Creatives 0 - Management -1

This one's dedicated to the absolutely mind-rapingly stupid plight of Ross and Brand, victims of precisely the same sort of reactionary, bungalow-headed media cannibalism that let half of India know Britain had fallen to a fascist leader known as Jade Goody.




There. "Futile gestures" all round. Resignations, suspensions... a statement from the fucking PRIME MINISTER!!!?

As Frankie Boyle eloquently commented on the case of Jade Goody "If you dress a monkey up as a butler, don't complain when it starts shitting all over the carpet." The same is true of Ross and Brand ie. if you mic-up two gobshites in a room with a tape recorder, don't complain when they do something dumb.

So well done BBC for joining the cannibals in their hysteria. A bad creative decision compounded by a bad editorial decision upset precisely 2 people. But when the tabloids set their zombie minority on your switchboards you let them have exactly what they wanted, and offered your own people up to be eaten alive. Nice one. And by the time Ofcom and the trustees have finished bickering over how to cover their arses, Ross'll be pissing on you from C4's £Umpteen-billion digital vodcast moon channel.

What now then? Well, welcome to a brand new BBC that has roughly the same creative climate as East Germany once did. Look forward to 10,000 new episodes of 2 Pints of Lager and all new "Draconian Come Dancing."

(Tune in tomorrow for my Mail On Sunday world exclusive: "Was Diana's Hull Breached By Nazi Iceberg?")

The Church of Latter Day Planning

Us planners are always thinking. We have to. It keeps us fresh; alert and open to new possibilities. We have open minds. But also, open hearts. Much like Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ taught us to open our hearts to everyone and everything, and to embrace the world around us. He taught us never to judge, and to find the good in everything. That's what planning is all about - finding the goodness in brands, and sharing it with the world.

And in many ways, Jesus is very much like a brand, isn't he. His brand essence all around us - in our minds, and in our hearts. You could say Jesus is the ultimate brand. He's even got his own brand guidelines - The Bible.

It's no wonder all us planners like going to church. We love brands. But not as much as Jesus loves us.

Olympic Mascot

Just read they're tendering for the 2012 London Olympic mascot.

Thought I'd have a go...

Think I'll call him "Stilton".

Words Are Shit

Here ------------> {click me} is a very long article about the lack of dialogue in advertising.



Here is a picture of
what I think of it -------------->




Now, what colour do you think illiteracy is?

Lookalikes and Doppelgangers

Had a meeting with someone yesterday who thought I used to work at BJL.

This is the second time someone has said this to me.

So. If you've ever worked at BJL and look like me, then please get in touch. I've been sent from the future to kill you, and people keep blowing my cover.

Look out! It's Art!

Alert! Alert! It's Art, people! Art! Everybody get down!

I'm excited so I'll try and be brief.

Went to the Liverpool Biennial over the weekend. Most of it's shit. However, two things stood out.

1. David Blandy's meta-imaginary soul singer stuff - a presentation of objects pertaining to a fictional soul singer called Mingering Mike who's been made-up by an unknown outsider artist, but who in turn has actually been made-up by David Blandy. Cue lots of ropey, hand-drawn album sleeves and fun with postmodernism.

2. The Royal Art Lodge's "Garbage Day" installation which is the best thing I've seen in bloody ages.

The Lodge is a collective of Marcel Dzama and a couple of his mates. (Dzama's famous for his weird little water-colour figures of things like haunted trees chasing girls, and melting snowmen - some of which have even graced the odd album sleeve). Each installation is a series of individual panels that have been passed around, each artist adding their own elements of painting, drawing, collage, text. The effect is a bit like a comic book. Moving from panel to panel with snatches of surreal narrative and dialogue, you pass through this little world full of talking animals, ghosts, giants, meaningless diagrams, jokes, death and lots of frogs. It's beautiful, enchanting, hilarious, totally immersive, satisfying and like nothing else you've ever seen.

The pics I've culled are from their website - a flavour of what to expect, but doesn't do it any justice. Go to The (normally rubbish) Bluecoat Chambers and see for yoursef. I'm going again before it finishes.

*** Very good. Great seller. Would buy again.

Amusement de famille!

What colour's yours?

(Funny looking at that cover - I was telling someone just the other day how much their genitals looked like a topographical diagram of a river bed...)

dO ITT yurr sEllf

Tighten your fuckin' belts people. I have. I'm even using stock photography now, see.

Actually, no, that's a lie. Times aren't hard at all. I live in the country, which is where all the people who raped the banks in the first place scarpered off to in their Range Rover Sports. Everyone's minted in the country. Whilst us plebs get booted out of our homes by (probably) Polish bailiffs, the nouveau riche eat organic mignons in rural gastropubs bought with the change left over from their daughter's horse. (Or something like that, anyway. Not too sure about the bailiffs...) Any how, the point is life's still pretty much wholesome and healthy in the country. Especially this time of year when all the (moaning, miserly, fucking) farmers are selling their produce. Which so thus hence, of course, brings us to my picture of the little chalkboard sign.

The hand written chalkboard sign is a perennial feature of rural life and commerce. It's also the oldest and most authentic kind advertising there is. And whilst it effectively breaks all the rules by allowing the client to do their own marketing, it always succeeds because of its innate, inescapable honesty. It doesn't even matter what you write on it because it's very existence is so quintessentially charming, someone somewhere (in a Range Rover Sport) will always think "Oh, how lovely" even if Farmer Giles has scrawled "Fucked By Rats" on it, and is now sat weeping in a hayloft with an empty bottle of Bells and a loaded shotgun. No, you can advertise anything with a chalkboard - pies, potatoes, "Pony carrots", organic apples, logs, manure, heeler pups(!), (the ominous sounding) "Duck Eggs - 1Mile" and (my personal favourite) "Butchery Tearooms". You can even get a brand message in there if you want: there's a farmshop near my parents with a roadside sandwich board that has a list of fresh produce on one side, and a daily Bible reference (eg. "Matthew, 7:12") on the other. (The same place once wrote "I'm A Celery... Get Me Out Of Here!" to conincide with the TV show too. Now that's genius.)

