CREATIVE DIRECTOR: This Kingsmill ad, it's nearly there. But, I think it just needs something...you know... to lift it?
BROW-BEATEN, PISSED-OFF CREATIVE: Eh?
ACCOUNT MANAGER: I agree.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: I mean, all this "good times" stuff is great...
ACCOUNT MANAGER: But the client's worried that that might exclude the "bad times"...
BROW-BEATEN, PISSED-OFF CREATIVE: Wtf?
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: And Kingsmill's all about "all of the time" - good or bad.
ACCOUNT MANAGER: We thought maybe if you put a "bad time" in there, it'd - you know- balance it...
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: ...Lift it...
BROW-BEATEN, PISSED-OFF CREATIVE: Oh, what, like put a fucking dead gradmother in there or something..?
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Brilliant! That's it.
ACCOUNT MANAGER: And planning's got some research figures - if we stick it in at 34 seconds, no one will notice it. The negative image, actually becomes a positive.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Shit-hot and gold! It's perfect: we'll cue the dead grandmother at 34 seconds into the ad then...
Monday, 17 November 2008
Friday, 14 November 2008
The Magic Wishing Wog - Part I
I know there's 5 weeks to go yet, but all the Christmas ads are making my Yule-gland itch. So....
Here's part one of my thrilling festive tribute to Enid Blyton and all that; a Dickensian pot-boiler set in the politically incorrect days of Empire (as in Queen Victoria, as opposed to the magazine. Obviously).
[insert drum roll and sleigh bells]
It was a dreary afternoon and throughout the house a dismal winter gloom sapped happiness and spontaneity from its inhabitants, slowly and surely reducing them, one by one, to nothing but an iron grey cinder of ennui.
"It doesn't feel like Christmas," said Pippa, gawping at rain through the leaded bay-window. "I'm so bored."
"Me too," sighed her brother, Chalky.
"I think my chakras need cleansing."
There was a pause as the children's melancholy pressed down even further. Things really were dreadful. Chalky put his hands in his pockets and rattled some change, then suddenly threw himself on the floor. Pippa looked down and saw her brother gently head-butting the herringbone parquetry.
“We need a plan, Chalky. Before we go mad.”
Miss. Quosp the maid came by. “Pippa,” she nudged, “What’s wrong with Chalky?”
“He’s ever so bloody bored, Miss. Quosp.” And with that, Pippa softly wept.
“Oh dear, oh dear. Whatever are we to do? You children really are bored. Come on. I’ve got an idea!” said the maid, optimistically. Pippa pointed at her brother.
“Look Miss. Quosp. He’s catatonic.”
“No, not yet he aint. Now come on. Help me get him off the floor.”
Chalky was a fat but frail child, often taken by fits and giddy spells. Hence, it was thought that the open country of his grandfather’s house would do him some good. Now, steadied on Miss. Quosp’s harsh but solid bosom, he tut-tutted himself for having scuffed his breeches.
“Now then you two,” barked Miss. Quosp, “how about I give you a little job to do?”
The children’s eyes exploded with delight. “Oh, yes please!” squeaked Pippa, who loved doing jobs even more than her fat and servile brother did.
“Very well. I shall give you a job to do. But there is one proviso,” she said pretentiously.
“Ohwhatyesanythingmiss,” oozed Chalky with a trot and a simper.
“The job I shall give you is only a small one. A very small one, in fact. Nevertheless, it is one that needs doing.” Pippa wretched and almost vomited she was so excited, whilst swallowing the sick made her belch. “As you will both know,” continued Miss. Quosp, “your grandfather is a very fastidious man. This afternoon he has an important falconry demonstration to attend. Do you understand?”
“Wmm,” whimpered Chalky.
“I want you both to go upstairs and fetch me your grandfather’s falconry glove so that I may press and air it in preparation for this afternoon.”
A look of hesitation crossed Chalky’s hideous face. “But… but where is it kept, Miss. Quosp – grandpa-papa’s falconing glove?”
“Why, Chalky. Amongst his personal affects, of course,” she sneered. “Now, come on. Run along and fetch what I asked for.”
It was a long way up the stairs to their Colonel Grandfather’s rooms. And it seemed even further for all the wonderful sights along the way. Up and down the staircases and halls, their Colonel Grandfather (as that was what they were told to address him as) had displayed all of the strange, unusual, odd, different and curious things he’d collected from his travels; things from all over the world and the globe.
