F for Fabulous

Know what I love about this set of small islands of ours? You never quite know what will be found or turn up. Hoards of Anglo Saxon jewellery; a village lost to a reservoir in a drought; a concealed room in a great house with no doors; a long lost King under a provincial car park.

I once saw an exhibition at the Museum of London, the title of which I forget, but it was all about the way Londoners have died – what archaeologists, geneticists and others have gleamed from their remains. It was fascinating. But as interesting and often pitiful as the skeletons were, they were not the most compelling, thought provoking or thrilling element. 

Each skeleton or exhibit was accompanied by a large photograph on a light-box. One, for example, was of a low red-brick wall, pot-holed tarmac, litter and a defaced road sign on a street corner. It was totally unremarkable and remarkable in that respect. Yet it recorded the place where one of these medical puzzles was found. The images were stark, some might even say boring, but they made the point beautifully, that being that in this town we are walking on history – we literally never know what is under our feet…waiting.

This morning history was on the pavement waiting for the bin men. It was a large transparent sack of box files. Not your run of the mill variety, but the hardboard and staple variety, the kind kids of my generation had in junior school to house our jotters, Helix rulers, vocabulary books and Mars Bars, so I stopped to take a closer look. And I’m glad I did.

I saw that each of the boxes had a utility-type label, which had been created with pen and ink. I’ll type that again. Pen and ink! These were old boxes and early objects of recycling, since the other side of the boxes has a patchwork of newer labels, each representing different strata of GPO / BT administrative history. Here they are. 

File them under fabulous.

Brand Bollocks

A mind-boggling ten years ago (where does time go?) I wrote a little book called Brand Bollocks (BB). It was a rant about the pretentiousness, excesses and in some cases, the sheer ridiculousness of the branding world. I wrote it because it became near impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading caustic columns about the latest rebranding exercise or the fees paid to consultants for shifting a shape a couple of millimetres or changing a colour. It got to the point where admitting involvement with brands was to attract distain and derision. Not much has changed.

This in part was and still is because of a fundamental lack of understanding of the processes involved, the value of what we do, or indeed the magic involved. It’s also the result of the total bollocks that some insist on spouting – the ones who would secretly prefer to wear white coats – the ones who, as Martin Lambie-Nairn put it, “want to turn it into a science.”

I sent it to clients, peers, friends and those in the media who frequently wrote about their detestation of people like me. People like Kelvin Mackenzie, who (having established on the phone that I was indeed “that Bollocks Woman”) invited me to lunch. Very nice it was too and I’m happy to report that he is as advertised, since it’s always so very disappointing when people are not.

And to people like journalist, Jonathan Margolis, who first wrote about BB in the Financial Times magazine How to Spend It and then followed up with a DPS in The Independent, the purpose of which was to demonstrate how the branding process worked. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/would-you-give-this-man-a-job-6156260.html

BB is as relevant today as it was then. I’m in the process of revising and updating it because I intend to release it as an eBook. As you know my archive was trashed a while ago and so the images in this post are culled from a pdf, so my apologies for their less than perfect appearance, but they can be read...I hope. If for some reason the show below doesn't work and you can't read the pages, message me and I'll send you a pdf. I produced two versions, this and one titled, Woolly Brand Bollocks, in which the illustrations and covers were knitted. But unfortunately that’s now in brochure heaven.

Ear. Look at this...

Some time ago I wrote about a piece of Sony's pre-digital kit I'd spied in a shop in central London. The post was entitled, A hod for your ears. When I first saw it I stupidly forgot to take a picture, because it has to be seen to be believed and remembered. And, alas, it was removed and replaced with another piece of less interesting kit shortly afterwards. But now, hurrah, it's back. And so, being better equipped, I took a shot. Gigantic or what? Look at it. That's a big baggy bloke's mac it's dwarfing. 

This week began with the latest salvo in the war against obesity, particularly in 'yoofs'. Given that they are glued to their 'sounds', perhaps a better strategy than counting calories would be enforced substitution of their iPods, iPads and phones for one of these things for a determined period of time. Lugging this mother around for a week is sure to banish the muffin tops. Well, at least reduce them from a pack of six to four.

Bags of memories

My Gran had a rusting can of Andrews in the far reaches of her bathroom cabinet. It had been there so long it had its own orbit rings of oxide, each a reminder of the 'do' or 'bad stomach' that necessitated its extraction. I hated it then, because it wasn't the tin I was used to seeing in the shops. It was an earlier incarnation. It wasn't modern. Callow, superficial youth! Of course I'd now saw my own head off to get my hands on it because I now know better.

Most homes are to some extent museums of the everyday, where the present coexists with the past. Each cupboard as instrumental in marking our progress through life as the pencil markings on the door jamb that charted our growth. The bulk-buy because Flash was on offer and two years and several design changes later you still have half of it left. The sweet wrapper accidentally pushed behind the cooker, or purposely used as wall filler (we've all done it). The former rediscovered laminated in fat years or decades later. The latter perhaps remaining for decades like a cat bricked up in a chimney (it was milk chocolate after all). And when we discover them again we're transported, sans Tardis, back to events, happenings and people. Smells, textures and emotions. They're the closest thing we have to time travel.

Last autumn I moved house and on removing kitchen drawers for cleaning etc I found a handful of bags, all caked in dust, and all had been sitting there for over 40 years. 

And people ask 'what remains to be discovered?' 

Everything.

I thought you'd like to see them.