything subsequently happens in slo-mo; gives you more time to think.
You might want to check with your own GP first, however.
As you may know, I'm not a big drinker. That is, I reach for the red grape fairly often in social circumstances these days, but only a toddler's tinkle of it is needed for my child-like constitution to start warping my vision warmly. I am, it must be said, a very cheap date.
So it was hardly a surprise that, having as we did about a thousand cans of beer piled on the deck, by the time John-Magner was enthusiastically talking me through the controls of his 50cc toy, I was comfortably soft around the wits.
I should explain that Anders' fairly beautifully-restored pine-panelled house sits on the edge of a stunning, wide valley of woodland and is surrounded by a useful amount of land for the primary use of buggering about. But take an extra mental beat to consider the topology there – the edge of a valley. Slopes. And rocks. And trees – which also means terrain-ambiguizing grass.
As I flew through the warm evening air, I was thanking the Lord in soothingly detached fashion for my weirdly natural ability for Driving Stuff – still there, it seems, when sober – without which I knew I'd have been bucked over a boulder at 50kph at the touch of the throttle that night. That, coupled with a lot of very dumb luck.
Naturally, John-Magner had a second quadbike down on his farm. Appearing with it not long after we'd eaten the evening's multifarious barbequed meat, he pointed out casually: "Iss bedder. Smaller. Bigger engine. Brakes fakked."
Chasing eachother around the hillside in a hastily-prescribed relay course was then the work of mere moments, as you'd expect. One of us throwing a bike too enthusiastically into the steep run around the bottom of the house and flipping it against a rock and splitting a head open was the work of not many more moments.
Given that Anders grew up riding quadbikes around the stupidly unpredictable landscapes of Norway, he must have been a bit peeved that it had been him. But, as a local friend turned up a short while later to give him a lift to an equally amused local doctor to sew up the hole behind his ear, we concluded quickly that the best thing we could do was finish the nice Bordeaux and really see what the bikes could do.
Yes, I didn't know the course at first. Yes, I thought I stood a good chance of getting four well-treaded wheels to climb the wall back onto the gravel track. Still do. But yes, thankfully small quadbikes aren't really so hard to push off when they fall backwards on top of you. Not if you use both feet. And have plenty of time to think.
As Jules and I chased each other in muddy circles around the top field, I then remembered that we really could keep doing this all night if we wanted – Norway knows no night at this time of year.
---
In the event, by half midnight, when Anders still hadn't returned, John Magner said: "I know a pardy. D'you wanna pardy? I call a texi, yeah?"
We looked at eachother. I casually dusted some crumbs of earth from the sleeve of my smart cream suit shirt, ignoring the grass stains across my back.
"Sure" we all said.
---
The pardy had ended some time ago, as we stood with a crate of beer in the town square, a 20-minute, bass-bin-propelled Mercedez drive later. By the time we made it back to Anders after an hour-or-more's essentially pointless but entertaining round trip, we were ready for whisky.
John-Magner said: "Let's go into Lillehammer. There'll be some other pardies." We actually contemplated it at 2.00am, but eventually retired to cards for an hour or so.
I had survived Day One.
---
Day Two dawned in different ways for us all. For Julian, it was with a playful amount of hangover and John-Magner appearing from a night in the barn with the words: "Hair of de dog, men – whisky." For me it was with a blind stagger to the shower, followed by a deafening banging on the bathroom door and JM's enthusiastic voice shouting: "Beer, men! Start de day wiv a beer. I heff it out here for you, men." For Sebastian, slumbering still, it was with said Norwegian force of nature shaking him awake and pushing a beer can into his vision; "You need BEER, men!"
Now, I don't want you to think that the group was intoxicated all weekend. Contrary to myth, most of us are essentially sensible chaps of a certain age – young enough to still wheely a quadbike, but old enough to avoid hangovers. But after JM had disappeared and Seb and I had been enjoying a highly civilised conversation about music and theatre or somesuch, out in the lazy sunshine on the deck, I did find myself wondering if I should give into the enthusiastic pressure to steady the nerves with something – as JM reappeared with an ominous rumble, eventually bursting into the balmy peace with the full roar of his 150hp, large-framed, John Deere tractor.
I can't say what we all found ourselves doing next, naturally. I leave the picture with you. But it was a step up from quadbiking. Hypothetically, you understand.
Which left us with a dilemma by lunchtime: where to take things from there?
Which, in turn, presented the only obvious conclusion. Bob-sleighing.
---
Like so many former Olympic sites, the bob complex near Lillehammer looks a little sad out of season. Without the snow, it had the faint air of Mrs Havisham's home, a faded memory of former glories.
None the less, as the five of us, plus Lush the enthusiastic, short-haired pointer, arrived at the run, we still felt the effect of the safety signs, doing their best to put you off going any further.
"No one with spinal problems or heart conditions can ride" said Linda, Norway's only female bob sleigh driver. "In the corners we pull about three gs or so" she added calmly.
We stood there and blinked. But the point, I should point out, was this: It was a stag do. And Linda was Norway's only female bob sleigh driver. There was a combination of reasons why there would be no way any of us would be backing out.
I should say simply, by way of avoiding dragging it out, that they wouldn't let us employ John-Magner's hearty suggestion that we drive their van down the bob sleigh run. They simply put us in a little cage on little wheels with little Linda and before we could consider the possibilities of this, pushed us off a very smooth cliff.
I did wonder if my little arms would simply snap half way down. I really wasn't sure what their braking and/or breaking tollerances were.
Yet, after a few faintly horrific seconds of rocket spine compression, neck jerking and barely holding on, we rolled to a halt.
"You boys should come back when there's ice" Linda said flatly as we peeled ourselves off eachother and crawled back to the car.