“Look,” pointed Chalky. “A one-legged Chinaman.”
“Yes,” gasped his sister. “And there see – the world’s loudest trumpet…! And over there, look….”
The list of things seemed endless. Every corner and cranny was filled with wonder. They saw an electric horse and a rare type of grape; a beautiful spider and an old leather penis.
“How could we ever have been so bored?” said Pippa, gazing intently at a strange looking object. Underneath it was a brass plaque that read Hitler’s Breast, 1934. “To think all of this was just upstairs.”
“It… its magical,” quaked Chalky.
“Come on,” said Pippa, remembering their job. “Lets get that glove and then we can spend the rest of the day here.”
Chalky promptly agreed and the children toddled off down the hall, their eyes bulging like ripe puppies.
A flight of stairs and approximately 60 yards later, the children stopped dead in their tracks. A huge oak - or possibly teak – door lay before them. Flanked by two enormous Christmas trees, their Colonel Grandfather’s family crest glowered down from above the door. Chalky blinked his pig eyes, and mentally sketched the coat of arms. Later, he thought, he would consult his book of heraldry and, unbeknownst to him, spark off a lifelong interest in the genealogy of the English aristocracy. But for now, his puny child-mind trembled before the door, which stood tall and resolute before them. Leaning in closer, Pippa reached out and gasped. It seemed the door was covered in strange markings.
“It seems the door is covered in strange markings,” she said, violently.
“Those aren’t markings!” bellowed Chalky, and slapped his sister across the face with the back of his hand. She crumpled before the wainscoting. “Look!” he seethed. Seizing her hair and chin, he thrust her face against the door, making a knocking sound, a bit like a potato hitting some floorboards. “Carvings!”
Pippa winced, and rolled her eye towards the surface of the door. Sure enough, it was covered in carvings, albeit ones that were a bit more like engravings. Chalky let go of her and she stumbled backwards, putting the door into perspective. She could see a sleigh being driven by a fat, anthropomorphic robin and above it a turkey holding a candle. The entire door seemed to be covered in depictions of Christmas; an angel on a rocking horse waved at a snowman giving a tangerine to a nun, whilst elsewhere a boy in pyjamas poured a goose a drink.
“I wonder what’s on the other side of it?” croaked Pippa. “I’d climb the highest metaphor to find out!”
“Why, Christmas of course!” gushed Chalky. “Don’t you see! This is the door to Christmas. This is why we’ve been so bored, because Christmas is locked up, behind there!” he said, raving and consumed. “We’ve got to open it!”
“I bet its locked,” sniffed Pippa.
“Well, let’s find out.”
Arrogantly striding forth, Chalky gripped both the holly-shaped handle and his sister’s hand. Flicking her a final glance, he snapped the handle down and pushed the door away from him. To their morbid astonishment, the door swung unremarkably open and bounced slightly off an inside wall. “Wha…” went Pippa, slack-jawed and oafish. “….” But her words wouldn’t come. She was amazed. As was her brother.
Here's part one of my thrilling festive tribute to Enid Blyton and all that; a Dickensian pot-boiler set in the politically incorrect days of Empire (as in Queen Victoria, as opposed to the magazine. Obviously).
[insert drum roll and sleigh bells]
It was a dreary afternoon and throughout the house a dismal winter gloom sapped happiness and spontaneity from its inhabitants, slowly and surely reducing them, one by one, to nothing but an iron grey cinder of ennui.
"It doesn't feel like Christmas," said Pippa, gawping at rain through the leaded bay-window. "I'm so bored."
"Me too," sighed her brother, Chalky.
"I think my chakras need cleansing."
There was a pause as the children's melancholy pressed down even further. Things really were dreadful. Chalky put his hands in his pockets and rattled some change, then suddenly threw himself on the floor. Pippa looked down and saw her brother gently head-butting the herringbone parquetry.
“We need a plan, Chalky. Before we go mad.”
Miss. Quosp the maid came by. “Pippa,” she nudged, “What’s wrong with Chalky?”
“He’s ever so bloody bored, Miss. Quosp.” And with that, Pippa softly wept.
“Oh dear, oh dear. Whatever are we to do? You children really are bored. Come on. I’ve got an idea!” said the maid, optimistically. Pippa pointed at her brother.
“Look Miss. Quosp. He’s catatonic.”
