I fell in love with an alien being

He is the one-man brand who was largely responsible for branding me. My life is contained and encapsulated within his prose. He is, and not just in my view, a wordsmith without peer.

I thought I was “the post-war glamour girl who was never alone.” I totally understood “the altogether ruder readers wives” having found ‘mucky’ mags under my uncle’s bed when making it.

John Cooper Clarke. He may mean nothing to some of you, but he means an awful lot to me. He showed me how words paint pictures and how to use words to bring those pictures to life. He taught me the importance of authenticity – both in delivery and what you are to others. His 1978 album Disguise in Love is the Scalextric of my life, professional and otherwise.

BBC4 are doing a thing on him tonight at 10pm. 

Watch it. You’ll learn a lot.

The art of stupidity

Remember the four minute warning? If you’re my age or perhaps the wrong side of 40 you will. For younger readers, at the height of the cold war, this was a mixture of sounds and warning films, which were designed to tell us that a nuclear attack was imminent and what to do to "protect and survive" – as if. It may have more significance for you if you were a Frankie goes to Hollywood fan and you remember the intro to Two Tribes.

Flash forward to today when the threat is less nuclear but terrorist orientated and the threat in London is ever present – especially since we are a few days away from the Jubilee and weeks before the Olympics and it is increasing by the hour.

The Southbank Centre is hosting the Festival of the World and this afternoon I have discovered that that, in part, means that if you’re unlucky enough to be on the Riverside Terrace you’re going to be subjected to a loop tape of multi-lingual chanting, rabbiting and other rubbish on multi-speakers, each of which is playing the same thing but at different times. It’s dementing. And hurrah! There’ll be four whole months of it. But the killer (no pun intended) is the mother-speaker. This is a Klaxon-type affair that sporadically emits a god-awful sound which is very, very reminiscent of the aforementioned 4 minute warning.

I spent a few hours there this afternoon and I can tell you that there was a lot of concerned and worried people around. People who were having a drink, meetings or having baby-dates who did stop what they were doing and assumed, judging by their their body language, that this was some kind of public warning. Many recognized the similarity that’s for sure. What should they do? Was it an alarm? Was it a disaster rehearsal of some kind? Should they leave? Many complained, that I do know, or asked what was going on. How very, very stupid, Southbank.

This is what happens when people have a "great idea" without thinking about the audience or the context they are working within or audiences they're playing to. It makes me angry: very angry indeed. For me it’s on a par with the (well known) sportswear company who named their trainers Zyclon B. Stupidity beyond comprehension.

As I left today all had gone quiet. Will tomorrow be, like this, a Brand New day? I hope not.

Never tyre of it...

It isn't often that you see an ad that makes you do what it's designed to do, namely, make you stop whatever you're doing, keep your digits hovering over the remote and watch it. 


DLKW have managed just that with their Halfords "best trips last a lifetime" ad. In fact I find myself channel surfing to catch it playing. That hasn't happened before.


It's like they've plugged a scart lead into my noggin and harvested the memories in there. The casting. The clothes. The bikes. The fields. Buggering about in woods. The feel of it. Everything about it is perfect. And as always god is in the detail and the sign-off playing card on the spokes is sublime, although I used a Topps footie card of Kevin Keegan. He was, at the time, the most desirable bloke in the UK. He even had his own range in Grattan's catalogue to prove it. It is. It's true.

Morrisons in own-brand shocker...

I never, ever thought I'd say / write this, but Morrisons have some very well designed 'value' packs on their shelves. CPB, designed. And from a design point of view they beat the crap out of the other own-brand ranges. Especially the lamentable Tesco 'Everyday' range and the terrible M&S 'Simply' stuff.

Who'd av thunk it? 
Take a look:
http://www.designweek.co.uk/coley-porter-bell-and-morrisons-unveil-m-savers-value-range/3032999.article

Cockroach brands

I hated the 80s. Wasn't that fussed about the 90s either. But I loved the 70s: the best decade, no matter what they say. 


