Guess Whose Loos Round Two

Get ready for Round 2 of this challenging yet immensely rewarding quiz!

Guess Whose Loos is already proving to be one of the most popular agency toilet-based quizzes around at the moment.

In the past week it’s cost clients untold millions, as adland’s finest minds have stopped thinking up straplines for mince pies and eggnog and instead focused their faculties on my fiendishly difficult facility-related quiz.

Gird yourself – here comes your next instalment!

Question 1

This agency is one of my old haunts – in fact it's the last place I held down a permanent job (the last place with a working toilet, anyway).

I spent many hours locked in these cubicles, hugging the toilet and sobbing because I couldn’t face going back to my desk and staring at that idea-less layout pad.

Do these toilets belong to:
a) Lowe and Partners?
b) Partners Andrews Aldridge?
c) Goodby, Silverstein & Partners?

Question 2

Not surprisingly for such a widely read blog, we've attracted our first overseas contributor!

Connor is from the glamorous and exotic country of Dublin and has taken the time to set the scene with some very evocative copy, which I've published below.

Welcome to the salubrious surroundings of the gents bathroom, *********, Dublin.

Nestled in the basement of a four-storey restored Georgian house, this communal facility plays host to the rich and powerful of Ireland's advertising cutting edge. Occasionally they let us copywriters in too.

Luckily, I managed to snap these before the post-breakfast digestive rush had kicked in. It's a much less attractive prospect under those circumstances.

The standard three stall / three-person urinal layout is applied. It's by no means the closest facility, located as I am on the third floor. But if you want to stretch your legs and make a real occasion out of the visit, you'll find it hard to do better than down here.

Let's hope that whatever gentlemen was in residence in stall 1 wasn't put off his business too much with the sound of the iPhone shutter clicking. That explains the soft focus on the second shot - I felt a quick exit was appropriate.

Do these toilets belong to:

a) Ogilvy & Mather Dublin?

b) Adam and Eve Dublin?

c) O'Malley's Dublin?

For your chance to win a signed toilet brush, add your answer in the comments. Thank you and good luck!

And remember, if you want your toilet to be featured (and frankly, who wouldn't?) then just send your images to dave[at]davemance[dot]com

What I’ve learned from freelancing #2, 3, 4, and 5

Welcome back to the second post in this gripping new series (told you I'd do more than one entry).

I’ve decided to stick a few in the same post as they’re not really interesting enough for one post each.

Here are some more things wot I’ve learned.

2. There is NOTHING WORSE than turning up at a place and realising you’ve forgotten your headphones.

3. Meeting twitter/bloggy friends in real life is nice.

Sometimes you can be working together for a bit before you even realise.

It’s like meeting a long lost brother who has lived in Australia all your life and then suddenly turns up one day on the desk next to you. Except obviously it’s nowhere near that good. But it’s still quite nice.

4. The goodbyes don't get any easier. Just as you’ve got the person next to you to make tea just the way you like it, you have to leave.

5. Timesheets are horrible wherever you go.

No matter where you work, timesheets are always a nightmare. No agency has figured out a simple way to do this.

In the agency of the future, set aboard a starship where concepts are beamed directly from digital layout pads into consumers’ minds, we’ll still spend Friday afternoons thumping a keyboard with frustration and trying to get hold of account people who stuck a three-year-old job number on the brief because they couldn’t be bothered to get the system to spit out a new one.

If your agency currently uses a simple system, enjoy it while it lasts. It will soon be updated with a bigger, more expensive and fantastically complicated one.

Considering what a small amount of data timesheet systems have to handle – putting hours against a certain job – we have designed some fantastically complicated ways of doing it.

So there. These are things wot I’ve learnt. What have you learned? Stick it in the comments innit.

Guess Whose Loos

Welcome to another exciting new series!

 

Guess Whose Loos is the exciting new industry–wide quiz that tests both your powers of deduction and industry knowledge.

