Stardust - My Star Pun-Free Film Review

I went to a preview showing of the film Stardust last night (it’s in cinemas from October, apparently). Don't worry - you won't any crap star puns - "it's a star turn" etc etc. I promise.

It’s a fantasy film based on the illustrated fairy tale by comics megastar Neil Gaiman and artist Charles Vess. Designer colleague Rob and I were invited along as we’re working on a project involving the film. Having visited the website, we went to the preview feeling the film would be a bit naff. Luckily, it was a really entertaining, gorgeous-looking movie and less simple-minded than most films aimed at a crossover audience of adults and kids. Admittedly, the hero being named Tristan may have softened up my critical faculties…

The plot involves this Tristan, a humble lad from an English village named Wall. There is indeed a wall near the village (the town founders must have been particularly unimaginative with words); a wall between the human world and the fairy realm. When a star falls beyond the wall, Tristan swears to enter the fairy kingdom to retrieve it for the feckless cow he’s got the hots for. This, needless to say, leads to a quest full of peril and enchantment.

The thing that saves it from being twee is the gallows humour that permeates the script. I also liked the fact that – unusually for a fantasy movie – there was actually a gay character in there. In fact, Robert de Niro’s turn as the gay pirate Captain Shakespeare was, for me, the highlight of the film. Yes! Travis Bickle as a homosexual freebooter! What brilliant casting! His performance shit all over Ricky Gervais's cameo as David Brent in a funny hat.

Anyway, October’s a long way off, but I reckon you should see Stardust when it twinkles into UK cinemas…Shit! Sorry...

"Look, Ricky - don't try and fucking tell me that Extras is as funny as the Office"

The Death of Facebook?

Facebook was on BBC Breakfast this morning, with the hosts making the same joke about ‘poking’ that’s always made when the site is reported on TV. I’m guessing that augers the death-knell for the site. In fact, I can hear it ringing out across the land now. As soon as these things hit the mainstream media they become terminally uncool and die.

Or do they?

Am I being a digital agency snob about this? Just because something becomes the Internet equivalent of a Wetherspoons pub to people like me doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to die. I’m sure that most of the webarati wouldn’t be seen dead on MySpace, yet over 100,000000 accounts have been created there. That’s an awful lot of teenagers and pop stars. So its likely that when Facebook fever has died among the AKQA diaspora, there’ll be plenty of other people to take our place.

Scott Walker Made Me Cry

To say that music can have a powerful, often irrational, emotional effect is not an original observation.

After all, it’s the principle behind every single male’s ‘Shag CD’ (or Pooching Playlist for the technically savvy); the hope that a bit of Luther Vandross and Lionel Richie will act like an aural Rohypnol when they’ve got a woman back to their fetid man-pad. However, when music does conjure up a big emotion from deep inside my brain it always catches me unawares.

This morning I was on the 08.14 from Welwyn Garden City, listening to my iPod on shuffle. In between Alexandra Palace and Finsbury Park ‘If You Go Away’ by Scott Walker began to play. For some reason the melancholy tune and Jacques Brelle’s poetic lyrics made me pause and cry.

I must have looked slightly bonkers and have no idea what emotional connection had been made in my head. All I can say is that, for a moment, I was watching London rush by and living that song.

Baby Recycling

The irresponsible, selfish throwaway ethos of our society took another turn for the worse today, as you can see from this photo of my office. I am, quite frankly, outraged. The sign clearly says the recycling bin is for aluminium cans only.

Advertising Agency Manners

Something occurred to me this morning as I got to the entrance of Saatchis shortly after a co-worker and found the glass door swung shut in my face. What does it say about the advertising world when I’m always mildly surprised when someone actually holds a door open for me after they’ve gone through it? Is it lack of manners, an endemic selfishness or is everyone immersed in their own world?

Yes, I Admit It, I Liked the Sisters of Mercy

My friend Steve has pointed out that in a comment that I had a soft spot for the Sisters of Mercy in my youth. I cannot deny it. Any band that calls its drum machine ‘Doktor Avalanche’ is cool with me. I particularly loved the Floodlands album, which was when ‘ver Sisters’ went mainstream I suppose. I remember wanting Andrew Eldrich’s white suit in the Dominion video. My god, I thought he looked cool. 20 years on, I now see that Steve himself actually adopted the facial hair and glasses ‘look’ of Eldritch!

Heavy Metal Memories and Pat Mills' Requiem

One of the illicit pleasures of my childhood was buying (or indeed shoplifting) Heavy Metal comic from unwitting newsagents in Leamington Spa. Heavy Metal is the US version of the French comic anthology Metal Hurlant, full of translated European fantasy comic strips, which was cool in itself, but the best thing was that it was also littered with beautifully drawn nude women and sex. Horny 12 year old sci-fi nut nirvana! As it was a comic, the newsagents would stick it next to the Beano and I could legitimately buy it. Hurrah!

As an adult, I haven’t often shelled out for Heavy Metal as it’s generally full of nonsensical beautifully drawn rubbish – and the allure of nude cartoon women isn’t quite as powerful. However, recently I have started reading it again for one comic strip – the utterly deranged ‘Requiem Vampire Knight’.

Requiem is a Franco-Belgian comic written by the British visionary Pat Mills (the bloke who started 2000ad) and drawn by French artist Olivier Ledroit. It’s best summarised a mental vampire goth headfuck set in a bloodsoaked Hell.

Its protagonist is a Nazi soldier reincarnated as a Vampire in a nightmare world where time runs backwards. I can’t really make head nor tail of the plot, but it seems to involve Requiem searching hell for his lost love who was a Jewish woman sent to the camps. Loads of over-the-top bonkers stuff is thrown into the mix – Dracula rules a kingdom in this hellworld, Tomas de Torquemada has been reincarnated as a werewolf and there’s an extreme politically correct feminist tyrant from Venus who’s been brought back as a pirate. There’s also plenty of sado-masochistic sex and gory ultra-violence.

There’s no doubt that Mills has several screws loose and writing for an adult European comics publisher allows him to let those screws scatter all over the shop in a very disturbing fashion. The madness is brought to life by Ledroit’s feverishly detailed psychopathically exuberant art.