---
I thought we might go shooting. There was also talk – serious talk, it seemed – of dynamite. There was also talk of other things even more creative and unwise. But as the afternoon waxed into the humid evening, we walked around the rocky tree line for a while and then went back to cook moose burgers. We then, despite the colourful ideas, essentially just played cards, drank affordably nice wine, moved onto Anders' very expensively nice congnac and cigars, played cards until about 2.00, when we turned in. Light still in the sky.
John-Magner had turned in – that is, climbed onto the sofa with a blanket – at about 8.00. We left him sleeping there like a baby.
I had survived Day Two. But who knew how.
---
I shall conclude it there. We laughed a lot and enjoyed both the grape and the grain and overall I think Julian had a blast. We learned all kinds of things about driving, hunting and first aid and left with some profound gratitude to Anders for his calm generosity.
I also wanted to thank John-Magner for being the Story Creator. There was, under the unnerving lack of inhibitions, someone there that some instinct in me – some essential genetic survival aerial – had told me I could trust. I certainly don't know anyone else who would still know what they were doing under similar circumstances. But those Norwegian guys are tough as Vikings. And JM seems especially loved for it.
Traveling back on the train through the incomparable countryside of lake and wood, I was grateful for japes together. The random madness of it.
Yet I couldn't help feeling a good deal of relief at the idea of getting back to the studio and back to work, doing something where I at least knew my arse from my elbow. Not to mention the idea of seeing much-loved chums without being expected to drink my body weight in meths and perform vehicle circus tricks.
No way, mate. On yer bike.
----
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Julian's reasonably pointless, impractically timed, but in-the-event rather fun second stag do.
Julian's reasonably pointless,
impractically timed, but in-the-event
rather fun second stag do.
Gorgeous Norwegian valley – check.
Alchohol – check.
Quadbikes – check.
One of us in hospital before the first evening's out – check.
Don't ask. We're all fine.
This is surreal. And wasting time. But bonkers fun.
Wish Caz was here.
You should see Norway in the sunshine, by the way. And it doesn't go down at this time of year; it's gone 11.00pm. We could do this all night.
impractically timed, but in-the-event
rather fun second stag do.
Gorgeous Norwegian valley – check.
Alchohol – check.
Quadbikes – check.
One of us in hospital before the first evening's out – check.
Don't ask. We're all fine.
This is surreal. And wasting time. But bonkers fun.
Wish Caz was here.
You should see Norway in the sunshine, by the way. And it doesn't go down at this time of year; it's gone 11.00pm. We could do this all night.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Momo:Typo's Top Five Rules of Creative.
Momo:Typo's
Top Five Rules of Creative.
Found myself leaving this sage advice on Gellan's wall this morning, following his Facebook status about doing a very important photoshoot today.
That is, I left point one as sage advice, and when this was so earnestly received by his creative team, I felt it might be useful for everyone to have these essential five core principles of Momo's brand communications to hand, to guide them into the fearsome blank page.
Feel free to select as appropriate at any given creative crisis point.
When engaging in design work or advertising communications, always frame your approach around these five key rules, to guarantee strategic effectiveness:
1: Don't muff it up.
2: Make it dead good.
3: Make the depth of field still narrower (..to photographers).
4: HEADLINES MUST HAVE PUNS.
5: Try adding an arrow.
And remember, don't forget to finger pistol often. They'll think you're being ironic, but you'll know you're just being cool.
..I mean, who knew that Momo had a formula?
>Cuh<
Top Five Rules of Creative.
Found myself leaving this sage advice on Gellan's wall this morning, following his Facebook status about doing a very important photoshoot today.
That is, I left point one as sage advice, and when this was so earnestly received by his creative team, I felt it might be useful for everyone to have these essential five core principles of Momo's brand communications to hand, to guide them into the fearsome blank page.
Feel free to select as appropriate at any given creative crisis point.
When engaging in design work or advertising communications, always frame your approach around these five key rules, to guarantee strategic effectiveness:
1: Don't muff it up.
2: Make it dead good.
3: Make the depth of field still narrower (..to photographers).
4: HEADLINES MUST HAVE PUNS.
5: Try adding an arrow.
And remember, don't forget to finger pistol often. They'll think you're being ironic, but you'll know you're just being cool.
..I mean, who knew that Momo had a formula?
>Cuh<
Monday, June 22, 2009
Momo:Ricoh.
Momo:Ricoh.
I'm no photographer.
So I wouldn't want to push myself forward in this particular creative area.
>DEADPAN PAUSE<
..But this 20' print behind me, next to the similarly large portrait of me, is a humble snap from my latest collection of monochrome observances of the Middle East.
I am but a refractor of light.
Momo:Ricoh Gulf Art Guff on Facebook.
I'm no photographer.
So I wouldn't want to push myself forward in this particular creative area.
>DEADPAN PAUSE<
..But this 20' print behind me, next to the similarly large portrait of me, is a humble snap from my latest collection of monochrome observances of the Middle East.
I am but a refractor of light.
Momo:Ricoh Gulf Art Guff on Facebook.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Possibility overload.
Possibility overload.
So technology has never given the average Joe more opportunities, right? We're living in an unprecedented time of user-driven, user-generated content.
And are you excited about it yet?
---
Sitting around everyone's favourite kitchen table this evening, Mark and Sarah's, we wished good chums Jon and Lyn a heart-felt bon voyage as they continue to pack to leave UK shores for Canadian ones. It's been years of on/off drama for them, before the visas finally came through last week and they knew their new chapter was finally opening across the Atlantic.
Saying goodbye, I knew none of us felt the full pang of parting, however – because of Facebook. And Skype. And blogs. We're in eachother's daily community more than ever, thanks to these people-connecting online apps. It's revolutionary. And it's human-minded tech. ..If you can see past the dog-awful, geek-up design of most of them, that is.