Every few days I’ll feature new toilets, along with clues as to the agency it serves. (I’ll make some of them multi-choice so it’s not too difficult.)

You post your answer in the comments. Everyone who gets it right will be entered into a draw to WIN a signed RealMenWriteLongCopy toilet brush.

So here we go with our first loo. I’ve made this first one easy.



Note the industrial feel. It’s obviously not a new building and with that many stalls, it’s clearly not a small agency. Also, although it’s not really coming across from the picture, there’s an odour that makes me suspect someone’s had a curry.

Loo two is multiple choice.

This toilet is one of the big names and has lots of crazy stories of its glory days. Is it:
a: Saatchi & Saatchi
b: Wieden + Kennedy
c: Y&R

Over to you, loo-choosers!

Would you like your toilet to be featured in Guess Whose Loos? (Answer: Yes)

It’s great to finally have a use for all the photos of toilets I have on my phone. However I don’t have an infinite supply so if you’d like your agency toilet to be featured (which I know you would) then please send a high-quality image to dave[at]davemance[dot]com

I'm particularly looking for female contributors, as there is a slight gender bias here. Also, it'd be great to have contributors from overseas – let's make this thing go global people.

A couple of nice Christmas bits on my way to and from work yesterday

I know this campaign is still finding its feet a bit but I really like this execution. Because it is a truth. And truth is hard to find, particularly in the grubby little world of advertising.

And while we're on the subject of truth in ads, Marmite's love/hate campaign is the truthiest of them all.




That's right, it's an elf barfing into Santa's hat. Lovely stuff.

I feel like I should be upset that even Christmas lights are ads, though I'm not sure why.

The commercialisation-of-Christmas ship sailed a long time ago. And the Christmas lights over shops flogging people stuff they don't want or need at Christmas should be the last thing I'm worried about. I'm such a worrier.

What I’ve learned from freelancing #1. Time passes slower.

Welcome to this exciting new series!

As my regular reader will know, any series I start rarely makes it past the first entry. But I’ve a feeling this one could run and run.

Because, having spent two years freelancing, I’m full of wisdom. Backed up, in fact. I’m hoping this series will provide a much-needed wisdom suppository for me to clear myself out of all the nuggets and pearls that are clogging up my system.

My first little plop of insight is...

When you're a freelancer, times passes slower.

This is because our memory only logs the experiences that are different.

So if you go to work at the same place every day, sitting in the same chair and working on the same clients, time will seem to pass very quickly.

You’ll be drawing up scamps one day and suddenly realise your hand is horribly withered and you’re wearing incontinence pads.

On the other hand, if you work at a different place every few weeks, your brain has lots more experiences to remember. So time passes slower. Which means you live longer.

So there you have it. Freelancing is the secret of everlasting youth.

Obviously I have nothing to back this up. And the stress of worrying about work, looking for work and chasing payment means freelancers age twice as fast.

But still.

FREE Turn Up Late For Work Kit

Simply download this pic onto your phone and show it to your boss when you amble in at 10.

That’s right, a plastic bag has somehow shrink-wrapped itself around some poor soul's gear cassette. What are the chances of THAT happening!

(Apologies that the picture is a bit blurry. My hand was quivering with rage at the time of shooting.)

TIP: for added excuse authenticity, a nice touch is to get a bit of oil onto your hands. Just ask any cyclist.

Jon Stewart gleefully ripping into Fox over their election coverage

The best thing I've seen on that election thing that happened over there.

Working from home today

Dunno about you, but I write much better without trousers.

Happy Guy Fawkes night day!

 This is what folks in my home town will be getting up to.



This video conveys a little of the unique excitement of a drunk farmer running towards you with a flaming barrel on his shoulders.

The explosion at 23 seconds was not planned – not that a couple of people losing their hair seems to have affected the event in any way. Those lunatics will be burning one another again tonight, according to our fine traditions.

Meanwhile I shall be 200 miles away, safely tucked up with a cup of Ovaltine watching re-runs of The Golden Girls.

