More out and about - London: Swinging Sixties?

Spotted this sign on the way back from the creative geeks drinks at The Endurance, and thought it was a must have addition to the blog. I'm still having trouble remembering if it's the Endurance or the Endeavour but there's only one pub on Berwick street market isn't there? Going back a day or two I saw this while out and about with Charlie the other week.


You can't beat a bit of complex pipeworkery can you? Yahoo Pipes should sponsor this immediately. Is anyone using this yet on a regular basis.


And looking upwards a bit, The Gherkin is definitely the 21st century archictectural landmark of London. You can see it all the way from Brixton, and features in that brilliant 'We live in Financial times' poster which is so so true.


More Creative Geeks action down The Endurance. Curiously we were talking about Tunng during the day as a friend is touring with them around the States.


Dead insect came along which is great because Anthony is just brilliant, a creative and digital planner bursting with ideas and now working freelance around London after a few years at Glue.


And Fiona tipped up with her boyfriend Richard of Creative Apes. I heard she has started blogging again which is always good news to hear. Fiona is half Indonesian and half Scottish. Quite an exotic creature, and a really nice young lady too. Keep up with the Blogging Fiona!


And no get together is a proper one if Sam the man from Adlads and Adgrads doesn't turn up. Check his Ali G impression for off the cuff grown men knicker wetting. Me like very much....Don't say I didn't tip you off about the headphone look Sam :)


And not many days later there was that Octopus twitter from Johanna and Amber. Later that day Richard and I came across this at an art gallery exhibition opening in Shoreditch.


Proving some trends are Global, but the piece that looked most provocative was this


Then we popped into The Owl & The Pussy Cat confirming my suspicion that I think is about to burst on a wider stage, which is a sixties revival in London. There was even a Beatles mop top haircut in this pub. Don't say I didn't tip you off about that swinging sixties revival first, although my friends tell me that Beijing is closer to the real thing for atmosphere; now that drugs and sex are quite common over there. I'll be clutching my Gideon Bible close to me at all times then :)


The next day Richard and I took a stroll around Lewisham where we noticed this incongruous couple from the bridge crossing the river.


I have no idea what the scooter and the pineapple were doing there but it felt like the start to a great novel or the middle part of a Morse episode. I should at this point include a clip of Richard playing in his band The Rank Deluxe from the night before. They play 'sewage music' according to their site. Gulp!

This clip is on the N95 again (as indeed is all this photography/video) and I think its quite good for the conditions although the sound recording is terrible. Not bad for a phone though.

I've always been fond of markets. All around the world if you want to get a feel for the people and skip the tourist hot spots, just get down to the market and you'll figure out quickly enough if the natives are good or not. I really like these old carts which still serve their purpose in the 21st century and have loads of character. Here's my local one packing up that saturday night.


I'm slowly but surely catching up with the media files on my camera and I expect very shortly to be blogging pictures and video that are almost real time. Which should make my posts a bit more interesting than this one.

From The Heart Not The Head - Research In Asia

Cybretron

Not so long back I was doing a depth research interview with an Asian pharmaceutical salesman at a hotel in the Hilton at Gatwick Airport. It was like pulling teeth. The ethnicity is relevant in this instance because of an opinion I’ve held for some years that I believe Western research methodology imposed on Oriental cultures is deeply flawed.

It made me remember a topic I've been meaning to post about and which might be of interest to international planners, and also I'd like to open up the debate on research methodology.

I first began to think about this some years ago because I was having a chat with the MD of a research company in Asia who said something that stopped me in my tracks. When I raised that the respondents in the focus group were very reluctant to speak, and could he think of ways to stimulate discussion he responded without hesitation, ‘use a cattle prod'.

At the time I thought this was quite a cynical view coming from a research professional that we had commissioned, but over the years I've regretted not changing the company immediately. The recruitment was bad, the research was bad and the reporting was bad. I guess I’d been warned from that off the cuff comment but wasn’t listening properly.

‘Any road’, as they say in Coronation Street. I got thinking about the whole methodology of qualitative research in Asia because of this interview with the pharmaceutical salesman. Early into the process the respondent’s behavior was guarded at best and more often not, just plain evasive in a garrulous way. I sensed that all the answers being giving were measured and unforthcoming for a strong reason. He refused to say anything negative about the organizational structure as if the discussion were a test, or a job interview.