It connects folk, that's my point – bringing the miles together so we can all bore eachother stupid with buh-uh-LUDDY quizzes.
It's no substitute for having Jon and Lyn just over the road. I might be able to make my avatar take them over a little brick-edged wok of curry in Yoville, but it won't be the same as dashing through the rain with it to their flat, just outside the studio window.
But the tech still keeps us in eachother's lives. And this is something I'm very grateful for.
---
Tech connects us like never before, in fact. So they tell us.
My business knows this well, I should testify. How could Momo:typo have existed in a modest home studio without iStockphoto? Or just e-mail?
But all this burgeoning community media brings with it the pressure to seize emerging opportunities. And I don't know about you, but I'm as able to seize emerging opportunities for innovative business solutions as I am able to say things like that to clients without wanting to punch myself clean in the face. The truth is, all this gabble about Talk Tech appeals to another very human instinct. The instinct to quickly feel hopelessly left out. And generally inadequate.
Social media is a mad faddy dash to feel involved.
Great. It's picking football teams all over again.
---
I've often thought that, as much as I like the pleasure of using Macs, for example – stroking them, hugging them, telling them I love them and other perfectly normal, right and proper expressions of gratitude to lovely design – I can't really get excited about technology for its own sake.
I dig the daydreams of Tomorrow's World for sure, and I want to live in space in the future – don't get me wrong.
But please. Don't drool too much over the tech – drool over what it can help you DO.
---
The soul-destroyingly dull-sounding EOS 5D Mk II. It has me a little worked up tonight.
Why?
Find a picture of one, and you won't be enlightened. It looks like a camera. Just another pretty boring-looking SLR digital camera. And not a cheap holiday toy – some £2000's-worth of SLR digital camera. A professional's plaything.
So why the passing excitement? Because this thing takes HD video. Through those gorgeous Cannon lenses. For less than half the price of a video camera that can use any kind of half-way decent lens.
It makes home videos look like ads.
I won't bore you with talk of F-stops and depth of field. Partly because photography still feels like a bit of a black art to me – despite years of photography lessons at art school. But I know what I want to achieve – and it's idley cool, smart-ass, slick-shiny pictures of stuff. And this ruddy Cannon upstart can do it on a whim.
Now, trust me when I pause to say that if there's one sure-fire way to kill a worthy creative idea, it's to ignore the delivery. The style. The vital thing you can sense instinctively from about the time you develop language until you draw inevitably nearer to adulthood, at which point it becomes ever fainter and more alien to you – cool. I'm talking about Cool.
On the evening of the premier, there ain't no use whining about the budget restraints of your film – like some architect, while we all stare at the dogs' dinner you built and got paid for and that we now all have to live with on our high street. No. It takes a viewer marginally longer – sometimes a LOT longer – to work out that a film or a pop video is actually crap – a badly-directed bad idea – when it's shot on really expensive gear, than to spot a terrific bit of visual creative hidden in a rubbish bit of production.
Appropriate style gets you through the front door. It's body language. It's brand, baby.
And if I'm going to do any dead-groovy pop videos for Momo:tempo – with no hint of irony – ...man do I want them to distract you from the basic lack of ideas with some dead cool styling.
---
But I'm wondering more generally at the moment, can a techy dimwit like me – that is, a moderately capable modern creative, with not enough time or inclination to become a true social media bore – can even someone not grown in a Twitter In-vitro Tank with synthetic parts turn an unknown brand into a well known one? In, say, just one year? Using all the tech that's out there to create an audience out of thin air? All by themselves?
It will depend, like everything in the end, on your idea. What are you wanting people to buy into? The smartest online strategy in the world won't disguise a bit of pseudo-eighties synth pop keyboard music that no-one would want to be seen dead listening to. If you see what I mean.
Still, if you can get people to buy into a brand out of pity... it might still have legs, people.
---
It sort of sounds like a specific challenge. I love the connecting with people bit of tech today. But I think I hate the collective Twitterati. Not the good people individually having fun with something new and significant – but the uber-Twit, the Twitgeist, that barks at us all from the background noise of everything to get on board before train leaves, doofus. Next stop, the future, Twitketeers! Hoowah!
Because the possibilities are endless, I find all these worthy possibilities collectively daunting.
But still. There's no membership. There's officially no Ins or Outs to the brave new world of socal media. We are, technically, all invited. So could even a very human-shaped person like me make effective sense of it? Find a real use for it? ..Other than just pleasuring my self-expression all alone in the blogosphere?
Hmmm.
...More to the point, can I be ARSED?
So technology has never given the average Joe more opportunities, right? We're living in an unprecedented time of user-driven, user-generated content.
And are you excited about it yet?
---
Sitting around everyone's favourite kitchen table this evening, Mark and Sarah's, we wished good chums Jon and Lyn a heart-felt bon voyage as they continue to pack to leave UK shores for Canadian ones. It's been years of on/off drama for them, before the visas finally came through last week and they knew their new chapter was finally opening across the Atlantic.
Saying goodbye, I knew none of us felt the full pang of parting, however – because of Facebook. And Skype. And blogs. We're in eachother's daily community more than ever, thanks to these people-connecting online apps. It's revolutionary. And it's human-minded tech. ..If you can see past the dog-awful, geek-up design of most of them, that is.
It connects folk, that's my point – bringing the miles together so we can all bore eachother stupid with buh-uh-LUDDY quizzes.
It's no substitute for having Jon and Lyn just over the road. I might be able to make my avatar take them over a little brick-edged wok of curry in Yoville, but it won't be the same as dashing through the rain with it to their flat, just outside the studio window.