Where you sit matters

Trends will come and go. Agencies will rise and fall. Martin Sorrell’s jowls will become saggier and saggier. But this one indisputable truth will remain.

Where you sit matters.

Whether or not you're aware of it, colleagues judge your worth almost completely by where you're sat.

Next to the CD? This guy looks like a real go-getter, an ideas machine!

On the broken table next to the fire exit? Who’s the loser in the corner? No one’s gonna miss him when he’s gone.

Not only that. Your proximity to certain colleagues can have a big impact on your productivity.

Being around fun, smart, energetic people is stimulating. And the opposite is also true – sitting near designers can be extremely demotivating.

And of course more than all these, when it comes to seating plans, one factor eclipses all others in terms of importance: your proximity to the kitchen.

Twice I've left a job with great prospects at an agency I've loved, purely because I was too far away from the kettle.

It upset my whole balance. I’d have to plan cups of tea into my weeing routine just to save my legs.

I got so fed up with the trek at one place, I took to keeping my own personal kettle under the desk. But people got really funny when they noticed my steaming crotch.

Please can we address this?

Careers are built or destroyed and cups of tea are made and not made because of seating plans. And yet they are at the whim of a traffic person, or based on whatever involves the least work for the Office Services guy.

Let’s put our best people on this from now on.

And if I come to your place anytime soon, make sure you stick me near the kitchen, okay?

The Sparrow

As many of you will be aware, I celebrated my birthday over the last year.

My favourite gift so far was this.

It’s a while since I’ve been really gripped by a book. There’s nothing quite like a good old fashioned page-turner that leaves you dreaming up ways to get out of work early or avoid your family so you can devour a few more pages.

If you’re considering taking a holiday or even just pulling a sickie, I heartily recommend picking this up first.

It explores faith, linguistics, mental illness and a man with funny hands, all wrapped up in sci-fi (a genre I try to be snobbish about but can’t). And its characters are more complete and human than anyone you’ll ever meet in an agency.

Here's the blurby bit:

After the first exquisite songs were intercepted by radio telescope, UN diplomats debated long and hard whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to reach the world that would become known as Rakhat. In the Rome offices of the Society of Jesus, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send. The Jesuit scientists went to Rakhat to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went for the greater glory of God. They meant no harm.

I dunno if you picked it up but that 'They meant no harm' line is actually rather ominous, if you know what I'm saying. As in, it all goes a bit wrong. What I'm suggesting is that they do harm. Anyway.

I’m about 3/4s of the way through. I’ll let you know if the ending turns out to be a massive disappointment. Otherwise, get it.

Here’s to page-turners.

Running on empty

I enjoyed Tim Lott’s bit in The Guardian today on How I write.

I identified not just with finding it hard to knuckle down, which is par for the course, but also the way his digestive system dictates his working day.

Come around 2pm I have an energy slump – especially if I have had a glass of wine. This has been happening to me since I was a teenager, but in those days at school I was in no position to do anything about it. Now I have a bed in my room, I take a nap. I never wake later than 45 minutes on. 

It seems that God has seen fit to give me a tiny stomach, like that of a sparrow. Which means I share the same post-lunch slump (but not the bed in the office, sadly).

My solution is to eat such a paltry lunch (e.g. a one-slice tuna sandwich) that I’m still gnawing my desk with hunger by 2. At which point I have another cup of tea and this keeps me going and a bit on edge until around 4, when I have lunch part two (e.g. a second sandwich).

In this way my little body stutters along throughout the week. I've been creatively running on empty, so to speak, for most of my career and it certainly works for me.

Does anyone else have a staying-fairly-productive strategy to share? Other than the simple fear of being found out for the talentless hack you clearly are, of course?

Btw, the rest of the How I write bits are very good too. Although the Lionel Shriver one has a picture of a woman at the top. Oops!

Holidaying for real men

I had a lovely holiday, thanks for asking.