Not content to go though the motions I tried to think of another way, because there is a propensity in Indian culture to use talking as a means of stalling for time to to think about the answer that is wanted. Often it’s an over compensatory willingness to be helpful on their part, although it achieves the opposite effect.

I tried an alternative approach, which was Socratic in so much that I waited for a clear contradiction of an earlier statement, and then asked questions that made this self evident to the respondent. Not normal interviewing technique but I’m glad I persisted.

People are contradictory by nature, Buddhism teaches us that nothing is permanent and that I'm afraid also applies to truth in a temporal sense. I hit jackpot when like a sudden tropical downpour the real stuff began to pour out of his mouth. I grabbed my pen and began madly scribbling down verbatim as much as I could get. It was priceless feedback. The respondent addressed the imbalance by being extra truthful and I realised from that point onwards he was talking from the heart and not from the head.

Getting to this point in Occidental cultures is no easy task but with a stranger in Oriental cultures, even within a validated research environment is not working with Western research methodologies. The hierarchical nature of their society, the desire not to stand out or be the exception to the rule, the value place on guarded responses that is instilled from birth all contribute to much research in Asia as little more than worthless. All the more frustrating because many research professionals in those countries, by their own cultural values are conditioned not to question the validity of the methodology. The evidence for this assertion, is the non existence of indigenous research methods in this part of the world.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between.

So what is the solution?

We now know that location based and user research, such as ethnography, is much more revealing than the sterile environment of a research agency or conference/meeting facilities or a hotel.

Here are some more suggestions that I’d urge the research industry to consider urgently in this amazing part of the planet.

Focus groups – Set up respondents to CONNECT with each other before hand, either through a moderated media like instant messaging or a more laissez faire approach like a Facebook group, allowing them to develop bonds about who they are, what they do while letting them reveal a little of their personality.

1. Depth interviews – Let the respondents get to know their interviewer through a Blog or an updated page on the website. Encourage them to join the interviewers twitter circle, an easy thing to set up for a work profile that fosters a sense of intimacy.
2. Use the low cost of doing business in Asia as a powerful follow up tool. Do focus groups that use stimulus material such as visual boards and if the first round is inconclusive, then get the creative team to work on them further and dispatch them to the respondents by COURIER for further discussion over the phone.
3. Take hard to find high income business leaders to a high end restaurant and use the occasion as a forum for them to network before moving onto the topics that the research has been commissioned for. Give and you shall receive.

I could go on. In this age of ubiquitous internet the ability for people to develop the trust that is needed to speak from the emotional heart, rather than from the rational head which is culturally conditioned to be reserved opens up opportunities that research companies need to embrace. I’ve spent far too many research debriefs observing the interested parties (anxious clients and ‘wannabe creative’ researchers) using qualitative research as mini quantitative tests. Its time to listen to planners again and be a little more creative about how we problem solve.

Real or not real?

Charlie Gower over at Tantramar and I visited the Ephemera fair a few weekends ago and it was brilliant. Lots of classic printed material such as in-flight magazines from the 50's or telephone marketing from the 1930's and more. We met a bunch of faces we knew including Cookie from Made In England, who I recognised by his mustache as you would expect. I also met the fine chaps Rory and Mark from Fairbrand who kept us company down to Brick Lane after, where Charlie and I were up for a curry. I like this area of London at the weekends.

In the restaurant Charlie pulled out his fake hand waving act which I managed to catch on camera. You gotta be quick as Charlie only does this on special occasions. Is it real or not?

Then we ducked into Rough Trade Records to check out the latest DJ Kicks by Booka Shade who I'm usually nuts about, but on this occasion it wasn't floating my boat, particularly since that DJ from the lost weekend pointed out that Booka Shade is (slow drum roll) 'slow Trance' (Gulp). Fortunately the Pan Pot Panorama were working their magic so that compensated nicely.

By the time we bailed out of Rough Trade, it was looking darker and feeling even more vibrant at night. This part of London is seemingly fully loaded with Japanese and Koreans, which suits me just fine. Or at least appeals to the Orientalist in me.

It wont be long now but London really is a special city as I hope this quick panorma over the Thames suggests. I'll miss it no doubt, but only in the same way that old friendships are always enjoyed so much more after some time away. If indeed I will ever really come back. (Cue sentimental music)

Kiss my sweet ass

Rob Campbell over in Singapore is warming up for some trouble making. I know this because he asked me on Facebook what I thought of the Nokia N95 and I told him straight. I was hoping to do an in depth review of this model, because its a complex bit of kit and even the iPhone is not yet performing perfectly in the smart phone category, as I've noticed from a few people's twitters, including my friend Steve Portigal who is quite the champion of user operability.