Those of you who have been watching Dominic Sandbrook's BBC 2 series, The 70s, will have either been feasting on the smorgasbord of memories it has served up, or it will have had you staring at the box in wide-eyed disbelief – especially if you weren't around at the time. The 70s was a brand-propagating decade and, given the news of the last few days, Sandbrook's series and its timing seems very prescient indeed. 


Think 70s and you think Disco. Think Disco and I think of my Gran turning the radio off when Love To Love You Baby came on air. (Clearly a screen for her embarrassment dressed up as an act of parental care on my behalf.) Equally clear is the sight of her waggling her (always) dinnerlady-like smock-covered backside whenever Saturday Night Fever was blaring out: "nice lads." That Donna Summer and Robin Gibb should pass away in such close succession to each other seems as eerie as it is sad.


And I 'think once, think twice, think bike', because for me that COI film and the Chopper are intertwined, even though car drivers and motorcyclists were its intended audiences. Sad then that the designer of the Chopper, Alan Oakley, also passed away last week. My cousin Gail had the first one I saw – it was a green one and it caused a bigger stir on her street than the moon-landings did.


These are cockroach brands, because whatever happens they will always be around.

Not such a cunning plan

Serendipity. Love it! In the post before last, In praise of people who break the rules, I wrote in appreciation of those who step outside the brand guidelines when dealing with the public. The example I gave was that of a station announcer. This week saw Chiltern Railways making a policy of – as Father Ted would say – that sort of thing. They, in association with Gold, the comedy TV channel, have enlisted Tony Robinson (Baldrick to you and me) and the writer of the Green Wing, Richard Preddy, to script some amusing announcements and ‘ad-libs’ for delivery by staff on services between Birmingham and London and at Marylebone station.

Baldrick was shown coaching staff – teaching them how to present the lines – and pretty painful stuff it was too. The problem was that they were lines: too clever, too convoluted and too forced by half.

I applaud the notion, but the methodology is wrong. It should be about conversation, observation and spontaneity, not rote. Robinson was asked if train managers would be encouraged to come up with their own material: “Yes, ad-libbing is good. Chiltern were always keen for them to inject some of their own personalities into this.” It seems to me that their idea is back to front, since it should be entirely about their personalities. A script is always going to sound like a script if it doesn’t fit the deliverer’s personality or speech patterns. They claim that response has been good but of course for every person who likes this sort of thing there will be another who doesn’t.

Take the bloke on the Northern Line, Bill McKay. He’s a veteran driver / ad-libber. Some commuters love it. Others don’t: “I hate his guts.” “When the train stops in a tunnel for no apparent reason, the last thing you need is some fucker making a shit joke about vampires.”

My favorite tube ad-lib was an exquisite put-down of some twonk who was pretending to be very important doing a Dom Jolly at ear drum-busting levels on the platform. “Would that bloke on his mobile tell us how he does that, 'cos you can’t get a signal down ‘ere.” Ahhhh! Equally great are the CCTV blokes who watch over Eros. Cameras and a smattering of loudspeakers surround him, since he has been famously damaged in the past. One night a bunch of piss-heads started lobbing empty cans at him. “Missed!” “Ooo, nearly.” And so on, thus freaking them out rather than telling them to desist – it had the desired effect. They then presumably had a right laugh as the buffoons tried, in their drunken state, to work out where the voice was coming from.

Some are natural conversationalists, observers and comedians. Some are not. So it should be about having the option to, and not a duty to. That, Chiltern, is a cunning plan.

Fit for nothing...