Mind you, if Mills is mentally ill, I must have a morbid side to seek this stuff out. It’s funny – I used to look down my nose at Goths as a teenager and now I’m turning into one…

Charlie Brooker - Allied to C***s

I have been, along with everyone in the ex-AKQA diaspora, dabbling in the world of Facebook for a few weeks now. I usually check in once or twice a day and feel stupidly happy when someone puts a message on my ‘wall’. Coincidentally Charlie Brooker wrote about his social ineptness on Facebook in the Guardian last week. This is a good enough excuse for me to haul out my very own Charlie Brooker anecdote.

Many years ago, when the Internet was young and I was somewhat thinner, I worked at a (now defunct) new media agency named Zinc. Every week the creative dept. would look forward to the latest online TV listings spoof ‘TV Go Home’ written by Brooker. A series in the imaginary listings was ‘Cunt’, which was, ironically enough, about a feckless new media wanker just like us named Nathan Barley. Thankfully he was public school and had a trust fund, so the parallels weren’t too painfully direct.

Then one week the TV Go Home e-newsletter featured a link to the site of a man declaring himself to be the ‘Real Cunt’. He used this ego toss-space to boast about his agency work, film script efforts, gorgeous aristo girlfriend, not to mention the Notting Hill flat funded by Daddy. You get the picture. The idiot foolishly put an email link on his site. This tempted half a dozen of us to write abusive emails to the dolt.

My email was pretty reasonable – just asking him why he was proud of his similarity to a self-obsessed, ignorant, lazy, pretentious, venal Thatcher’s child arsewipe. I got an irate reply and a frank email ‘exchange of views’ ensued. Meanwhile we’d sent his URL to people elsewhere and sending him abuse went viral. He blamed me and it all got a bit silly, with him threatening lawsuits (I still remember the threat of ‘my dad’s a lawyer’).

It all culminated in an anonymous email arriving in his inbox (which eventually turned out to be from my friend John) describing all sorts of sadistic scenarios climaxing with the ‘Real Cunt’ ending up in a full-body cast and being anally raped by hospital porters. He pinned the email on me – again threatening legal action (I could have killed John when I found out he was responsible). He also took down his website, which was sensible really.

This was when Charlie Brooker stepped in and ‘flamed’ me in the TV Go Home newsletter. Here was the supposed enemy of cunts defending one! He even accused me of hypocrisy as the name Tristan sounded suspiciously public school! Oh, the betrayal. Needless to say Brooker lost a bit of cred with me after that. Not that he’d give a shit, the successful bastard.

Bowels Attack!

All too frequently in my life I find that important events are affected adversely by my bowels. In fact, I’m beginning to think that they’re conspiring against me. I don’t know what I’ve done to them to deserve this kind of treatment, but their malevolence knows no bounds. It’s like they’re out for some form of revenge.

Take today. Important client meeting. Wake up with chronic stomach cramps and make two unscheduled prostrate-pitstops before I’ve even made it out of the house. Make the hideous mistake of having a small coffee and spend the entire journey to work fearing that some kind of terrible pebble-dashing accident will occur.

Get to work, go twice more. Stagger into meeting. It lasts for two hours. I spend most of that time agonised by stomach cramps, worrying that the bomb-bay doors are about to open. The entire meeting is literally buttock-clenching.

I rush away after saying goodbye to the clients, desperate to ‘go’. Of course, because the gods like toying with me, the toilets on my floor are out of order. I dash downstairs and have to use the disabled toilet to let nature take its course. Jesus, I’ve never known relief like it.

The Tribe is Over

I emerged from the Saatchi & Saatchi ‘tribe’ yesterday, exhausted but still on a bit of a high. The very word ‘tribe’ makes you think of pretentious adland wankery, but the session was genuinely the best time I’ve had at work for ages. And this isn’t simply down to the free bacon sarnies laid on every day for breakfast.

Considering the number of creative team participating from across Europe, there was a surprising lack of ego about using each other’s ideas and seeing where we could take them. I say surprising because I’ve worked at some agencies where having ideas was a competitive process and the biggest, loudest ego in the room usually won out, even if their idea was shit.

Another interesting thing was how different countries have different styles of idea. For instance, the Italian team’s ideas were always poetic and surreal, while the Spanish ideas were based on very simple, direct insights. The Brit ideas were more about humour and a classic ATL lateral way of thinking that I really want to learn.

So, over all, no cynicism or bile from me. I was happy to be part of the tribe.

Tribe

Not a lot of blog, as I’m in a ‘tribe’ all day. If like me (until I had it explained to me last week), you’d never heard of such a thing, here’s a quick explanation. It’s a kind of Saatchi & Saatchi super-brainstorm in which creatives from all over the world get together to have ideas in one big session lasting three whole days. The thought of being in one of these inspires both fear and excitement. After all, if we Saatchi Interactive people have shit ideas or no ideas, I’ll be gutted. However, it’ll be a fascinating process in which to participate.

I’ll check back in to give my impressions…

No, not the BBC series Tribe with Bruce Parry...

New URL

Hi - if you've made it across from my old URL, welcome to my new one! Here's a nice picture I took of a clown.

Underworld: Evolution Pigshit Debacle

I have low-brow tastes.

I tried to read Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’, got two chapters into it and ended up devouring a crime novel by Andrew Vachss instead. I buy the occasional classical piece and get bored with it after one listen. I get arthouse DVDs with subtitles and find myself watching ‘Goodfellas’ again. So, in short, I’ve pretended that I’m intellectual in the past, but I just can’t be arsed any more. I’m happy to wallow in the cultural midden.

However, sometimes the pigshit I roll around in is too fetid even for me. A case in point is ‘Underworld: Evolution’, which I purchased as part of one of those ‘5 for £30’ deals. I’ll admit I rather enjoyed the first film. However, the sequel is worse than I could ever imagine. What an unintelligible car-crash of goth art direction, mangled plot, bad acting and pointless ultra-violence. I don’t expect anything better from Kate Beckinsale, but Derek Jacobi should be ashamed of himself for being greedy enough to take the money and run.

On the plus side, at least ‘Underworld: Evolution’ demonstrates that there limits to the rubbish my brain can tolerate. Now, back to that zombie comic I was reading…

OK, I'm in the frockcoat. Now, where's my cheque?