Anyway now that Rob has forced my hand (Charles shakes fist in an inappropriate and very suggestive manner) I'd better just crack on with it and describe my N95 experience thus far.

But before that I want to compare it with the smart phone called the i-mobile 902 I owned in Thailand, 2006 which did 70% of the functions the N95 had, but with a much more sophisticated digital camera and which I blogged about over here, along with examples of the photography. That phone cost me about 280 Euros which if you remember that 1 Dollar converted to 76 Euro cents when it was launched and now will get you 56 Euro cents gives you an indication of what we planners call a 'trend'. I digress I believe an N95 can cost up to 700 Euros, which a year later is at least twice as much as the i-mobile I bought in Thailand - Economics lesson over ;)

So the bottom line is that the N95 is a bit of a slug, either the processing power isn't sufficient or the services that sit on it are too cumbersome. It's not fast enough in layman's language and furthermore my experience with the example I'm packing is that it's prone to shutting down or occasionally needs a reset by removing the battery. But what worries me most is that Scoble twittered today some problems he is experiencing. That's not good because I think Nokia gave him the phone to test-run and he's an A list blogger.

But let me tell you why I think Nokia brands really shine compared to Sony Ericsson. My first experience of Nokia apart from the double chocolate chip user interface was the experience of dropping one to the floor. You know what I'm saying?

No?

Allow me to share a little. Here is my friend Lauren's phone.

Photography Charlie Gower

You question the veracity of the shot?

Photography Charlie Gower

Lauren, we got a deal for that shot. Not a brand book deal. A human to human deal. You get my drift.

Then there is my backup phone.


This is the phone I use when my battery has run out on my swish N95. It looks a bit beaten up doesn't it?

Here's a closer look.


It's a bit blurred as indeed I was when I took the shot (a cheeky red or two) but you can see the screw exposed on that corner still held in place by the molding. My God they build those Nokia phones sturdier than a Rob Campbell mercurial point of view dancing from one Fred Astaire light footed soliloquy to another Falstaffian bluff or other.

Yes the N95 is a flawed, and possibly a precocious genius, but time will tell who is going to own the Smart Phone segment and I can say that I've had a look at the N96 which is quite impressive although I can't say anything about it quite yet. Good on Rob for being a sport and buying a competitive phone to really put it through its paces and I'm looking forward to his write up on the N95 although I don't expect anything vastly different from what I've been saying. Perhaps a little more vitriolic though :)

Nokia N95

I'm road testing the Nokia N95 which means I get to take a load of pictures and videos so here's a sample of the what I've been up to. (Update: Few format probs to sort out here)

First I went to Oulu in Finland 200 Kilometres south of the Artic Circle.


But it wasn't snowing so it looked like this really

and this

The we paid a visit to the Nokia Future Labs where they get to play with lots of cool shit like M does in the Bond films.

And I was so loving this dog that I forgot what the connection with mobile phones was, but it must have been good right?

And a phone that can sort the shopping out for the fridge can't be all that bad a replacement for shopping lists can it?

But with so many toys around the joint there's a serious charging job to do.



And of course you need some kick ass remotes as well.


Not to mention some heavy duty mobile command telescopic spying devices


The engineers enjoy a certain genre of postcard. I couldn't figure out the name though.



And of course testing those phones means they have as many chargers as we get lumbered with


But it's OK for them because after all that 'where's my charger' action the Finns take their saunas quite seriously (it's a religion I overheard), and they are all over the work place, like here on the third floor


and here on the fourth floor in case you need to relax on the way up the stairs ;)

But they are into the coolest stuff


Which is ace by me because those software scientists and Nokia guys are developing the killer app to end all killer apps for people like me who are learning to speak Chinese but will probably never be able to read it well. A phone that can translate Chinese text on the go. Awesome!

There was loads of other stuff too that I can't talk about, because if I did I'd have to kill you or send over one of my Ninja guys to take care of things if you spilled the beans. You know how it is. More on that review later because I've got a whole lot more to say on the N95 and it aint gonna win me brownie points.

Onslaught Turns Into An Avalanche?

Via Paul Isakson

Update: Russell has chipped into this discussion.