But the tech still keeps us in eachother's lives. And this is something I'm very grateful for.
---
Tech connects us like never before, in fact. So they tell us.
My business knows this well, I should testify. How could Momo:typo have existed in a modest home studio without iStockphoto? Or just e-mail?
But all this burgeoning community media brings with it the pressure to seize emerging opportunities. And I don't know about you, but I'm as able to seize emerging opportunities for innovative business solutions as I am able to say things like that to clients without wanting to punch myself clean in the face. The truth is, all this gabble about Talk Tech appeals to another very human instinct. The instinct to quickly feel hopelessly left out. And generally inadequate.
Social media is a mad faddy dash to feel involved.
Great. It's picking football teams all over again.
---
I've often thought that, as much as I like the pleasure of using Macs, for example – stroking them, hugging them, telling them I love them and other perfectly normal, right and proper expressions of gratitude to lovely design – I can't really get excited about technology for its own sake.
I dig the daydreams of Tomorrow's World for sure, and I want to live in space in the future – don't get me wrong.
But please. Don't drool too much over the tech – drool over what it can help you DO.
---
The soul-destroyingly dull-sounding EOS 5D Mk II. It has me a little worked up tonight.
Why?
Find a picture of one, and you won't be enlightened. It looks like a camera. Just another pretty boring-looking SLR digital camera. And not a cheap holiday toy – some £2000's-worth of SLR digital camera. A professional's plaything.
So why the passing excitement? Because this thing takes HD video. Through those gorgeous Cannon lenses. For less than half the price of a video camera that can use any kind of half-way decent lens.
It makes home videos look like ads.
I won't bore you with talk of F-stops and depth of field. Partly because photography still feels like a bit of a black art to me – despite years of photography lessons at art school. But I know what I want to achieve – and it's idley cool, smart-ass, slick-shiny pictures of stuff. And this ruddy Cannon upstart can do it on a whim.
Now, trust me when I pause to say that if there's one sure-fire way to kill a worthy creative idea, it's to ignore the delivery. The style. The vital thing you can sense instinctively from about the time you develop language until you draw inevitably nearer to adulthood, at which point it becomes ever fainter and more alien to you – cool. I'm talking about Cool.
On the evening of the premier, there ain't no use whining about the budget restraints of your film – like some architect, while we all stare at the dogs' dinner you built and got paid for and that we now all have to live with on our high street. No. It takes a viewer marginally longer – sometimes a LOT longer – to work out that a film or a pop video is actually crap – a badly-directed bad idea – when it's shot on really expensive gear, than to spot a terrific bit of visual creative hidden in a rubbish bit of production.
Appropriate style gets you through the front door. It's body language. It's brand, baby.
And if I'm going to do any dead-groovy pop videos for Momo:tempo – with no hint of irony – ...man do I want them to distract you from the basic lack of ideas with some dead cool styling.
---
But I'm wondering more generally at the moment, can a techy dimwit like me – that is, a moderately capable modern creative, with not enough time or inclination to become a true social media bore – can even someone not grown in a Twitter In-vitro Tank with synthetic parts turn an unknown brand into a well known one? In, say, just one year? Using all the tech that's out there to create an audience out of thin air? All by themselves?
It will depend, like everything in the end, on your idea. What are you wanting people to buy into? The smartest online strategy in the world won't disguise a bit of pseudo-eighties synth pop keyboard music that no-one would want to be seen dead listening to. If you see what I mean.
Still, if you can get people to buy into a brand out of pity... it might still have legs, people.
---
It sort of sounds like a specific challenge. I love the connecting with people bit of tech today. But I think I hate the collective Twitterati. Not the good people individually having fun with something new and significant – but the uber-Twit, the Twitgeist, that barks at us all from the background noise of everything to get on board before train leaves, doofus. Next stop, the future, Twitketeers! Hoowah!
Because the possibilities are endless, I find all these worthy possibilities collectively daunting.
But still. There's no membership. There's officially no Ins or Outs to the brave new world of socal media. We are, technically, all invited. So could even a very human-shaped person like me make effective sense of it? Find a real use for it? ..Other than just pleasuring my self-expression all alone in the blogosphere?
Hmmm.
...More to the point, can I be ARSED?
Monday, June 15, 2009
The One Upman Shop.
The One Upman Shop.
You did sort of imagine this would be how you'd work every day. You know, in that bright future you forsaw would have you legitimately, professionally based at home – sunshine on the keys, wood pigeons coo-rooing, breeze rooshing the trees.
Yes.
>BREATHES IN DEEPLY THROUGH THE NOSE WITH FLINTY CONVICTION<
..Ruddy hot, bright and noisy out here, isn't it?
The weefee's only conviction this far from the house is that it exists somewhere. Somewhere much nearer the house, evidently. I can see it's there, but I could probably draw the BBC News homepage in felt tip pens quicker than it loads. Including the scrolling live feeds.
So I'm doing this on Blogspot's load page but will have to go back upstairs to actually publish the discovery, mooted on Twitter just now, that perhaps I can't in fact finally enjoy the psychological one-upmanship of working in the garden over lunch.
But really, why did I think I should? I can't see the keys, builders are machine-gunning concrete all the way to the centre of the earth somewhere in the street, and a sunbathing neighbour is trying to have a comfortingly banal private conversation on the phone mere feet from me beyond the sound-reinforced security boundary of a slat fence.
Just think how easily I could live broadcast this to the entire world, and that fence would mean she'd never even know I'd made her private revelations global. If anyone at all actually read my blog, of course.
I've got money spiders climbing around the flush keyboard, my hair's having a particularly whispy day in this irritatingly balmy breeze, and I've only just realised half of what I've typed is demented. What, for example, is a 'one-upmanshop'? Somewhere I'd like to open an account, I think.