Office Music Stereotypes

As a creative, I take it for granted that I’m going to work in an environment where people have speakers and are going to play music. Nobody did this at my last agency and I found the atmosphere to be duller and less relaxed as a result. It was, to be frank, like working in a fucking monastery. Even if you absolutely HATE what someone’s playing, at least shouting abuse at them provokes a bit of banter. And if almost everyone digs the music, the room gets a lift. So, in general, I see music in the office as a GOOD THING.

As with anything where a group dynamic is involved, you can observe certain common personality types emerge. Here are a few I’ve noticed…

The one playlist queen

I’m not being sexist here – it usually is a woman, simply because men are far more anal and likely to put new playlists together. She plays a single playlist repeatedly all day, generally featuring pop-bilge like Simply Red and Jamiroquai. The first time you hear the playlist, it puts your teeth on edge. By the time you’ve heard it continuously for 8 hours, your teeth are ground down to the roots and bleeding. In the end you wait until she’s away from her desk and cut the speaker wires.

The headphonist

Generally a programmer or an introvert creative. Silent and possibly psychopathic, they buy a new set of outlandishly huge ‘bins’ once a week, ‘cos they “DJ at the weekends, yeah?” They never play anything on their speakers because they want you to think that they’re listening to the latest Hoxton Twot-tronica, when in actual fact they’re getting down to the Cheeky Girls.

The 80s zombie

There’s always someone in the office whose musical evolution got stuck in 1987, like the Coelacanth of pop. OK, maybe Duran Duran sound better now than they did in the ‘good old days’ but when Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s oeuvre starts getting an airing, it’s time for a violent uprising. Rick Astley was never, ever cool, isn’t cool and will never be cool ever, no matter what kind of post-modern ironic outlook you take.

Desperate to impress Jimmy

This extrovert would-be Jimmy Saville puts together crowd-pleaser playlists for his fellow creative drones. Typically, they’ll combine post-modern retro favourites like ZZ Top with cutting edge New Rave buffoonery. Jimmy imagines everyone dancing around the office in ecstasy, but no one’s as impressed with his party tunes as they should be and he goes home alone to a warm bath and some razor blades.

Anyone got some more office music stereotypes?

FOPP £3 Rack Hairy Nugget

The £3 rack in Fopp is a terrible thing. Albums are only there because they’re generally considered deeply crap, so there’s a good chance that you’ll either not find anything you’d like despite flipping through the CDs – or, oh horror, find something you do like. The worse of all worlds is that you find something you both liked and bought at full price. This accounts for most of David Bowie’s recent output, in my case! Today’s bargain basement nugget? ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits. Yes, every song sounds more or less the same – and there is a song called ‘Pearl Necklace’ – but those beards rocked the 80s, man. And what adolescent hetero boy, hormones raging, didn't hope that the video for 'Legs' would get played on Top of the Pops?

Quincy M.E. Necrophilia Perversion

I was thinking about the ‘80s autopsy/detective drama series ‘Quincy M.E.’ over the bank holiday weekend. I was particularly thinking about the title sequence, which has three things very wrong with it. Things that reveal the bizarre things that passed as normal in TV drama at the time as effectively as Quincy’s knife revealed the foul play behind the deaths of the stiffs in his refrigerated drawers.

1. WRONG! There’s an edit threaded into the title sequence where you’re led to believe that Quincy is examining a corpse – but the twist is that it’s really a gorgeous blonde sharing a glass of champagne on the deck of Quincy’s yacht (I’ll get to the yacht). Oh, what larks! The morbid associations this hilarious gag conjures up would keep Freud awake at night (mind you, all that cocaine didn’t help eh, Sigmund?).
2. WRONG! The fact that the horny old goat is shagging women young enough to be his granddaughter just reflects the male fantasies of the TV executives who produced the series. It’s often suggested that old men chasing young women are emotionally stunted misogynists. However, what really puzzles me is what’s going on in the heads of the women shagging him. How does an old man who makes a living cutting open dead people (and whose social life is limited to hanging out with a bunch of other old men in one pub) attract these babes? Is his charm? Is it the heady aroma of formaldehyde? Is it his yacht? Hang on - yacht?!
3. WRONG! Yes, Quincy lives on a yacht. On a coroner’s salary. I should fucking coco. I’ve never heard of a bent coroner, but if this wasn’t Hollywood TV lah-lah land you’d swear the old bugger was on the take.

Anyway, take a look at the titles now and see what you think…

Cyclist Hypocrisy Naughtiness

There’s nothing worse then hypocrisy is there? Whether it’s Lord Browne slagging off his ex-lover’s honesty while lying about how they met or John Major banging on about family values while banging Edwina Curry, it’s never pretty. Well, it’s time for me to join the legions of hypocrisy in relation to cycling.

Fucking nutters

You see, when I was a scooterist, I’d get really pissed off with cyclists blatantly ignoring the rules of the road – jumping red lights, popping out from behind buses without looking and racing along the pavement terrifying pedestrians. The thing that really, really pissed me off was when they would pedal up the middle of the road, getting in the way and slowing me down. “If I was on a bicycle, I wouldn’t ride like that, they’re fucking nutters,” I would think to myself.

Cycling short shit

Well, now I’m cycling myself on my little Dahon folding bike and, of course, I’m riding like a fucking nutter myself. The thing is – the way London roads are built, you’re really not given much choice. It’s so incredibly cyclist-hostile that it would make your average Amsterdammer shit their cycling shorts. You’re forced to put yourself in the way of danger all the time if you want to get anywhere in this city.

Arse bumper

Let’s take jumping the lights as an example. I know it’s bad. However, when I do this I consider it to be defensive rule-breaking. Motorists are revving their engines, desperate to get going and they’re looming threateningly behind you. Jumping the lights is often the best way to get a safe head-start and avoid getting a bumper up your arse.

Suicide junction

It’s the same with riding on the pavement. Sometimes the roads are so badly planned, it’s the only safe option. There’s a bit on the Euston road/Tottenham Court Road junction bikepath where you’re deposited right back into heavy traffic on a steep slope and at a right angle. It’s suicidal to do this, so one is forced to go along the pavement a bit.

That's just two examples of crap road planning, I could go on and on. So, to paraphrase so many criminals before me, I’m going to hold up my hands and say that “it’s a fair cop, guv’nor, but the cival engineers are to blame!”