I’ve come to the point in my life where a holiday’s success is not measured by cultural sites visited or tan accrued, but by how well I prevented parenthood standing in the way of self-indulgence.

I was made particularly aware of this dynamic on a recent break at a caravan park in Devon. (That’s right, a caravan park. The freelance budget only extends so far you know.)

The whole park was designed in such a way as to allow you to freely consume alcohol whilst technically still 'watching over' your child.

This is a random woman from the interweb and not Mrs RMWLC thank you very much

Pub and playground were seamlessly integrated. The soft-play area even had its own bar. The stools were padded for the child’s safety, but also tall enough to deter children from seeking comfort in their parents’ arms.

Those wishing to put more distance between themselves and their offspring could sit on the pub’s balcony some 30 feet above the playground.

If their child should fall from a zip line or become tangled in the machinations of a roundabout they’d be in the perfect position to observe this and even holler first aid tips at any nearby children.

If you're looking for a way to avoid engaging with your children, I really can't recommend it highly enough.

Anyway, I'm back to work this week. Well, back to looking for work.

Well, okay, I'm back to sitting on the park bench feeding the pigeons. At least they don't answer back.

Got the passport!

I'm as happy as, well, as a pig eating an ice lolly.



See you all in a week or so.

Via the poke

I'm back, and badder than ever

Sorry, that should have read 'worse than ever'.

It’s a long time since I blogged. And, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get back in the copy-saddle.

For some reason, I feel like I need to come up with something really interesting. Perhaps the passage of time makes me forget just how desperately poor my blog posts usually are.

Fortunately, a quick recap of previous posts is all it takes to reassure me I can just write any old guff.

So I thought I’d write whatever's in my head right now.

Which is that I’m meant to be going on a big extended-family holiday to Brittany on Friday, paid for by my generous in-laws. Except that my son’s passport hasn’t arrived yet.

And I bet you can guess whose job it was to get the passport, can’t you?

The enormity of my blunder only hit home in a call to the IPS on Friday afternoon.

As a result, I spent the whole of this weekend sat on the kitchen chair with my head in my hands, gently rocking. This was punctuated only by short trips into the bedroom to scream into, and punch, a pillow.

I know you’re thinking of all the lastminute measures I can take. Getting an emergency passport. Telling them it’s urgent. Getting on my hands and knees and begging. Don’t you think I’ve looked into it? There’s nothing.

All I can do is wait. And pray. Which I am doing a lot.

Stay tuned to find out whether I get the passport in time. Or whether my father-in-law takes a pick axe to my skull.

How to be popular (with the right people)

You may have heard this popular maxim floating around the corridors of your agency:

“Work hard and be nice to people”

PAH!

This is the most laughable myth since the Loch Ness monster. Or the female G-spot. Or the female orgasm.

Everyone knows that if you want to get on in this world, you need to kiss butt, bully, cheat, connive, steal, murder, commit tax fraud and commit grand larceny.

Which is one of the reasons freelancing is so tricky. Every time you arrive at a new place, you have to figure out who’s who.

How else can you know whose butt to kiss and whose butt to bully? Or commit grand larceny against?

If you’re not careful, you can spend far too much time sucking up to people who turn out to be unimportant.

I’ve wasted whole precious minutes of my life being nice to people, only to discover there was no material benefit in it for me.

Other times I’ve elbowed someone aside or thrown scalding hot tea in their face to stop them taking the last biscuit, only to discover they are in fact a ‘somebody’.

To be honest, I haven’t really found a short cut to this conundrum as yet.

Is the answer making people wear badges which display their job title? Or uniforms which signify rank?

We need to find a solution soon people because I'm doing a lot of unnecessary smiling at strangers at the moment and my face is starting to hurt.

MFEST. The music festival for people who've given up on life.

It can't be. Can it?

They wouldn't, would they?

Of course they would.

MFEST. The music festival brought to you by Morrisons supermarket.