Oh this blasted gorgeous sunny day without the gloomy pressures of an office!
I'm going in.
Leaving the neighbour to her own home-based profesionalism. Film reviews and gossip columning, apparently. Same as every other creative freelancer.
---
Now, from in here – relocated to the lounge bay, avoiding the studio as part of this mobile social media experiement – perhaps I could imagine that the vouchers from The One Upman Shop have been cashed in after all.
I can see it's sunny and beautiful out there. But I can also see what the beggary I'm typing. I can, as well as this, listen to Jobim, to help nature create a more convincing summer atmosphere. Plus, I don't need to wear my sunnies, so I can use them as a pretty fetching alice band to keep foppish whispy flops out of my eyes during very important social media comment blogging work.
All that and the kettle is much much nearer. Although I'm putting off caving in to casual caffeine today, as I think encroaching middle age – still so very far off, I'd like you to bear in mind – is telling my body to go to bed at sensible hours and not just say yes every time someone offers it a glass of something made from very heavy Shiraz grapes.
---
I bazzed up to the capital on Saturday tea time to see Ben and Marnie for the first time since we completed Sophie in the souk. Wrap party at producer Jennifer's. Except, it was only by late evening I began to slowly come into focus on the whole wrap party status of the soiré, due largely to the absence of anyone even vaguely connected to the production of the programme.
"Ah" I think a distant secondary internal voice must have mumbled eventually, as someone poured me another little top up of heavily fermented Shiraz grape juice drink, "this is just a party."
Adding a few minutes later: "Huh."
But, hey. Meeting people is meeting people – old gags become new gags, however the new audience got invited. I was happy to meet them, happy to shoot my entire bolt of impressive sounding interest in world affairs, and happy to not have to demonstrate how little I could back up this heavily implied but heavily vague clever knowledge at a second social get together. Plus, I wouldn't want the nice Persian Brit I lectured about the Iranian elections to have to nod politely for another evening.
---
It was good to see Benny boy. Seems everyone likes the show. Kids in particular, I hear. They get the hidden subtexts, obviously.
Ben's created a real editorial integrity to the production. A clear bit of brand work, really. We'll have to see what the Travel Channel really makes of it.
But in some delightfully north London dinner party lines that I seemed to slip into effortlessly that night – but which were undoubtedly bought from the Basics range at The One Upman Shop – the subject of the show did allow me to say things like: "Oh I've always found Moroccans to be charming people. You really must go." And: "So I asked myself what the defining character of truly Moroccan music was, as opposed to other North African and pan-oriental influences..."
Nob. Got a few laughs though.
---
Also, of course, I made sure I used the belt up and down the M3 to audition new edits of the album. Car journeys are useful cocoons for this kind of creative analysis.
And after all, The golden age of exploration is, I should say, just two weeks from its studio deadline now.
Breakthrough moment before I left was getting the first final running order of it all crammed onto an eighty-minute CD. This was basically momentous, as it was the first time I could hear how it would work. ..Or rather, IF it would work.
And?
..How the f*** should I know? I'm writing this tripe – I love it. Never been right before though, have I?
It works, I should say. That is, it seems to fit together, on its own terms. And with a couple of sessions and some additional editing tweeks, it'll be done. Actually done. Spot of singing, couple of cello parts to record, few more horn spots. And done.
..Then what the sweet arsing fate I'm supposed to actually DO with it, I don't know.
Try and get it listed at The One Upman Shop, obviously.
You did sort of imagine this would be how you'd work every day. You know, in that bright future you forsaw would have you legitimately, professionally based at home – sunshine on the keys, wood pigeons coo-rooing, breeze rooshing the trees.
Yes.
>BREATHES IN DEEPLY THROUGH THE NOSE WITH FLINTY CONVICTION<
..Ruddy hot, bright and noisy out here, isn't it?
The weefee's only conviction this far from the house is that it exists somewhere. Somewhere much nearer the house, evidently. I can see it's there, but I could probably draw the BBC News homepage in felt tip pens quicker than it loads. Including the scrolling live feeds.
So I'm doing this on Blogspot's load page but will have to go back upstairs to actually publish the discovery, mooted on Twitter just now, that perhaps I can't in fact finally enjoy the psychological one-upmanship of working in the garden over lunch.
But really, why did I think I should? I can't see the keys, builders are machine-gunning concrete all the way to the centre of the earth somewhere in the street, and a sunbathing neighbour is trying to have a comfortingly banal private conversation on the phone mere feet from me beyond the sound-reinforced security boundary of a slat fence.
Just think how easily I could live broadcast this to the entire world, and that fence would mean she'd never even know I'd made her private revelations global. If anyone at all actually read my blog, of course.
I've got money spiders climbing around the flush keyboard, my hair's having a particularly whispy day in this irritatingly balmy breeze, and I've only just realised half of what I've typed is demented. What, for example, is a 'one-upmanshop'? Somewhere I'd like to open an account, I think.
Oh this blasted gorgeous sunny day without the gloomy pressures of an office!
I'm going in.
Leaving the neighbour to her own home-based profesionalism. Film reviews and gossip columning, apparently. Same as every other creative freelancer.
---
Now, from in here – relocated to the lounge bay, avoiding the studio as part of this mobile social media experiement – perhaps I could imagine that the vouchers from The One Upman Shop have been cashed in after all.
I can see it's sunny and beautiful out there. But I can also see what the beggary I'm typing. I can, as well as this, listen to Jobim, to help nature create a more convincing summer atmosphere. Plus, I don't need to wear my sunnies, so I can use them as a pretty fetching alice band to keep foppish whispy flops out of my eyes during very important social media comment blogging work.