The Walking Dead Comic by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard: Emotionally Believable Zombie World

It’s rare that a mainstream comic book comes along that features ordinary people with human weaknesses trying to cope with the emotional fallout from a disaster. It’s even rarer to find emotional empathy in comics, where the need to big, violent things to happen and for even bigger things to explode (like the occasional planet) appears to dominate.

Having devoured 5 books of The Walking Dead in one week, I’m happy to have found a comic that has a cast of believable ordinary people and applies emotional realism to its storytelling. Admittedly these believable ordinary people spent their surrounded by (as well as fighting and being eaten by) zombies, but their reactions to this extraordinary situation are refreshingly realistic.

The scenario is the same as most zombie flicks: we follow a group of survivors as they try to stay alive in a nightmarish, shattered United States ruled by the shambling brainless dead with a penchant for dining on living flesh. We start out encountering a small-town cop Rick Grimes as he wakes up in hospital after being put in a coma by a gunshot wound (echoes of Danny Boyles' 28 Days Later). After quickly getting acquainted with the flesh-eating zombie situation, he tries to track down his wife and child in Atlanta (which is chock full of carnivorous corpses).

I don’t want to talk you too much about what follows, as I’d love you to read it and become as gripped by the twists and turns of the plot as I was. Suffice it to say that the writer, Robert Kirkman, deals with well-worn Romaro-style tropes and explores them in his own way. The characters develop, experiencing survivor’s guilt, fear, depression, boredom and loss. They harden up as the old social norms and certainties slip away. They grow and change. This is unusual for the horror genre in any medium, let alone comics.

In the main, the art is handled by the UK artist Charlie Adlard (who I know from his virtuoso black and white drawing for ‘Savage’ in 2000ad) whose dark, rough and expressive style adds to the realistic atmosphere.

Having never been a big zombie fanatic, I’ve had 7 days of living with the dead and I love it. Just have to wait for volume 6 to come out now…

Quote of the Day

One designer to another: "Ambidextrous? Isn't that when you can bend your arms right back?"

My Desk at Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive

The random debris, the crap PC, the lovely view of Charlotte Street! Yes, it's my 'workstation' (as I believe desks are called these days) at Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive. I started out being all minimalist with a bare white desk, but, as you can see, that didn't last long. 80 Charlotte Street is considered a key symbol of Saatchi's heritage. I feel like an ASBO candidate moving in and lowering the tone.

This Weekend I'm...in Awe of Churchill

A weekend of not a lot to report. The only significant thing on my mind tonight, as I half-watch Match of the Day 2, is my admiration of Churchill’s rhetoric. The Guardian gave away a little booklet of his ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ speech yesterday and I enjoyed reading it today. It was delivered to parliament as the British army had escaped from Dunkirk, saved from destruction by a tiniest of margins. It was an utter rout and, if it weren’t for Churchill, I imagine that we would have cut some kind of deal with Hitler.

It’s hard to believe in this era of soundbites and governmental wriggling in a macroeconomic straitjacket that a politician could deliver a magnificent speech on which Britain's fate hinged. Can you imagine Blair saying something that moves you or makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck? I think that living in this era of pygmies makes Churchill’s achievement even more awe-inspiring. We can barely imagine standing on the edge such a national precipice or having a leader who could inspire us to leap, not knowing whether we would survive as a people.

This leads me to a further thought – if we faced the Nazis now, would we be willing to face the sacrifices and privations that Britons stoically accepted in the Second World War? Sadly, I think not – if Hitler offered us free satellite telly and HD TVs, the majority would welcome him with open arms.

New Boner Archive

I've put all the Boner and Spout cartoons in one place for the first time. Go and get some creative advice and inspiration now!

Visit the Boner blog

IT Dept. Hell: I'm a Living Typo

My IT department appears to have a problem with my name. They started out by setting up my email address under the surname ‘Fitzpatrick’ (I suppose they thought if it was vaguely like ‘Fitzgerald’ it’d do – after all, they’re both Irish surnames. I’m surprised I didn’t end up with O’Flannigan). Now, with our migration to Lotus Notes, they’ve got my Christian name wrong. Apparently my name is ‘Tristian’. I pointed out the error to the IT guy when he came round to install Notes, but I have massive doubts over whether they’ll correct the mistake by the time we go over to the new email client on Friday. So I’ll either have to put up with having no email (it took a week to correct the last cock-up) or change my name by deedpoll.

You could say that it’s my fault for having a poncey name, but I can’t help what my mother chose to call me. I’ve been entertained by a dizzying array of misspellings or mispronunciations over the years. Christian, Tristrum, Tristran, Christan, Trixton. My water company thinks my name is Tristran Fitzgerlad. East Londoners have difficulties saying Tristan. My friend Louis from Romford, after 7 years, STILL calls me ‘Tristjian’.

Given this history of name typos, it’s hardly surprising that my IT dept. have got a bit confused. Thank god I’m not Sri Lankan – I’d love to see how they coped if my name were Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi.

What if…Steve Jobs were British and Jonathan Ive American?

I love those comic book parallel world stories...

You know the kind of thing: “What if Wolverine was a cross-dresser?”, “What if Batman was in the Beatles? (Would they then be ‘the Battles’?)”, “What Doctor Doom had three legs and a pet octopus named Dave?”

Well, I thought on the train this morning, let’s apply that kind of alternative dimension thinking to Apple. What would happen if Steve Jobs were a Brit? And, equally intriguing – what if Jonathan Ive were a yank? Here are my conclusions…

The iconic Apple design would be a little…different

If you look at US product design – say Ford sportscars, the Xbox 360 or (hoho) the Zune – it’s very clear that the aesthetic, to put it politely, doesn’t quite have the same minimalist chic appeal as the current Apple product line. It’s all about bulk and muscle. So let us imagine a Jonathan Ive born in Chattanooga, rather than Chingford. First of all, I expect his name would be Jon-Bob Ive. I also suspect that his design for the new MacBooks would look like this:

Eyecatching, certainly. Elegant? As an elephant doing the fandango on crystal meth...