The Heart of Darkness - Pol Pot's Car For Sale

Update: International Herald Tribune

Update two: The Car is being sold here

One of the things I love most about Cambodia is that on each visit I see new growth. I don't mean the X.X% GDP growth that will choke us all in good time anyway if we don't rewire the economy, I mean the kind of growth that means the kids look a little cleaner, and a little less grubby. I guess it's the kind of growth that is really a reversal of growth in some ways, as a diminishing number of children are seen running around wearing shabby rags as clothing.

On my first visit, my driver called Elephant, took me around the killing fields and the notorious Tuol Sleng prison which was a school before it became a dark horror story of a torture concentration camp, a place where the Khmer kids were more barbourous than any of the adults could ever be, where they thought up the most ingenious ways to cause pain and suffering to the prisoners of the Khmer Rouge regime, which really only came to power because there was a hell of a shit fight going on in that part of the world through Vietnam and another war on something terrorful for safety. I'll never forget when I asked Elephant if he had lost any family members, how dispassionate he was retelling the story where his brother was killed by the Khmer Rouge after he stole a car to run away from the commune. He was caught, bound and immobilised before being run over in the same car he had taken. Stories like that are two a penny a Cambodia and few people want to think about the bad old days.

Anyway I could go on about how 300 kilometres or more north of the capital Phnom Penh lies the temple Angkor Wat, which in my mind is profoundly mysterious to the history of civilisation with it's Indian architecture dedicated to the God Vishnu, and how much fun I had hiring a motorcycle trials bike and generally just whizzing around on my own, playing with M16 guns and grenades on a range, and partying hard in the Heart of Darkness, but maybe that stuff isn't really interesting but it was a part of my life that I look back on fondly. Or maybe it was the butterflies that flew over the burial pits in the killing fields, on a beautiful day as I reflected on the whole thing that gave me a lot to think about.

One of the oddities of that period was the discovery by a friend of mine that Pol Pot's stretch Limo (Don't all agrarian economy Marxist tyrants run around in stretch Limos?) was being used to ship melons to the market in the capital. I felt at the time it was wrong to profit from that vehicle but like those kids who not only look cleaner on each visit but also have no recollection of that insane time, I think time has moved on. I'm particularly pleased that a portion of the profits now that it is on sale will go towards a charity. You know who you are if you are reading this but the bigger the chunk that goes towards the growth of Cambodia the better the Karma. What goes around comes around.

Onslaught

Well of course I love this next commercial and the values it stands for, but as I've said in the comments over here and here, and indeed to the client Unilever (the owners of the Dove brand), I don't think it's honest for a multinational to put 'keep-it real-credentials' in the 'Campaign for real beauty' while they sell skin whitening creams to among others, Indian subcontinent and South East Asian countries that are by nature blessed with dark skin.

Just doing the focus groups for these kind of products can be quite tough for those of us who think a bit about the effects on the culture of the societies that we make advertising for. Take Thailand for example, based on qualitative research, some office secretaries (for example) will choose who they take lunch with in groups, based on the whiteness of skin.

The darker skins are considered too 'rural' for those who want to climb the whiter skinned ethnic Chinese communities that effectively run S.E. Asia big business.

The aspiring English classes also used to take a dim view of darker skin in previous centuries because it indicated an agrarian lifestyle working in the fields. So I'm not trying to speed up cultural and media literacy development in these countries (or maybe I am), but I am suggesting to Unilever that specifically on it's skin whitening creams, it puts a disclaimer on ALL those products that Unilever embraces skin of all colours.

Otherwise its a bit hypocritical to be a campaigner for real beauty, when it's fake beauty and discrimination that powers one of the fastest growing skin care categories in many parts of the developing world.

Update: I see that the original video was pulled for copyright reasons but that that a remix is now resurfacing for the same issues of resource exploitation but this time the targets are Nestle.

Four Continents Capital

As we approach 'Peak Oil' it makes perfect sense that the city boys will look towards the developing economies for a source of cheap energy, you know, like being run around town and saving on electricity for household chores not to mention maintenance. There is an alternative source. I'll write about this a bit more if this provokes any comments.

White Swans

I've been borderline garrulous recently about a potential new model for the marketing communications business which is classic recombinant culture theory that I nicked off Faris. It would take some balls from an agency and even more from their respective clients to seriously implement but in principle it's about mixing and remixing some transmedia planning along with fair chunks of the book, The Black Swan which I talked about at length here.