All that and the kettle is much much nearer. Although I'm putting off caving in to casual caffeine today, as I think encroaching middle age – still so very far off, I'd like you to bear in mind – is telling my body to go to bed at sensible hours and not just say yes every time someone offers it a glass of something made from very heavy Shiraz grapes.
---
I bazzed up to the capital on Saturday tea time to see Ben and Marnie for the first time since we completed Sophie in the souk. Wrap party at producer Jennifer's. Except, it was only by late evening I began to slowly come into focus on the whole wrap party status of the soiré, due largely to the absence of anyone even vaguely connected to the production of the programme.
"Ah" I think a distant secondary internal voice must have mumbled eventually, as someone poured me another little top up of heavily fermented Shiraz grape juice drink, "this is just a party."
Adding a few minutes later: "Huh."
But, hey. Meeting people is meeting people – old gags become new gags, however the new audience got invited. I was happy to meet them, happy to shoot my entire bolt of impressive sounding interest in world affairs, and happy to not have to demonstrate how little I could back up this heavily implied but heavily vague clever knowledge at a second social get together. Plus, I wouldn't want the nice Persian Brit I lectured about the Iranian elections to have to nod politely for another evening.
---
It was good to see Benny boy. Seems everyone likes the show. Kids in particular, I hear. They get the hidden subtexts, obviously.
Ben's created a real editorial integrity to the production. A clear bit of brand work, really. We'll have to see what the Travel Channel really makes of it.
But in some delightfully north London dinner party lines that I seemed to slip into effortlessly that night – but which were undoubtedly bought from the Basics range at The One Upman Shop – the subject of the show did allow me to say things like: "Oh I've always found Moroccans to be charming people. You really must go." And: "So I asked myself what the defining character of truly Moroccan music was, as opposed to other North African and pan-oriental influences..."
Nob. Got a few laughs though.
---
Also, of course, I made sure I used the belt up and down the M3 to audition new edits of the album. Car journeys are useful cocoons for this kind of creative analysis.
And after all, The golden age of exploration is, I should say, just two weeks from its studio deadline now.
Breakthrough moment before I left was getting the first final running order of it all crammed onto an eighty-minute CD. This was basically momentous, as it was the first time I could hear how it would work. ..Or rather, IF it would work.
And?
..How the f*** should I know? I'm writing this tripe – I love it. Never been right before though, have I?
It works, I should say. That is, it seems to fit together, on its own terms. And with a couple of sessions and some additional editing tweeks, it'll be done. Actually done. Spot of singing, couple of cello parts to record, few more horn spots. And done.
..Then what the sweet arsing fate I'm supposed to actually DO with it, I don't know.
Try and get it listed at The One Upman Shop, obviously.
Monday, June 08, 2009
On the job.
On the job.
In the words of Adrian Chiles, next spring seems like an awful long wait.
Not for Yasmina, of course – she's arrived. She has a new job and a whole new identity.
But for the rest of us? Somehow, I'm sure we as a proud nation will push on and pull together and muddle through until the next series of The apprentice is aired. I'm going to miss Srallan, though – he'll be Lawdallen by next year.
One thing that lastnight's finale demonstrated along the way was borne out by the boss himself on the after-show – brand is what people buy. Yasmina's Coco Electric was basically cute; the chocolates themselves you can get right with an extra couple of days. But who'd know Kate's Choc D'amour were extra scrummy from their pregnancy test type box?
I think Coco Electric should be a club night too, by the way.
The idea of something – the instinctive, emotional response, however small – is what we all reach for on the shelf. That's a brand; what people feel about a product, or a thing. Or you.
And so I can't help feeling, where might this be more relevant to this morning's news than in the jolly world of politics?
---
The world IS politics, of course. How people interact with eachother, how they get along, work together around differences, work around competing outlooks. Everything is politics – how we navigate eachother determines how 'successful' we are. Which I put in quotes there to let you decide what the word means.
So personal 'brand' is pretty vital, huh?
Right. In response, however, I'm personally just thinking of printing up more Momo tees – they're cute. Do yourself a favour – do yourself a logo, I say. Though I'm now thinking of adding a pink lightning spark to mine.
The professional party politician can't do that, however.
..No, I mean they can't – have you seen the design of their leaflets? Shocking.
Which is interesting. The very people who usually feel drawn to step up to public office are usually not creatives. Yet the subtle nuances of expression and emotional awareness are everything to a politician's success.
Ah.
---
BNP.
Thoughts?
'New suit, same old Nazis' was one amusing ad headline for them this week. They say we've got them wrong – they're not racists, they're standing against the systemic racism of the The Liberal Elite, directed against the Indiginous White Population Of Britain.
Which might just be a plea to keep things simple; the English are already German-Nordic-French with a twist of Italian. Invading bastards. We should really give the country back to the Welsh and the Cornish, of course. But we certainly can't incorporate any more ethnic identity into our great collective mongrel brand any more.
Last thing we want to do, for example, is become a massively sea-faring and trading nation, extending our influence and enlarging our outlook to a truly global scale, bringing back prosperity and people alike to our meagre shores and... ah.
I, ah.
But here's the thing to remember with your brand, if you just joined the class – it ain't yours. It's almost like art – you make the marks and the perciever of your work makes the connections. It's in their head. So they can make whatever connections they damn-well please.
So what should be done when people percieve their country to be against them? When their connection with Britain feels increasingly like a disconnection?
It comes down, as I think everything on the political news does today, to leadership. Right now, people are percieving no proper leadership in the UK.
Uh-oh.
---
Well, I say 'uh-oh' to create a dramatic pause, but it's all part of the natural ups and downs of professional political life. Things go stale and we want something fresh.
But, like a teacher in an unruly classroom, the minute the little tykes can smell fear – you're dead.