And those keynotes wouldn’t be quite the same

You can say what you like about us Brits, but you could never accuse us of being overly cocky. We don’t really do the whole ‘I’m great and my product is fuckin’ fantastic!’ thing. In fact, we’d rather die than ‘big ourselves up’. Think Hugh Grant in ‘Micky Blue Eyes’ (or any of his other films). It isn’t a cliché – it’s ALL True. So Sir Steven Jobs the Englishman wouldn’t do the ‘just one more thing’ part of his keynote in the same way. You’d be expecting an anti-climax and then, by god, you’d get one. Rather than “"Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here it is...", Sir Steven would tell us: “Er…we’ve got this product and it’s quite good I suppose. It’s…erm..a phone and it does other things too. And here it – er – is…”

The conclusion

Business disaster. Utter ruin. We’d live in a world where the Zune is the MP3 player to be seen with and Dell PCs are cutting edge design. A grim vision I know – thank god it’s only in my imagination…

Kurt Vonnegut Changed My Life

I was saddened to learn that Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. He’ll always be known for 'Slaughterhouse-Five', but I’ll never forget the impact that another of his books had on my childhood imagination.

When I was about 12, I have no idea why I chose it, but I borrowed 'Slapstick’ from the public library in Leamington Spa and it blew my mind. I think I may have thought it was straight Sci-Fi from the blurb – particularly the main character living the ruins of the Empire State Building. I discovered pretty quickly that it was so much more – both stylistically and in terms of sheer imagination. The narrative is episodic and non-linear, which was something new to me at the time. And Vonnegut, as he does in so many of his novels, threw out surreal amazing ideas left, right and centre – I particularly remember the entire Chinese population being reduced to microscopic size – so that, in the end, they infect people who inhale them.

Being a creative magpie, I began to work those sorts of motifs into my stories. I think Vonnegut freed me from my restricted expectations of what fiction could be.

His writing style will always stay with me – irreverent, bemused, very human and yet displaying an almost autistic detachment at the same time. He shifts our perspective on the things we take for granted in our society and reveals their absurdity. For that his novels should always be treasured.

Ben Elton Get a Grip Crapness Mystery Boggle-Poser

When did Ben Elton become crap? Was it after his 60th shit novel? Or after he decided to become the nation’s sanctimonious leftie conscience? Indeed, did Ben Elton become crap or was he always crap and it just took us a while to realise? Admittedly this isn’t a philosophical question that would bewitch Wittgenstein, but having endured the ads for ‘Get a Grip’ I feel I need answers. The bit that really makes me wince is when his young female sidekick says a line relating to his age/her youth and he pulls a face of aghast bemusement. The expression reminds me of nothing less than the face that my baby son pulls when he’s doing a poo-poo. Is Ben Elton so old that he's dropping one in his colostomy bag? The mind, as it so often does these days, boggles.

Cock

Crap Cycle Lane on the Euston Road Redux

Tom, who writes the 'Crap cycle lanes of Croydon' blog, has asked me to show my crap cycle lane on the Euston Road. Only too happy to oblige, Tom - although I'm beginning to suspect you're slightly autistic. By the way, it's 25 FEET long - not 25m. So it's even crapper than previously reported...

Virgin Media Problems Vex as Uma Thurman Beguiles

Virgin Media is continuing to infuriate me (see my previous difficulties with the idiots here). They’ve continued to take money from my bank account for my previous contract – alongside the payment for the upgraded contract. So, in other words, I’m paying for my broadband connection twice.

So I just rang up to sort the situation out. Went through endless automated menus. Got fucking cut off before talking to anyone. Twice. It’s utterly maddening. If anything the customer service from the old NTL was better.

On top of that, you need a pin-code in order to access any of the much-advertised on-demand TV services. A pin-code that was never at any point supplied. I haven’t even tried to sort that one out…

Oh, Virgin Media you prettily-painted (the advertising) syphilitic whore (the reality)!

A warning to the unwary new potential customer – don’t be taken in by Uma Thurman and her beguiling promises. It’s all a pack of lies, I tell you.

Pitches, Carbon Footprints and the End of Civilisation

Today is being spent anxiously waiting for the results of a pitch we did yesterday. It was the worst kind of pitch, as it was via a pan-European conference call. Not only could we not see any reaction from our audience, but we couldn’t sure they were even following what the hell we were telling them. On the plus side, I suppose it’s going to have a smaller carbon footprint than flying everyone to the same place.

Mind you, I’m already getting sick of hearing about carbon footprints. I think it’ll be the expression that defines our woeful decade, as everyone goes on their carbon footprint getting smaller, as they carry on consuming as much pointless shit as ever and capitalism fucks over the planet. But at least they can feel good about themselves because they’re driving a fucking Prius.

Ah well, at least we won’t be hearing about it after the total collapse of civilisation. The only footprints we’ll be worrying about then will be those of cannibal barbarians as they pursue us through the ruins.

Euston Road Cycle Joy

Wobbling along the Euston Road on my folding bike to my new workplace is never a pleasant experience. Especially as the taxi drivers appear to trying out for the David Carradine part in Deathrace 2000 (except an elephant seal gut and bottletop glasses doesn’t make for a very charismatic sci-fi villain). However, my cycle to Charlotte Street did at least raise a smile this morning. Why? Because I passed the most laughably pointless cycle lane in London.

It runs apologetically for about 25 metres from opposite the British Library to the next junction along and consists of a poorly painted band about 1 foot wide. It’s of no use to a cyclist, the layout of the road hasn’t been changed to accommodate it and I doubt motorists even notice it. All of which begs one question. Why the hell is it there?

OK, this is my theory…

Camden Council was either given a target by government to create a certain mileage of cycle lanes or made a commitment to the local electorate to do so. Knowing the bureaucratic mentality, rather than an expensive co-ordinated network of proper cycle lanes that might actually improve the life expectancy of riders, there are probably hundreds of cheap silly 25m long painted lanes dotted throughout the borough.

Civilization 3 Addiction in Turquoise

Apologies to my reader for the lack of blog this week (as if it affects your quality of life). I’ve been taking a bit of time to relax and enjoy the rather snow-flecked spring in WGC. I had kind of promised myself that I’d redecorate our turquoise living room (including the removal of the curtains with PELMETS. What a great word that is. Pelmet. Sounds like a newly discovered genital organ. “Ohhh, me prolapsed pelmet’s givin’ me gip today!”) However, as it is, I’ve only daubed the walls with the contents of 8 paint sampler pots and stuck 6 wallpaper samples up. My motivation ran out midway through. Due in no small part to my continuing addiction to Civilization 3.