That's right, MFEST. Proof, were it needed, that this is the END OF DAYS.

MFEST.

MFEST.

Every time you say it, another piece of your soul dies.

And it's brought to us by Morrisons, those trusted purveyors of the finer things in life.

So far, the line-up includes such illustrious names as The Levellers, Texas, Bob Geldof and Inspiral Carpets.

Acts that wouldn’t look out of place in the ‘Reduced to clear’ section of any supermarket.

Headliners, The Levellers. To be fair, even in their heyday they didn't look great.

“MFEST will be a unique addition to the festival market with not only a glittering array of entertainment for all ages, but a brand new, reinterpretation of festival food”

- droned a corporate flunkey who long ago made a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for a tin of Morrisons spam and some money-off vouchers.

Can brands just take everything that is cool about life and churn out their own soulless versions?

What next? The TESCO Value Holiday? The Walmart Wedding? Your first love, brought to you by McDonalds?

“We are incredibly excited to be the lead sponsor with such an incredible line-up planned and thrilled that our food will be keeping the crowds going at the inaugural MFEST experience."

Come, friendly bombs and fall on MFEST.

My first movie tagline

Just came across this post in Adweek about great movie taglines.

I often look at movie posters and wonder if I could do better (FACT: I could).

Then it got me wondering, who writes movie taglines? The answer, not surprisingly, is copywriters. 

I liked the movie-tagline-writer guy's description of the creative process as so methodical (even though the big doofus can't pronounce maths correctly).

After familiarizing himself with the plot and theme, Byers jots down words associated with the title. He often enlists the help of OneLook.com, a website that generates word lists based on root, prefix, and tone. From there, he uses Clichesite.com to find stock phrases and then brainstorms ways in which they might be twisted. “Sometimes it works out just like math,” he says.

I know what you’re thinking. There’s a site full of clichés?! Why didn’t someone tell me about this years ago? I could have saved myself literally hours of lazy thinking.

Anyway, here are my favouritest ever movie taglines.

Jaws 2
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.

Dumb and Dumber
For Harry and Lloyd, every day is a no-brainer.


The Big Lebowski
Her life was in their hands. Now her toe is in the mail.


The Silent Rage
Science created him. Now Chuck Norris must destroy him.


Crank
He was dead…but he got better.

(For anyone who hasn’t seen Crank, it’s basically the greatest movie ever. It may even be the best Jason Stratham movie ever. I don’t want to give away too much but basically, he has been poisoned and must keep his adrenaline flowing or he’ll die. That's right.)

All this movie-tagline research inspired me, so I thought I’d have a go at writing one of my own. I came up with this:

127 Hours
Think of your worst owie ever. This one is much worse.

Pretty good, huh?

(By the way, if you haven't seen 127 Hours, don't bother. Let's just say that whoever came up with the concept has a somewhat overactive imagination.)

If you can think of your own movie tagline that’s even better, put it in the comments.

Actually if you’re reading this at all, put something in the comments. I’m kind of wondering if anyone still reads this blog.

My trip to the museum

I had a nice weekend, not that any of you bothered to ask.

It started well, with this lovely ‘save the date’ thingey from our upstairs neighbours. (They knew I’d KICK OFF if I didn’t get an invite.)



Next, Family RMWLC went on a SPECIAL DAY OUT to the London Transport Museum. It’s got buses and trains and stuff.

**Only bother reading on if you’ve got kids or are really bored. Actually, only bother reading if you've got kids AND are really bored. And you have some weird obsession with funny handles on trains.**

I enjoyed watching my children play with a video installation, one delighted and the other bewildered.




We explored the history of the tube train handle. Who knew you could get Creme Egg ones?



Then I became tired and irritable and had to sit down and have something to eat.

They also gave my eldest this snazzy activity book.

It’s nicely done, eh?

As well as the complimentary moustache and a pop-up horse complete with its own saddle and horsey turd, you could create your own Abram Games poster.

I did a rather nice duck.