Once kids – or let's call us voters – get it into their heads that you don't know your arse from your elbow when it comes to authority or direction, your brand is a bad one. You've got to do something to correct their impression of your authority.
Rolling tanks into the shires and squares of this fair isle would be a way to look tough, of course.
It's the I'll Bloody Show You Who's Strong, Yeah tactic of choice for many world leaders. And these guys have often been great with creating brand – cute posters, nice uniforms, consistent brand collateral. Beatings for deviating from the brand book. My kind of marketing department.
We don't kind of do that here. Not really the UK's style. We fawn and bitch, depending on the weather. Which might make the UK sound a bit, well, gay. But I'm all for it – the catfights can sound pretty nasty and will involve a lot of meladrama, but no-one's blood will actually get spilt on the chiffon/leather/ermin and it will be mere moments before someone says: 'BORED. WHO TURNED OFF THE DISCO?' and we're all cheering and fugging again.
I realise this reduction of a particular sexual identity to a kind of colourful character part in the story of our community is not helpful. But's let's face it, the colourful ones are always our favourite ones in the film. The white/straight/thin heroes we cast in the central roles are so dull. And England can, after all, be pretty gay. I blame our butch Viking heritage. In fact, I thank it.
England: Putting the pink spark back into British politics.
---
My distracted point, pulling it back, is that leadership is the most vital brand we create – and Gordon's lost it.
Doesn't matter that we still think he's a massive politico-financial brain – he seems like a man driven by blind vanity, rather than simple dedication. If he'd been content to serve his country in Number 11, instead of CONSTANTLY pushing to be Tony Blair, we might be remembering him as an economic titan and hero of all our prosperity. Instead, his free markets became rather too free and unregulated as he turned is piercing eye on the house further up the road in Downing Street.
People didn't turn in droves to the BNP last week. The European elections showed that much of the continent mis-trusts the idea of lefty bananacrats, same as us. And here in the UK, people are fed up with the culture of Westminster, giving it up as a lost cause, I think – 33% turn-out, or something? People just didn't vote.
It's not just that, though. People still haven't a strong enough idea of what the hell the European parliament does, for one thing. Where has been the ad campaigns and information on that? Nationally, internationally or locally? We went into our booths at the top of our road and more or less closed our eyes and stuck the pencil in.
But also, it's the fact that Brown is the opposite of Tony Blair, who was a gifted communicator. His skills and his words are always lost behind his gruff personality. Which would have been endearing and respectably honest, had he not insisted so forcefully on being the voice of the UK.
As PM, Brown is in the wrong job. He's creating the wrong brand for Labour and for the UK. He's just not up to the particular job of articulating the fundamentals of leadership – where we're going, how we'll get there and who we are.
And crucially, our idea of who we are is perhaps the most potent force in politics.
In the words of Adrian Chiles, next spring seems like an awful long wait.
Not for Yasmina, of course – she's arrived. She has a new job and a whole new identity.
But for the rest of us? Somehow, I'm sure we as a proud nation will push on and pull together and muddle through until the next series of The apprentice is aired. I'm going to miss Srallan, though – he'll be Lawdallen by next year.
One thing that lastnight's finale demonstrated along the way was borne out by the boss himself on the after-show – brand is what people buy. Yasmina's Coco Electric was basically cute; the chocolates themselves you can get right with an extra couple of days. But who'd know Kate's Choc D'amour were extra scrummy from their pregnancy test type box?
I think Coco Electric should be a club night too, by the way.
The idea of something – the instinctive, emotional response, however small – is what we all reach for on the shelf. That's a brand; what people feel about a product, or a thing. Or you.
And so I can't help feeling, where might this be more relevant to this morning's news than in the jolly world of politics?
---
The world IS politics, of course. How people interact with eachother, how they get along, work together around differences, work around competing outlooks. Everything is politics – how we navigate eachother determines how 'successful' we are. Which I put in quotes there to let you decide what the word means.
So personal 'brand' is pretty vital, huh?
Right. In response, however, I'm personally just thinking of printing up more Momo tees – they're cute. Do yourself a favour – do yourself a logo, I say. Though I'm now thinking of adding a pink lightning spark to mine.
The professional party politician can't do that, however.
..No, I mean they can't – have you seen the design of their leaflets? Shocking.
Which is interesting. The very people who usually feel drawn to step up to public office are usually not creatives. Yet the subtle nuances of expression and emotional awareness are everything to a politician's success.
Ah.
---
BNP.
Thoughts?
'New suit, same old Nazis' was one amusing ad headline for them this week. They say we've got them wrong – they're not racists, they're standing against the systemic racism of the The Liberal Elite, directed against the Indiginous White Population Of Britain.
Which might just be a plea to keep things simple; the English are already German-Nordic-French with a twist of Italian. Invading bastards. We should really give the country back to the Welsh and the Cornish, of course. But we certainly can't incorporate any more ethnic identity into our great collective mongrel brand any more.
Last thing we want to do, for example, is become a massively sea-faring and trading nation, extending our influence and enlarging our outlook to a truly global scale, bringing back prosperity and people alike to our meagre shores and... ah.
I, ah.
But here's the thing to remember with your brand, if you just joined the class – it ain't yours. It's almost like art – you make the marks and the perciever of your work makes the connections. It's in their head. So they can make whatever connections they damn-well please.
So what should be done when people percieve their country to be against them? When their connection with Britain feels increasingly like a disconnection?
It comes down, as I think everything on the political news does today, to leadership. Right now, people are percieving no proper leadership in the UK.
Uh-oh.
---
Well, I say 'uh-oh' to create a dramatic pause, but it's all part of the natural ups and downs of professional political life. Things go stale and we want something fresh.