At least I have the small comfort that Iain Banks is also addicted to the same game. After 3 months of solid Civ, he had to go cold turkey - smashing the CD and deleting all files – to get his latest novel written. Jesus, if I worked at home I’d probably have to do the same thing…

Vicious Imagery: 28 Days of 2000 AD #1.1: Pat Mills Unplugged

Vicious Imagery: 28 Days of 2000 AD #1.1: Pat Mills Unplugged

Last Day at Rufus Leonard: Clearing Out Steptoe's Yard

Today’s my last day at Rufus Leonard and I feel positively wistful. I’ve only been at this agency for a year, but I’ve done work that I’m proud of, learned a huge amount and worked with people I respect. You can’t ask for much more from a job, really. What I especially like about Rufus is the lack of big egos. Even mine was muzzled most of the time!

I also met a creative director, Steve, whose desk looks even more like Steptoe’s Yard than mine. However, as usual, the junk has built up over the year.

Me and Steve sort through our stuff

So I decided to sort it all out before the day got going. Here’s what’s gone into my holdall:

• 1 Lomo camera case
• 1 Daks flatcap (brown)
• 1 Creative PC speaker system
• A pair of Asics trainers
• 1 Victorian ceremonial short sword
• 1 fetid gym-kit
• 26 copies of 2000ad
• 5 Guardian wall-chart posters
• 1 Fusion art book
• 1 Clint Eastwood postcard
• The original drawings for the cartoons on this blog
• 4 Amos In-Crowd ICWF wrestlers
• 2 Japanese 3Age Marvel superhero figures: the silver Surfer and Daredevil
• 1 Ringo Starr & 1 Blue Meanie
• 1 Cylon Warrior
• 1 Japanese Doctor Doom figure
• A pair of Sony headphones
• 1 book about rats

So it’s ‘goodbye Rufus’ and ‘hello Saatchi & Saatchi’. Maybe I’ll consider going minimalist at my next workstation…

Captain Strategy - the Planning Avenger

Click on the picture to enable enlarged viewing functionality

Monkey World

Tim, a fellow Word jockey, has sent me a link to the Monkey World website. This isn't even a result of a bored copywriter/Photoshop - it really exists in Dorset! Look at this page - are they trying to attract children or make them scared of monkeys forever?

The Big Beaver in Canada

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The Big Cock in Flitwick, UK

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Interesting Animal-Based Tourist Hotspots

Having visited the Big Sheep (the sheep themepark in Devon) many years ago, I wondered how many other animal-based tourist attractions were out there waiting to be discovered. So a quick whirl on Google Image search later, here are the results...

Old Gits Talk Croydon and the Golden Dawn

I met two friends from Croydon last night, Adam and Blair. We went up to the Three Kings in Clerkenwell for a pint, talking about old times in a room upstairs with a huge 60s print on the wall and a cabinet full of snowglobes. I generally catch up with Adam every 6 months and I hadn’t seen Blair for about 15 years, but we all soon fell into old patterns of behaviour. Basically, Blair and I used to – and still do, evidently – gang up on Adam and take the piss. It’s interesting how one conforms to a set script with certain people. You can feel a different persona – dominant, submissive, serious, funny – take hold and lock into place. So, although we’ve all changed over the years (all fatter, Blair is now an antiquarian bookseller specialising in occult first editions, married or getting married) we’re obviously not very different to those callow idiots aimlessly hanging around Croydon in their early 20s.

By The Way...

Apologies to everyone for the introduction of comment moderation on this blog. I had some anonymous moron leaving semi-literate abusive comments (as you’ll see if you scroll down to ‘Long Lost Boner’). They went beyond banter (which I don’t mind) and the stream of expletives continued over the weekend. As my wife pointed out, it’s a bit close to home when there are entries talking about our life together and children on here.

Of course, I did bring it on myself by posting another Boner cartoon. I suppose I’m naïve, but I’m always surprised by the trouble a spot of mild piss-taking can cause…

At Home with Stan

I’m working at home today, as Stan has conjunctivitis and can’t go to nursery. Luckily the boy is happy to sit on his play-mat and chew the DVD player remote (the thing he’s not supposed to play with is, of course, far more interesting than any of the brightly coloured, ingeniously designed toys he’s normally allowed!)

Ruing the Day on eBay

I think there should be a new category of psychological condition should be investigated. Its name is ‘eBay regret’. This describes the emotional fallout of impulsively bidding for something stupid on eBay and then actually fucking winning it.

Need an example? Just look at this pottery owl I won the other day.

Surely the most pointless – and, quite frankly, rubbish – thing I’ve ever bought in my life…

Long Lost Boner

Click to enlarge creative ego

Electric Guitars in the USA: Join the Futile Debate

I’ve just had a pointless, though vehement, discussion with my colleague Mihai.

Mihai asserts that electric guitars sound better in the US because that nation has “different electricity”. I countered, with astonishing rhetorical acuity, that he was “talking toss”. We then asked an American woman in the office what she thought, but she could not venture a definitive opinion as she only ever played acoustic guitar.

Does my meagre handful of readers have an answer? DO electric guitars sound better in America? Leave a comment if you can be arsed…

On the iPod today...

I’ve been listening to a fair amount of new music recently, especially in the morning on the train from WGC to King’s Cross. There’s nothing quite like passing through Potters Bar whilst digging a cool tune. Oh, the exhilaration!

Here’s a roundup of what’s currently on me iPod…

The Horrors – Strange House

I was never a Goth during the 80s (although I did fancy a Goth girl named Eleanor at 6^th Form and loved the Sisters of Mercy), but remember the movement vividly. The Horrors have been touted as a Goth revival band, but I think this is unfairly diminishing the excitement of their musical output. If anything they seem to be more of a furious mix of garage, punk and, yes OK, 60s organ-driven Hammer Horror theatrics. I’ve only listened to this album once, but I know I like it. Particularly the wild single ‘Count in Fives’ and the melodramatic opener ‘Jack the Ripper’.

Mr Hudson & the Library – A Tale of Two Cities

I loved the Madness-alike single ‘Too Late Too Late’, so invested in the album by this London band. I’m a bit underwhelmed, sadly. The first 5 songs are really interesting, then it seems to run out of musical imagination. I’m listening to it now, hoping it might be a grower. Albums like this raise the iTunes dilemma – on the one hand, new music is more accessible than ever, on the other hand it’s also more disposable. I now tend to have less patience with albums, giving them less time to get their hooks into me.