How exactly was doing a half-arsed line dance at 33⅓, which used up less energy and effort than donning the required kit keeping me fit? How was pretending to be a puppy-fat laden franchise of Pan’s People to the accompaniment of David Soul and his Silver Lady, or the disco fave de jour Ride a Wild Horse, enabling me in any sense to keep fit? Years before at junior school it was hard to work up a sweat pretending to be a tree in the wind. Or to be exercised (in the intended sense) while prancing around the assembly hall in knickers and vest to the strains of Mars, the Bringer of War, or the latest ditty from the school's copy of the BBC’s School’s Radio LP. At Grammar School I wagged PE for almost three years in sucession – I was famous for it – I hated it with a passion. So it came as no surprise to read that – according to a survey by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation – PE lessons in schools put women (mostly women) off fitness for the rest of their lives. No shit Sherlock! Common reasons and complaints vary from bullying teachers, fear of public failure, cold showers and terrible changing rooms, spark-inducing games kit, pubescent embarrassment and lack of interest in the activities taught. Plus ça change. It seems that everything has moved on except the way we teach PE. Time for the three R’s: Renaming, Reinvention and Repositioning, me thinks. The context for change One of the great ironies of life is that an awful lot of kids who don’t like PE (and those who do) will find themselves voluntarily paying handsomely for gym and health club memberships in the not too distant future. So let’s be direct in the way we talk to them about the reasons why people do that. They want to be fit. They want to get fit. They want to stay fit. They’re training. They want to look good on the beach. They want to find a man / woman. They want to look ‘fit’. Leaving aside the sheer enjoyment of their chosen activity – be that running, rowing or weights – being in shape and therefore being attractive to others is a very big carrot and one that could be used to great effect. Doubtless some will think that this is frivolous and pandering to base instincts. But then truths generally do. So why not explain leg squats in the context of toned ‘swolles’ that look good in heels? Or upper-body workouts that make your halter-neck look ‘banging’. Renaming The names PE and Keep Fit are guaranteed to generate a sweat but for all the wrong reasons. The former is infused with loathing (not for nothing did we christen it Please Excuse) and the latter is misleading since (as this report shows) many are yet to attain a level of fitness that is worth maintaining. It’s all about being fit. So let’s call it that – Be Fit. Be fit literally and colloquially. I like the inherent wordplay opportunities. Reinvention and Repositioning Gyms and Health Clubs are going to feature in the lives of most to some degree, so it makes sense for the service providers to get closer to their prospective clientele. Geography may preclude twice weekly visits as per the curriculum, but weekly or even bi-weekly off-peak visits to a ‘real’ and very different environment and seeing others work-out and, of course, the end product, may engage in a way that the school environment cannot. Even fundamental activities such as running can be transformed by harnessing the big love of their lives: technology. More specifically, their phones and their ‘tunes’. Apps such as Zombies Run make running fun and no less beneficial or intensive because of it. Getting kids to compile their own running / fitness playlists for themselves and others allows a mash-up of subjects such as sports psychology, science and nutrition to be talked about in the context of the soundtracks to their lives. Better to lose a kg in the rave that’s held under the banner of BeFit2 (that’s double games in old money) than have them lose interest all together. Who hasn’t heard Strictly contestants banging on about the fitness and toning properties of dance? Bring the outside in. Teach them how to do Parkour. Do they know how fit you need to be to do that? And an Inter-School Extreme Ironing competition on the fells, or the locks of inner-city canals would demand the same level of fitness as a regular cross-country run. Well more, actually, since they have to lug the accoutrements around. And let's apply a bit of common sense where the timetable is concerned. Kids care about their carefully straightened, gelled, braided and styled hair, so having sweat-inducing lessons midday is guaranteed to encourage truancy. They don't want to get their hair wet. So schedule fitness for the end of the afternoon. They'll come. Every subject taught in school is designed to help us identify what we’re good at – have an aptitude for. I think that PE is supposed to work that way too but it doesn’t. Some have an affinity with or a gift for a particular activity or sport, whether that be football, rugby, netball and so on. But if it isn’t there it shouldn’t be forced. No enjoyment = wasted time and skewed views. Being fit is about movement and kids move an awful lot. All we need to do is change the way we package and sell the theory. I am never going to need to display my ability to vault a wooden horse. It was a futile exercise. But I would have been much more interested if I had been told that it was helping me to be fit and that being fit was going to make me ‘Sick’.