“No, not yet he aint. Now come on. Help me get him off the floor.”
Chalky was a fat but frail child, often taken by fits and giddy spells. Hence, it was thought that the open country of his grandfather’s house would do him some good. Now, steadied on Miss. Quosp’s harsh but solid bosom, he tut-tutted himself for having scuffed his breeches.
“Now then you two,” barked Miss. Quosp, “how about I give you a little job to do?”
The children’s eyes exploded with delight. “Oh, yes please!” squeaked Pippa, who loved doing jobs even more than her fat and servile brother did.
“Very well. I shall give you a job to do. But there is one proviso,” she said pretentiously.
“Ohwhatyesanythingmiss,” oozed Chalky with a trot and a simper.
“The job I shall give you is only a small one. A very small one, in fact. Nevertheless, it is one that needs doing.” Pippa wretched and almost vomited she was so excited, whilst swallowing the sick made her belch. “As you will both know,” continued Miss. Quosp, “your grandfather is a very fastidious man. This afternoon he has an important falconry demonstration to attend. Do you understand?”
“Wmm,” whimpered Chalky.
“I want you both to go upstairs and fetch me your grandfather’s falconry glove so that I may press and air it in preparation for this afternoon.”
A look of hesitation crossed Chalky’s hideous face. “But… but where is it kept, Miss. Quosp – grandpa-papa’s falconing glove?”
“Why, Chalky. Amongst his personal affects, of course,” she sneered. “Now, come on. Run along and fetch what I asked for.”
It was a long way up the stairs to their Colonel Grandfather’s rooms. And it seemed even further for all the wonderful sights along the way. Up and down the staircases and halls, their Colonel Grandfather (as that was what they were told to address him as) had displayed all of the strange, unusual, odd, different and curious things he’d collected from his travels; things from all over the world and the globe.
“Look,” pointed Chalky. “A one-legged Chinaman.”
“Yes,” gasped his sister. “And there see – the world’s loudest trumpet…! And over there, look….”
The list of things seemed endless. Every corner and cranny was filled with wonder. They saw an electric horse and a rare type of grape; a beautiful spider and an old leather penis.
“How could we ever have been so bored?” said Pippa, gazing intently at a strange looking object. Underneath it was a brass plaque that read Hitler’s Breast, 1934. “To think all of this was just upstairs.”
“It… its magical,” quaked Chalky.
“Come on,” said Pippa, remembering their job. “Lets get that glove and then we can spend the rest of the day here.”
Chalky promptly agreed and the children toddled off down the hall, their eyes bulging like ripe puppies.
A flight of stairs and approximately 60 yards later, the children stopped dead in their tracks. A huge oak - or possibly teak – door lay before them. Flanked by two enormous Christmas trees, their Colonel Grandfather’s family crest glowered down from above the door. Chalky blinked his pig eyes, and mentally sketched the coat of arms. Later, he thought, he would consult his book of heraldry and, unbeknownst to him, spark off a lifelong interest in the genealogy of the English aristocracy. But for now, his puny child-mind trembled before the door, which stood tall and resolute before them. Leaning in closer, Pippa reached out and gasped. It seemed the door was covered in strange markings.
“It seems the door is covered in strange markings,” she said, violently.
“Those aren’t markings!” bellowed Chalky, and slapped his sister across the face with the back of his hand. She crumpled before the wainscoting. “Look!” he seethed. Seizing her hair and chin, he thrust her face against the door, making a knocking sound, a bit like a potato hitting some floorboards. “Carvings!”
Pippa winced, and rolled her eye towards the surface of the door. Sure enough, it was covered in carvings, albeit ones that were a bit more like engravings. Chalky let go of her and she stumbled backwards, putting the door into perspective. She could see a sleigh being driven by a fat, anthropomorphic robin and above it a turkey holding a candle. The entire door seemed to be covered in depictions of Christmas; an angel on a rocking horse waved at a snowman giving a tangerine to a nun, whilst elsewhere a boy in pyjamas poured a goose a drink.
“I wonder what’s on the other side of it?” croaked Pippa. “I’d climb the highest metaphor to find out!”
“Why, Christmas of course!” gushed Chalky. “Don’t you see! This is the door to Christmas. This is why we’ve been so bored, because Christmas is locked up, behind there!” he said, raving and consumed. “We’ve got to open it!”