Air - Late Night Tales

This is an eclectic mix of stuff from Air’s record collection. It’s nice and melodic, but ultimately a bit wispy and lacking substance. A bit like Air’s music in other words. Mind you, any compilation that brings together the Cure, Lee Hazelwood and Ravel has to be considered a worthwhile listen.

The outro from Layla by Derek & The Dominos

I’m not a big fan of Clapton (any man who pushes his own son out of a window to get a hit is decidedly dodgy), but I was reminded how great the last bit of this song is by a Scorsese/Sesame Street piss-take on YouTube. It was genius of Scorsese to pick out this bit of music and use it in the way he did in ‘Goodfellas’.

Devlin Waugh Doodles Today

I've been doodling today. This is my fumbling attempt to draw the 2000ad character Devlin Waugh. He's a hugely entertaining creation: an English (Eton educated) gay vampire bodybuilder who happens to be the Vatican's foremost occult troubleshooter. I've been rereading some of the stories in which Devlin appeared and you wonder how the writer, John Smith, got away with such a bizarre and camp character in a mainstream comic.

Virgin Media Proves Good Copy Isn't Good Customer Service

Having discussed copywriters on Friday, I feel the need to talk about the art of copywriting today.

You may have noticed the launch of Virgin Media (the communications equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster, with an array of sub-standard corpses stitched together into a shambling, incoherent hulk) in the press and in those ads featuring Uma Thurman. From a professional standpoint, I was interested to read and listen to the ads as I’ve always admired Virgin’s tone of voice. It’s always admirably human, cheeky and clear.

I happened to be an NTL customer before it was subsumed by Virgin media, so received a lot more literature telling me how well looked after I’d be and how this was a fresh start and so on. Again, lovely copywriting – lots of chutzpah.

Then I moved house and needed to reconnect my broadband and upgraded to get cable telly too. Virgin Media sent a load of information in advance of the reconnection, including essential pin-codes and account numbers. The engineer came on Friday to install it all and arrived when they said he would. Then I came home to make everything work. There were instruction booklets dropped off and, again, the copy had admirable clarity. Goodness me, it looked like connecting my Mac to broadband would be remarkably simple.

Of course it wasn’t. The copy was nicely written, but it was ALL LIES. They’d missed out several crucial steps in the set-up. I had to ring their support line to get the address of a web page on which I needed to register my details to complete the connection process. It would have helped if this crucial piece of information had been available in the instructions. As it was, I spent 30 minutes on my mobile phone trying to get through to an autistic man in an Indian call centre (I hate to think how much that cost me).

All pin numbers and account numbers Virgin had sent me and told me that I’d need to set up broadband? None of them were used – the pin number I actually needed wasn’t in any of the literature – I had to get it off the man on the phone.

OK, so after 2 hours of brain-mangling the broadband was working. I sat down to relax in front of the telly. I then discovered that all the channels I thought I’d signed up for were locked. I rang the support line again. This time it was shut down for the night. Then I tried again this morning. I rang 8 times and was disconnected before I spoke to a human being.

Utterly, utterly infuriating. I’ve just gone from NT-Hell to Virgin Vexation. I have now sworn to buy a ground-to-air rocket launcher from any passing Iraqi insurgent and shoot Richard Branson out of the sky as he begins his next ridiculous round the world balloon trip. As the bearded buffoon spins to his flaming death, I’ll be waving all the great literature I’ve received from his company and reflecting on the power of good copy.

What Do You Call a Group of Copywriters?

I had an entertaining time last night at one of my favourite pubs, the Eagle in Farringdon, with a gaggle of assembled copywriters. There were about 10 of us at one point and, as usual, there was wordplay and cynicism a-plenty.

I did wonder what the collective noun for a group of copywriters would be (you know, as in a murder of crows, a pod of dolphins, an arsehole of account directors). I think a ‘grumble’ of copywriters seems appropriate as we’re a jaded bunch of moaning motherfuckers.

If anyone has any better suggestions, though, do leave a comment…

Nazi Uniform Faux Pas Horror

In an excruciating plot twist straight out of a Ricky Gervais script, I have a mortifying update on the Nazi uniform issue.

Some of my colleagues and me were discussing the relative merits of World War Two Teutonic military garb this morning. In that typical London creative agency way, we were having a bit of a post-modern ‘how shocking can we be?’ laugh about it. I happened to notice that a freelance Information Architect nearby, an American woman, kept looking up and scowling. Not much of a sense of humour, I thought.

So, a little later, I had a meeting with her about some work, and I said up front that I’d seen she’d been uncomfortable with the conversation and I hope she realised that I wasn’t a fascist and that my interest was unsympathetic.

She looked really shocked. “Sympathetic?!” she said.

“No no no! God no! UNsympathetic!”

“Oh OK, well – I did think it was a little peculiar. You know, a number of my relatives were killed in the holocaust.”

This was when the floor dropped from beneath me and I began to seriously rue what can only be described as a god-given ability to say the wrong things in front of the wrong person. Not to mention regretting my crass, prurient personality, of course.

It was also when I began to eat a huge serving of humble pie. Then came back for seconds and thirds at the foot-in-mouth buffet.

I am still genuinely horrified. Thinking about it seriously, it’s no different to discussing how cool Ku Klux Klan outfits look in front of a black person.

I hasten to add that I’ve never made THAT particular faux pas.

Does Anyone Else Do This? No. 5 in an Occasional Series

Er...Guiltily Want To Try On a Nazi Uniform

OK, first things first. It’s just so wrong isn’t it? I abhor what the Nazis did, I really do. I’m not a fascist, anti-semite or misanthropic sexual deviant. However, I’m going to bare my warped soul and admit that I think Nazi uniforms look pretty damn good and I’d love to parade about in one, perhaps clicking my heels a bit and smoking a fag in a cigarette holder.

While the Britisher Tommies were stuck with skulking around crappy khaki serge, the Gestapo were swanning around in sexy black with silver death’s head skulls. In fact, even ordinary German soldiers had far cooler kit than our boys. When I was a kid, I’d always dress my favourite Action Man in the German uniform (even though the Germans were always the villains in my games). Then, when I was slightly older, I have strong memories of seeing a still of Charlotte Rampling in ‘The Night Porter’, wearing a Gestapo peaked cap and very little else.