To save a wee bit on time I want to cut and paste from that post:

"Our view of history is always explaining backwards as best we can. This is a linear approach that cauterizes the true story. Even more breathtaking is the idea that viewing history by working backwards is a fallacy, because history is actually always moving forward."

I ran this by Johnnie Moore the other night (you should check out his ace podcasts) at The Endurance pub in Soho while Piers was in town, and without even ruminating for a second, Johnnie cheerfully fired back that Kierkegaard wrote something similar as follows:

"Life is understood backwards, but is lived forwards"

This was the first seductive simplification that knocked me for six, and I scribbled it down quick on my hand because I knew it was, as are many of Johnnie's thoughts and occasional silences on lots of stuff, really important. It was lovely to see the ink on my skin the next day to remind me to give him a shout about it. I just did. Thanks Johnnie :)

So it's not like I've really discovered anything new, or I'm responsible for inventing anything seminal, but earlier today, as once again I ran the thoughts I've been bundling together on "transmedia-planning-meets-black-swan-mashup" by a generously attentive listener who works in the strategy game, she encapsulated the bit about The Black Swan that takes ages to explain. Describing narrative fallacy and how it leads to the illusion of predicatability that many draw from so called dependable data is not easy, and is actually probably just me trying to be too smart for my own good, but in essence Tania my listener, chipped in and captured the thrust of my long monologue with a lovely expression which she and her colleagues call 'the upside of risk'.

That made for two very seductive simplifications.

That'll do for the time being as I've still got lots of things about China that I'm practically bursting to blog about. So in the spirit of some timely recombinant culture media here is that White Swan I saw walking down the road in Marlow. The file wouldn't open from the Sony mobile phone when transfered to a Sony Vaio PC which Rob has nothing to do with, so instead, I've squirted a Nokia N95 mobile phone video on to it. I may come back and rotate it to portrait, if I find someone who can actually do important stuff like that, but in the meantime here's a White Swan doing a 'Black Swan'. Or put another way, a bird walking down a street that is right up mine.

The Management

While taking a walk early in the morning around the Compleat Angler in Marlow (a beautiful part of England) last week where I was attending the most intensive customer segmentation gig of my life, I came across a rather large Swan walking down the road. It was too incongruous not to whip out the only camera device I had, a Sony P 900 and film it in regrettably low resolution. Anything better than nothing I thought. Sadly it wont play on the 'puter for what looks like anti convergence reasons, and I'm a bit miffed so while I figure out a solution, I'm going to post a couple of shots from the infamous i-mobile 902 that I took inside the supper club side of Bed Supper Club in Bangkok, as it was closing down. Mucking around with light gain is one of those camera features that turns a snapper into an accidental photographer.

Incidentally for those who might want to know Q Bar was looking dangerously like it has lost the plot. Brimming with hookers and low on customers this veritable clubbing/music institution needs a creative director if the night I dropped by was typical of their weekends. However it was really terrific to see the staff again who really are some of the most professional in Thailand so I might as well post some relevant Q Bar (staff) shots too. They were always so nice to us and made us feel welcome. These are also for Dino who I'm hoping gets to play a set in Bed should I be in town.

Bed Supperclub

Q Bar

So that Swan? I'll nail it somehow or someway and next time not digress so wildly either.

Disco Diva - Finnish Dance Moves

Finnish nightclub dancing emerged during the Boney M debate and this morning, in an attempt to get some energy into a NOKIA conference/induction thingy I'm attending, I was summoned up front to do some Finnish Disco dancing. 

It's too coincidental not to blog so here it is. Stuff like this just cracks me up.

Bleeding Hearts Club

Just Stop It

This is the work of Adam Crowe who has a remarkably sparky intellect and a feisty can-do attitude (as do all the gang I've met that work at Imagination). He has also developed a brilliantly conceived greasemonkey script that changes the word 'consumer' to 'person/people/public' in Firefox browsers. There is also a Facebook group for likeminded people who have had enough of this derogatory term.

The quicker we drop this deeply patronising word that implies a discernment on the part of our fellow human beings that is bordering on an automaton/amoebic level, the more likely it is that the good folk we fight like hell to secure as customers, might just begin to reciprocate with a little respect for the marketing and advertising business.

Nice one Adam. I'm beginning to feel momentum on this issue.