Maybe during the financial shitstorm we should just give our clients a chalkboard and ask them to do some DIY marketing? Don't worry, we'd all still get paid though cos it was our cute idea in the first place, right?

The Shit Art Company Ltd.

It's the Frieze Art Fair in Regent's Park this week - the British art world's wankiest gangbang of the whole year. Why not come on down and catch a glimpse of the Emperor's New Clothes before Charles Saatchi buys them all up for Nigella Lawson to eat. Or why not just come and meet... me! That's right, I'll be there just outside the doors representing my very own gallery, The Shit Art Company Ltd.

The Shit Art Company Ltd. was established this afternoon by me in my own head, and specialises in works that are completely shit, by people who are crap. The Shit Art Company Ltd. is a showcase for the most exciting and contemporary rubbish in the UK today. Whilst in no way an advocate of outsider art or art brut, The Shit Art Company Ltd. is dedicated to works which aren't so much untaught as misguided.

If you're a shit artist and would like your work to be represented, please contact me, the curator, at The Shit Art Company Ltd. via the comments section below.

Is This Cool?

Wow-wee, look! It's The Fonz - the coolest man on Earth.

Ahhh... those were the days; back when being cool was easy. All you needed was a toilet for an "office" and know the right place to hit a jukebox. It's not like that anymore though. No, nowadays you need a whole panel of people to tell you if you're cool or not...

What!? You mean you didn't read the UK Cool Brands supplement that flopped out of The Observer yesterday? You mean you didn't agonize over all that vague and arbitrary data, like The Time Line of Cool that tells us 007's 1964 Aston Martin DB5 is as culturally significant as the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Jesus, man... But CoolBrands UK has put together a 30-strong panel of experts to work this shit out for us! Shame on you...

But -hey- what a panel it is! There's the usual suspects: Nicholas Roope of Poke and Patrick Burgoyne of Creative Review. But there's some unexpected heavyweights in there too, ie. cultural leviathan... June Sarpong! She might be a New Labour cumpot who looks like the remains of Tutenkhamun, but those T4 Sunday's with Vernon Kaye and Hollyoaks have put her up there with Lord Bragg and Alan Yentob. And if that weren't enough gravity and authority for you, they've even managed to harness the might of... Lauren Laverne, who -let's face it- is the new Norman Mailer.

So stop clicking your fingers at girls and going "Ehhhh" in the mirror. Get your out-dated arse over to CoolBrands UK and enjoy the shallowest, most pointless analysis of nothing, written in the shittest, most impractical font you've ever seen and be none the wiser as to what fuck "cool" might or might not be, although it's probably something to do with price.

How's Your Weekend So Far?

No one's actually reading this right now are they? No. You're all busy chilling out, watching your Honeymoon In Vegas DVDs you got in the Daily Mail this morning, aren't you.

By God, we live well.

Help Fund Terrorism

Psst. Want to help fund a film about terrorism? Then go here and read on.

Seems Chris Morris' long-incubated jihadi project was finally turned down by the Beeb and even C4 (for fucksake) last month. And it's now up to his old mates at Warp Films to make it happen. Backing's in place but funding aint, so there's now an embryonic campaign to get Morris sympathisers to foot the bill.

All this seemed it might be a joke a first, but it could well turn out to be true after all (see below).

From: Funding Mentalist fundingmentalism@warpfilms.com;

Dear Lion

At the moment the detonator’s going off and you’re part of it but until the effect has gone exponential, your mails are being sorted by one person so bear with me.

Many people have asked us exactly what the Four Lions project is. Clearly we can’t launch the film before its been shot, but I’ve pulled together a few paragraphs from the paperwork that’s been flying around. Its shameless hype but its accurate – unlike almost everything you will have read in the press. No one who has read the script could disagree with a word here.

In three years of research, Chris Morris has spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, cry for their mums, shoot each other’s feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking. A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber looks puzzled and says “what was the question again?” On millennium eve, five jihadis set out to ram a US warship. They slipped their boat into the water and carefully stacked it with explosives. It sank.Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.

Four Lions is a funny, thrilling fictional story that illuminates modern British jihad with an insight beyond anything else in our culture. It plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or alienating the entire culture from which they emerge. It understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis.

As for your offer, we’re hoping to set up a one click pay scheme soon. We’ll let you know. Hope that helps

Deirdre Steed.
PS Please pass this on to ten more people.

Genius

Yet more outstanding work from London's finest.

Something Nice

No, really. Here's something nice for a change that isn't swearing or sarcastic.

Look at these bike racks designed by David Byrne.

Aren't they ace. Check out his (always good) web/blog/thing for the full story of how they got made. Ok, so being the front-man of one of the coolest bands ever probably helped, but it's good to see how people instinctively get behind a good idea. I'm not the biggest fan of municipal art but these just make the world a bit more fun.

And next week on BBC 4 we'll be talking to Peter Gabriel about his new range of speed cameras.

One For The Clients

Would you believe it, my new favourite agency Snatch have made a speech about the current economic uncertainly we all face...