I suppose the reason the Nazi uniform looked so transgressively sexy on Rampling (and was indeed, I think, designed that way in the first place by the image-obsessed and theatrical Third Reich) is that the SS was, essentially, a death-cult. It’s this air of evil that attracts those with darker imaginations. Admittedly, unlike the elegantly scarred Aryan stereotypes in war movies, they were all inadequate bespectacled freaks. Banal monsters indeed.

After having kind of admitted the fascination to myself, I had a look on eBay for WWII German uniforms and found there’s a disturbingly strong demand for Nazi memorabilia. I don’t know whether they’re people like me, or fucked-up members of the BNP in Farnborough looking for something to put on their mantelpiece with their Samurai swords. I suppose the difference is, I wouldn’t, in reality, go as far as buying this stuff…

Stan Plays It Cool

I think it’s true to say that we really couldn’t have moved into our new house without the help of Emily’s family. On top of labouring long and hard to help us shift all our stuff, Emily’s sister, Lucy, also took some very charming pictures of Stan. As you can see from this one, he was pretty unruffled by the move!

The Retreat to Welwyn Garden City

I’ve been thinking about class a lot since moving to Welwyn Garden City. I get the feeling that it’s a bit of a dead issue these days, apart from a few columns in the New Statesman and whatever Trotskyite groups still survive on University campuses.

A delightful view of WGC

I’m thinking about class because I feel irredeemably middle class having moved to Welwyn, with its John Lewis, Waitrose and Daily Mail Model Village. Of course, although I come from a working class background, I was irredeemably middle class before I moved. I work as a poncey creative and read the Guardian. I just think that living somewhere as white, affluent and just plain NICE as WGC has confirmed it in some subtle way.

According to my leftist mother, leaving Leytonstone for Hertfordshire is a form of cowardly retreat – as urban neighbourhoods need a mix of classes to stop them from becoming even more deprived. I’m not sure I really understand this argument, as part of the reason we didn’t buy a place in E11 is because house prices are booming to the extent that we couldn’t find anywhere we could afford. If anything the middle classes are moving in.

So is it better to stay on the frontline and live somewhere gritty, urban and deprived? I remember particularly how Stoke Newington changed as the well-off middle classes colonised with their 4x4s and 3 wheeler buggies, driving up house prices, patronising ridiculously expensive organic bakers and vegetarian toddler-friendly restaurants. It feels like a form of tourism – getting off on the ‘vibrant’ authenticity of a poor area, while causing that area to lose its identity through your presence.

Of course, it’s particularly middle class to worry about these things. I think I’ll just enjoy the bird song, trees and politeness of WGC without guilt.

Life – a few observations

Here are four quick observations on our existence on this delightful plane of reality, based on recent experience.

When you throw up, it’s generally a meal you really like

Emily and I had gastroenteritis over the weekend. It was a wonderful experience, full of surprises and frenetic activity (primarily centred on the bathroom). As I was bent over the tired pink porcelain of our toilet, I was saddened that it was chicken sweet and sour that was being forced forth from my tortured gullet. This is because I really like a bit of sweet and sour. And. As I looked at it in the context of the toilet bowl, I knew I was going to be put off it for a long time. Possibly years.

People are predictably greedy

We’re moving into our new house on 10 February after exchanging a couple of weeks ago. Before exchanging, however, there was a brief flurry of drama when the people at the top of our chain pulled out. They’d pulled out because they got offered £20,000 more for their house. Greedy fuckers. I suggested to our vendor that I should go round to their property (the people at the top of the chain, not my vendor’s) with a can of petrol and burn it down. Then they’d have trouble selling it for more money! Oh yes!

He went very quiet and I realised I sounded like a psychopath.

Babies are dangerous

Lack of sleep leads to hazardous lack of concentration and responsiveness. A bus is about to hit me? What, oh, move? What, now? Bugger. Diseases are brought home, unleashed in the plague-pit that is known as ‘the nursery’. Yes, considering they’re here to add to the population, babies do a good job of thinning it out. Stanley is no exception. However, he does look very cute when he smiles.

We are all drones

OK, I’m a geek, but I watched a Star Trek Borg boxed set recently. If you’re not a sad sci-fi sad person like myself, you may need to have the Borg explained to you. They are a collective entity made up of cyborg zombies (drones) who shamble about mindlessly doing the business of the ‘hive mind’. Attempting to exit Farringdon station this morning, I noticed that the swarms of commuters had the same shuffling gait and vacant expression as drones. And, in a way, they’re all connected the cultural hive mind via their iPods or mobiles. All we need now is for Steve Jobs to offer us drill-grabby-pincer-thing arm replacements and we’re living in the Borg collective. Except we’ll still have to put up with above-inflation fare increases when we travel in and out of London. It’s a lose/lose scenario, my friend.

Ray Mears Hulk Hogan Wrestlemania Wild Food Photoshop Hell

I'm sure you'll agree my Photoshop skills continue to grow apace.

Knackered

It’s been a week of knackeredness since the last time I updated this blog. This is partly due to Stan getting his first cold. The poor lad couldn’t sleep because he was so congested, which meant that Emily and I didn’t sleep either. Add getting up at 6am to get the boy to nursery, attempting to keep our house in some kind of order whilst servicing Stanley’s practical needs, organising the purchase of our new home, plus the usual work pressures, and it’s an exhausting combination.

In fact, I’m beginning to see why our birth rate is declining – working and parenting don’t really mix in the UK. The cost of childcare, for instance, is scandalous. Putting Stan in nursery for 4 days a week costs roughly £200. I can’t imagine how a low-income family could cover the costs. No wonder people are dependent on benefits. If I were in a position where most of my wage was being eaten up by childcare, I’d be tempted to stay at home and claim benefits too.

Unsurprisingly, women are penalised most as parents. A recent study revealed that the pay gap widens after women become mothers. The disparity in terms of career progress also increases.

Of course, my mum was faced with this dilemma as a single parent when I was a kid, so I’ve experienced it first hand. I wonder how many intelligent, skilled women are still being trapped in poverty as she was.

Ohh, bit serious today! Don’t worry, I’ll get back to torturing chefs and venerating the mighty Ray Mears next time round!