Mobile Life

Losing mobile phones is something I do so well that without wanting to come across as achieving enlightenment on a detachment level I think I’m entitled to say that for some time now each phone loss now feels as disappointing as say having a pint swiped in the pub. It happens, at least 20 times or more now. Yes it’s annoying but there’s no point beating myself up. I’m a complete loser (or champion winner) at losing stuff, and mobiles top the list.

It does feel beyond absurd though when I’ve resorted to calling my number once I get home, on the off chance I can retrieve it by negotiating with cab drivers to bring them back for a price that suits us all. Often they just switch it off once I start calling. Its me thats in negative equity, not them.

Haggling for something that belongs to the owner anyway is something everyone should try at least once in their life for the humility it fosters.

Some time back I also lost my Sony T1 camera and predictably a while later my mobile phone too. Some time late last year after all this; an amazing local Thai brand called i-mobile brought out a 5 mega pixel camera phone pretty much before anyone else so I thought I’d go for it. I lost that too eventually but not before many enjoyable attempts at experimenting with it.

Anyway, just before a trip to the middle Kingdom last week that I couldn’t Blog about because China is a bit fussy over Blogs, I unexpectedly met a cashier acquaintance at the new Boss Bar in Phrathunam, who I’d inflicted with some amateur photojournalism using the i-mobile 902 late last year. I promised to post the pictures I’d taken so here they are plus a few others (thats the girl on reception crashed out in the wee hours above, plus erm my foot ) from a phone that despite some shortcomings and an all too brief relationship was a brilliant bit of kit that makes me yearn to get back into the kind of spontaneous photography that only a mobile phone camera delivers comfortably.

The i-mobile 902 phone also had an FM radio, voice recorder, and mp3 player with speaker, blue tooth and few other features that I’ve probably forgotten about.

www.bedsupperclub.com

OK, I know Rob hates Bed Supperclub but its a great design and some mates DJ there on a Monday, plus we laugh at all the Friday and Saturday night cattle class clubbers just as much as him and usually turn up for the last hour to watch the preening set get silly on too much alcohol and questionable happy hardcore bollocks.

Royalists

Gadget

The King of Thailand was born on a Monday. To celebrate the reign of the worlds longest serving monarch his people wear yellow shirts. Steering a country like Thailand which is built on power play and political intrigue through a volatile century that saw the Japanese annex Thailand in the Second World War through to the Vietnam war which effectively rolled out across Indo China is remarkable in itself but the strongly paternal figure of the King is the last dramatisation of a living deity we will probably ever see.

Westerners don't fully appreciate that word but if you want to see an instant lynch mob just set fire to a banknote in Thailand. Strong leadership will always raise question marks for continuation of stability and this will (not can, but will) play itself out in the natural transition of life expectancy that all humans are subjected too. That's as good as I can get on the topic without offending my hosts, because the Kingdom of Thailand dispenses Lese majeste writs much more easily than for arguably more important matters such as the breaches of human rights that the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra stands accused of. A little matter of 2500 extra judicial killings in 2003 springs to mind. I guess Manchester City Football club have shown how many dollars they can be bought for.

Anyway its Royal Monday here in Bangkok and we're happy that its probably only the UK which prefers to stalk its Royalty to death for the newspapers that apparently nobody reads any more. There's been a couple of things that seem to have changed in the last few months. The first is that I dropped by the high end Gaysorn Plaza over the weekend and all the luxury boutique owners were moaning that the economy was starting to bite into their wealthy customers pockets. Its cause for concern in luxury brand obsessed Thailand when the not inconsiderable wealthy elite begin to slow down their spending. The other point is that they are ostensibly searching peoples bags as they make their way into the underground for bombs. I'm not sure why the skytrain isn't subject to this kind of search yet but the congestion around rush hour will be paralyzing if this happens. I'll finish this one off later, as my net time is going to run out v. shortly.

Ooohs and Aaahs

Last night a few more bloggy folk got together at The Endurance pub in Soho. I hadn't met Spy vs Spy before because Angus Whines or Winges (she never stops actually) has acute Cold War Survivor syndrome, but I like the way she calls me Frith as if she's barking orders at me on her blog. I also got to meet Tom who does genre defying posts over at his, my political homey Sam was there, as was 'word of mouth' Will who finally got the beers in (thanks mate), and the delightfully snippy but witty John Dodds.

