News from The Drum: Advertising kind of pointless, really

The Drum's reality correspondent: Karl McGargling

In a rare flash of insight yesterday, everybody at The Drum suddenly realised that, actually, in the scheme of things, advertisings not really all that important.

The unexpected change of opinion came in the wake of Father's Day when the majority of the advertising magazine's employees spent a pleasant afternoon in the company of their extended families, talking about old times, chewing the fat, and putting things in perspective.

A spokesman for The Drum sighed, "Seeing dad yesterday really made me sit up and think about the big picture. I mean, i don't know how long he's got left now - it could be 5 years, it could 30. But what's more important: getting to know my parents, or getting an interview with a man who makes posters for cat food? Don't get me wrong, it's an exciting time to be involved in the creative industries, but... Aw, who am I kidding?" And with that he threw his mobile phone in the bin and walked barefoot on to the street. Meanwhile, another insider was heard to be muttering "Bullshit man, bullshit. This is ALL bullshit..."

Regular Drum reader Gareth Ramps reported "There's been a a nagging futility about the magazine for a while now. Something hollow and unresolved about it. It's spooky. Like, at work I'm all over it, commenting on the website like I genuinely care about all this stuff. But once I get home, it doesn't even cross my mind. It's as though nothing in it matters, or has any significance or bearing on the outside world."

Chief editor of The Drum, Nobby Clamps, is expected to issue a statement later today apologising for the time and effort the magazine has wasted over the years, and suggesting ways his readers might better spend their time.

A Pig Called Mordecai

Have you noticed how everyone in adverts is some kind of brilliantly uncanny quirk-addled genius these days?

There's the Credit Expert...


Then there's The Most Interesting Man In The World...


Not to mention the "Most Interesting Child In The World".


It's as though they all stepped straight out of this film about brilliantly uncanny quirk-addled geniuses...


Oh, and then there's these brilliantly quirky blah blah blah...


Who could've stepped straight out of this film...


Now, I haven't seen this new ad yet because my plug-ins are playing up. But would it happen to be about a brilliantly uncanny quirk-addled genius with a humourously named pet by any chance? Although, judging from the stills, it seems Luke Wilson wasn't available for that particular project.

Happy Bloomsday Everybody

June 16th. The day of the events of James Joyce's Ulysses. For those of you unfamiliar with Joyce's masterpiece it's basically a less fascist, but just as pretentious version of 24. Like Jack Bauer, the central character Leopold Bloom, experiences time as a kind of solipsistic microcosm of the past, present, and future, where the weight of history renders everyday life as an epic, heroic struggle. Where 24 does this quite literaly with guns, bombs, hostage situations, deaths and tragedy, Ulysses on the other hand does it with literary allusion and high-modernism. Er, which is possibly why it's not quite the airport thriller it could've been.

Still, if you're keen to give it a go, some helpful geeks (ya gotta love the geeks) have now created a thick person/art director-friendly graphic novel version for you to point at and flick through.



You can even download it for your iPad. If you didn't already look enough of a knob .

When did you last do some good work?

Well, as a perfectionist I'd say never.

As a magnanimous arse, I'd say not that long ago but it was a team effort mwah mwah mwah.

But as an honest to goodness hold my hands up geezer I'd say, um, somewhere between the two maybe?

To use the analogy of a teenager whose parents are perpetually telling him to keep the noise down, I guess I'm seriously wishing my parents would fuck off on holiday today and let me party. It's a nice day too. We could have the girls round playing in the pool right now... I could get my friend's band over to play... It'd be sweet. Except we haven't got a pool. And my friend's band are shit. So if my parents did go on holiday and I had free reign to do whatever crazy stuff I wanted, I'd probably just end up sharing a bottle scotch with a mate and listening to the radio in the shed, wishing we had a pool with girls in and a shit-hot band playing on the patio with all the beautiful people there, and I'm the most popular guy in the world - they all love my work- and then God pulls up in his Ferrari with a beagle (I quite like beagles) and hands me a beer straight out the glove box like...

Beautiful.

But, as I say, it's not like that. I'm a teenager in a bedroom in a shit neighbourhood with very conservative parents. And as a result, I have a rich internal life and a healthy interest in pornography. Or at least, I do for now. It might still go very wrong as I get older.

Advertising Feature

Can England go the distance? Will they be "on a roll"?

With The offical England World Cup 5m Tape Measure from Stanleythe answer is (quite literally) YES!

(Actually, I didn't make this one up. Wish I had. But I didn't. You can get yours here. Become the envy of the scaffhold or something).

I wonder if they do England hammers?

The person who wrote this is obviously some kind of creative genius...

I imagine they're incredibly handsome as well. Whoever they are.

I'll give myself three guesses, shall I?

Anyway, I do love Music. And their website.

(Hello chaps).

Beautiful

This is the sort of thing Ben Kay posts on his blog but I never usually watch because I just skip to the comments so boo hoo if you've seen it before.

Actually - no. I take that back. You can damn well watch it again, it's that good.