But, like a teacher in an unruly classroom, the minute the little tykes can smell fear – you're dead.
Once kids – or let's call us voters – get it into their heads that you don't know your arse from your elbow when it comes to authority or direction, your brand is a bad one. You've got to do something to correct their impression of your authority.
Rolling tanks into the shires and squares of this fair isle would be a way to look tough, of course.
It's the I'll Bloody Show You Who's Strong, Yeah tactic of choice for many world leaders. And these guys have often been great with creating brand – cute posters, nice uniforms, consistent brand collateral. Beatings for deviating from the brand book. My kind of marketing department.
We don't kind of do that here. Not really the UK's style. We fawn and bitch, depending on the weather. Which might make the UK sound a bit, well, gay. But I'm all for it – the catfights can sound pretty nasty and will involve a lot of meladrama, but no-one's blood will actually get spilt on the chiffon/leather/ermin and it will be mere moments before someone says: 'BORED. WHO TURNED OFF THE DISCO?' and we're all cheering and fugging again.
I realise this reduction of a particular sexual identity to a kind of colourful character part in the story of our community is not helpful. But's let's face it, the colourful ones are always our favourite ones in the film. The white/straight/thin heroes we cast in the central roles are so dull. And England can, after all, be pretty gay. I blame our butch Viking heritage. In fact, I thank it.
England: Putting the pink spark back into British politics.
---
My distracted point, pulling it back, is that leadership is the most vital brand we create – and Gordon's lost it.
Doesn't matter that we still think he's a massive politico-financial brain – he seems like a man driven by blind vanity, rather than simple dedication. If he'd been content to serve his country in Number 11, instead of CONSTANTLY pushing to be Tony Blair, we might be remembering him as an economic titan and hero of all our prosperity. Instead, his free markets became rather too free and unregulated as he turned is piercing eye on the house further up the road in Downing Street.
People didn't turn in droves to the BNP last week. The European elections showed that much of the continent mis-trusts the idea of lefty bananacrats, same as us. And here in the UK, people are fed up with the culture of Westminster, giving it up as a lost cause, I think – 33% turn-out, or something? People just didn't vote.
It's not just that, though. People still haven't a strong enough idea of what the hell the European parliament does, for one thing. Where has been the ad campaigns and information on that? Nationally, internationally or locally? We went into our booths at the top of our road and more or less closed our eyes and stuck the pencil in.
But also, it's the fact that Brown is the opposite of Tony Blair, who was a gifted communicator. His skills and his words are always lost behind his gruff personality. Which would have been endearing and respectably honest, had he not insisted so forcefully on being the voice of the UK.
As PM, Brown is in the wrong job. He's creating the wrong brand for Labour and for the UK. He's just not up to the particular job of articulating the fundamentals of leadership – where we're going, how we'll get there and who we are.
And crucially, our idea of who we are is perhaps the most potent force in politics.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Orders from the frontier.
Orders from the frontier.
Back. Back in Bomo.
And after a couple of days in the verdant bends and bumps of Cornwall, back in the sunshine; I think I have as much colour from various people's back gardens over this last weekend, as I do from the sunbaked Middle East.
Summer is evidently here. I can feel it with the studio window open. The question is, as I go through my emails and post and phone messages, what will the summer bring?
---
We've managed to see some of the gang since getting back, with afternoon teas and barbecues and the like. Melly and Bobs were down and I made him go through my photos from the Ricoh and tell me how to use it better. But, uncharacteristically, I also suggested we do some work in our own garden, and set-to yesterday, clearing the front driveway of brambles.
I must have sunstroke.
Interestingly though, back from hols and evidently raring to go, I'm wondering where to put all that rare stuff.
After wrapping up so many things before leaving, I've returned to an unusually blank canvas for Momo. Various projects on the go, of course – and I have yet to discover whether there are various disasters on the go, hidden from view – but my agenda is open. Perhaps more open than it's been in years.
Still, it's not nine in the morning, yet.
The main thing on Momo's agenda is, of course, the bleedin' album. And knocking on a few doors on the back of Sophie. The point is, I guess, I may have something I've been hankering for for a long time: some space to direct the business. Chase some work I actually want to do.
But the frontier is a weird place. You have to have a pretty sure idea of your direction when carving roads into virgin land; it's much easier to be told where to go.
I may yet be, before the day's out.
Back. Back in Bomo.
And after a couple of days in the verdant bends and bumps of Cornwall, back in the sunshine; I think I have as much colour from various people's back gardens over this last weekend, as I do from the sunbaked Middle East.
Summer is evidently here. I can feel it with the studio window open. The question is, as I go through my emails and post and phone messages, what will the summer bring?
---
We've managed to see some of the gang since getting back, with afternoon teas and barbecues and the like. Melly and Bobs were down and I made him go through my photos from the Ricoh and tell me how to use it better. But, uncharacteristically, I also suggested we do some work in our own garden, and set-to yesterday, clearing the front driveway of brambles.
I must have sunstroke.
Interestingly though, back from hols and evidently raring to go, I'm wondering where to put all that rare stuff.
After wrapping up so many things before leaving, I've returned to an unusually blank canvas for Momo. Various projects on the go, of course – and I have yet to discover whether there are various disasters on the go, hidden from view – but my agenda is open. Perhaps more open than it's been in years.
Still, it's not nine in the morning, yet.
The main thing on Momo's agenda is, of course, the bleedin' album. And knocking on a few doors on the back of Sophie. The point is, I guess, I may have something I've been hankering for for a long time: some space to direct the business. Chase some work I actually want to do.
But the frontier is a weird place. You have to have a pretty sure idea of your direction when carving roads into virgin land; it's much easier to be told where to go.
I may yet be, before the day's out.
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