Our guest of honour was Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting from San Francisco. Steve was one of the earliest bloggers I came across. I'd better not go into how convoluted it was to actually realise who was who when I first asked Steve if he was Tom, but if Kirsty or John hadn't been there I would have just kept quiet about it and added a new chapter to The Metamorphosis

Anyway it was a fun evening. Steve is a cool guy and its always fun to let London do its work on visitors but while playing about with Sams camera phone i.e me doing my 'I'm thinking about thinking' pose, Steve whipped out his iPhone he'd been hiding all night and Sam and I both lost control, climaxing instantly while cooing over it with reverential Ooohs and Aaaahs.

Now I'm an apple fan, but not a worshiper. However it looks better in real life than I had expected and we put it to the test in that darkened pub with no flash and I think I'm pretty much sold on it unless someone slips me an N95 when I get back from the tropics. Hint hint.

Here's the pic. Aaaaah.....


Update: More photos from Sam's Sony mobile phone camera:

Poor Will. He puts up with some stick from us.

Good effects with that Sony Sam

Yeah Nice one Angus

I'll have a think about it then then. What a tosser eh!
Yep. Definite tosser.

Sunny

Nicky Hursell

While watching the world cup last year in a tropical bar, before setting off to India, I got into a conversation with a creative who made a very acute observation about England's performance.

She informed me that the English could never really hope to win as we struggled to beat Costa Rica. A side from a country where the national squad makes 150 dollars a month and the population is under five million.

Psychologically we Brits are fond of rooting for the underdog. I thought this was a good insight for our complete lack of killer instinct against a side who were otherwise better known for playing the pan pipes after a hot and sweaty game in a Latin American climate as I wrote about here.

Anyway I've watched these online votes go peaches up before. First John Grant cast the winning vote for the pedestrian Um Bongo, against the infinitely hipper Kia-Ora over at Beeker's. Then Bacon lost out to Sausage, when we all know that Bacon is proof that God exists. So here is a chance to redeem ourselves.

The Kaiser over in Munich (who started the iPod singing craze here, here and here without anybody asking him some months back) has taken on The Northern Planner asserting that The Smiths are rubbish. His first pick for German opposition was Kraftwerk but The Northern Blouse crumbled at this suggestion and so sportingly Marcus (crazy like a fool) Brown (The Kaiser) has plumped for Boney M. The loser has to sing a song from the opponents music on Youtube and post to their blog. I've never seen NP sing, let alone do "Brown girl in the ring". So please hold that visual in your mind while I make this request.

I think we all know deep down who is the underdog here. I ask for nothing less than your votes for Marcus while leaving you with the awesome string arrangement on Sunny.

Six Feet Under

Opening sequences or idents for TV programs are a splendid way to understand how to build emotion and feeling into short film clips as indeed we often try in the world of commercials. They are a great example of 'its not what you say but how you say it'.

Idents.tv is a nifty resource if you want to get up to speed on typography, design, music, direction, DOP, special effects and the use of storyboards. Its fascinating to see how the show Six Feet Under created theirs over here.

Marxist Libertarian

No surprises on the political compass test for me then. I don't really believe in perma-ideology given that nothing lasts for ever, but broadly speaking I'm going to be hanging out with Gandhi and the other libertarian socialists in the bottom left. This is quite a fun little data visualisation and perceptual mapping exercise.

Incidentally I've been trying to persuade advertising agencies to do 3D perceptual brand mapping for years. Sadly not one of the them has had the perspicacity to make a flash designer and excel spreadsheet whizz kid available. So I might as well blog about it instead.

Oh Captain my Captain

Tim Footman is a writer based in Bangkok. One day through his blog roll I came across a link which I felt was something quite different. It was the blog of Brian, a 45 year old advertising copywriter and soon to be published author based in Donegal who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only six to twelve months to live. I wrote about it here.

There is no happy ending in blogging I guess. I assumed that one day I would be thinking about Brian, realise he hadn't posted for a while, and that maybe there would be a slow but increasing sense of 'The End' parading as radio silence. This indeed happened early last month as Capt. Pancreas had gone quiet for a few weeks but then he reappeared with news of being in treatment. I guess there was no online access in the hospital.

Brian is responsible for coming up with the phrase "trying to squeeze the sweetness out of every second" and I just discovered he died on Friday.

He leaves a seven year old son, a wife and a bunch of people that never met him in real life but could feel his warmth and generosity.

O Captain my Captain
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

- Walt Whitman