“I bet its locked,” sniffed Pippa.
“Well, let’s find out.”
Arrogantly striding forth, Chalky gripped both the holly-shaped handle and his sister’s hand. Flicking her a final glance, he snapped the handle down and pushed the door away from him. To their morbid astonishment, the door swung unremarkably open and bounced slightly off an inside wall. “Wha…” went Pippa, slack-jawed and oafish. “….” But her words wouldn’t come. She was amazed. As was her brother.
To be continued...
A Blog Is For Life
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
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Friday, 7 November 2008
We're Hiring!
My client is an obscure and insignificant marketing agency, based in a remote and culturally isolated part of Yorkshire. The team specialise in providing junk-mail solutions to a range of faceless international clients and small businesses. Due to poor traffic management, my client is reluctantly considering expansion.
This is a unique opportunity for a writer to join a close-knit team of uncooperative designers and fat account handlers in a deeply unpleasant environment. Working closely with a letcherous and slightly sinister MD/CD, you will provide sales copy for a range of cheaply executed and ill- conceived flyers and thin catalogues. The ability to concentrate with Radio 1 on is essential.
With bleak premises on an industrial estate near a canal, this is an ideal position for a weary loner, or introvert.
Contact Lisa Cankles on 0113 666 or email lisa@creativedregs.com
This is a unique opportunity for a writer to join a close-knit team of uncooperative designers and fat account handlers in a deeply unpleasant environment. Working closely with a letcherous and slightly sinister MD/CD, you will provide sales copy for a range of cheaply executed and ill- conceived flyers and thin catalogues. The ability to concentrate with Radio 1 on is essential.
With bleak premises on an industrial estate near a canal, this is an ideal position for a weary loner, or introvert.
Contact Lisa Cankles on 0113 666 or email lisa@creativedregs.com
Oh Lord, Please Do Not Burn Us...
It's official: there is no God. If there were, I wouldn't be feeling as shit and ill as I do now. I'd be leaping around singing "hallelujah" (the Leonard Cohen version, obviously) and giving thanks.
But that'd be silly wouldn't it, all that dancing and singing. It's all just a bit -you know- weird isn't it, that "religious" stuff. A man in the sky with an indestructible son and a virgin mother? Ha! I mean, it's a crackin' yarn but we've got telly nowadays, haven't we. I guess it's a bit like the theatre is'nt it, "religion", or the opera - something that's a bit quaint and anachronistic that only repressed, pretentious people have an interest in. It's quite popular at the moment though "religion", because it gives people the sanctimony of hindsight when things goes wrong. Oh, and you can defer all responsibility to your Great Zargox in the sky or whatever the fuck he's called.
No, come to think of it, "religious" people are the worst people in the world with all their snotty finger-pointing, funny dancing, and shit music. Which is why it's great to see good old Scamp's offered to help out the atheists with their proposed London bus campaign. Not only did it need a bit of professional help because the original line was feeble, but I've had great fun all morning watching the comments section deteriorate into shitty, partisan squabbling.
Scamp's taking suggestions from the floor so if you fancy a fatwa on your head be sure to have your tuppence worth. It's a crackin' brief actually, but I'm just too misanthropic to be a proper humanist. My idea was to have two aliens in a spaceship, with Earth on a monitor in the background. One of the aliens is reading the Bible and saying "Aww, how cute they still believe this superstitious bullshit!" And the other one says, with a tentacle on the button "Ha ha, yes! Let's destroy them all!" Or a church with a dinosaur squeezed into it and it's head sticking out the bell-tower and it's tail hanging out the window and the line "Atheism: It's the dinosaur in the room"...
...Or a gravestone that says "R.I.P God - it's what He would've wanted" and post his obituary in all the newspapers: "God. Dawn of time - 2008. Metaphorical creator of the universe, worshipped by billions, died suddenly after a long battle with reason and logic. He leaves no family because he wasn't actually real, and will be commemorated with a lavish and outdated ritual, after which we can all get on with choosing a new Dr. fucking Who. "
Update
Dear Mrs. Blogreader,Please excuse John from blogging this morning as he is poorly sick with a bad cold and is very grumpy.
He will be blogging later today, but doctor says he needs to take it easy. Matron has put his wheelchair on the lawn with a blanket over his legs so he can take the air and cough into a hanky.
Hope it's not catching.
John's Mum
xx
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