And mini RMWLC did an even better robot. 

What a show-off.

So I guess the lesson of the day is that, in this age of digibytes and googletubes, some nice things are still made of paper.

All in all, I'd give the museum 6.5 out of 10 (it lost half a point on account of the fact the Earl Grey tea wasn't Twinings).

It’s £13 for adults but that’s an annual pass so you can go back again and again to stare at the Crème Egg tube handle. Which is good value.

Next time let’s go together, okay?

Philistines with paintbrushes

If you like both ads and bridges, brought together in one handy package, then you'll LOVE the Ferodo Bridge. As you're well aware, I blogged about it ages ago.

And if you love ads and bridges, then you’ll be shocked and appalled at THIS.

That’s right. In what’s clearly an attack on me and all readers of this blog, somebody – or rather, some MONSTER – has literally painted over my happiness.

I was understandably tearful when I came into work. And I've spent most of the day sobbing at my desk.

As yet no one has asked why I’m upset so I thought I’d share my distress with you all.

I shall be bound naked to this bridge in protest from about 7pm today (or whenever I get off work).

Please drop by if you want to join me. Or if you just want to see me naked.

Even though books are for sissies, this is a nice campaign

Via Scott

Wuurrghhhk

My daughter doesn’t call work ‘work’. She calls it “weeuurk”.

“Daddy’s going to weeuurk”.

She kind of vomits the word out.

“Weeeuurrk!”

“Wwwuurrrghk!”

“Wwwurrgh urrgh urrghk!”

It’s onomatopoeic I guess. Try it.

"Have you got much wurrghk on?"

"How's weuurrghk?"

I promise, once you start pronouncing it that way, you won’t want to go back.

Hot new app

I discovered this brilliant app, Greetings. It sends a generic, meaningless birthday message to my Facebook friends without me even asking it to.

When I say ‘without me asking’ I don’t mean it’s automatic. I mean I never even signed up for it, just clicked on a card from a friend once.

Rather than asking me to select which friends I wish a happy birthday, it just randomly selects some and not others.

One really nice touch is that it doesn’t greet them on their actual birthday, it sends the card the day before. Nothing says you care like a curiously premature birthday message.

It's brilliant when you think about it – an app which shows affection for my loved ones so I don't have to.

Why don't more apps like this exist?

For example, where is the app that can tell my children I love them? Or the one that can tell my wife she is beautiful?

Some developers have made half-baked attempts. For instance, giving you ideas and reminders for dates. But I still have to actually go on the date. I still have to engage in meaningful conversation, look at her, etc.

Surely we should be past this kind of thing by now.

If we're so technologically advanced, why do I still have to think of or care about people?

In fact, by now I should just be able to plug into a few apps and set things in motion then basically deactivate my conscious mind.

Don’t get me wrong, my heart would still beat and I’d still ingest and excrete food. But a lot of the other, somewhat unnecessary 'relational' activities would be cancelled out. I wouldn’t have to ‘live’ so to speak.

You techy guys need to crack on with this. Do an iphone version first, okay?

Button Moon

I found myself singing this. Then searching for it. Then weeping silently at my desk, tears of joy splashing onto my keyboard.

If you don't feel the same way then I'm not sure I want to be friends with you anymore. I'm serious.



Also, imagine being able to say you were the guy who blew the bubbles from just off-camera. You could die happy.

Adopt a freelancer

Like everyone, I used to shun freelancers.

They are the nervous pale kid in glasses in the playground. If you talk to him, he’ll think he’s your friend and follow you around.

They are spirit beings. They walk among you but they are not one of you. Like Patrick Swayze in Ghost.

They are mercenaries. Every penny they get would have gone towards your bonus or Christmas party or a new Maserati for the boss.

I was the same. ‘What’s the point in learning a freelancer’s name?’ I reasoned. ‘In a week, or a month, or a few months, they’ll be gone and you’ll have used up that part of your brain unnecessarily.'

But, having freelanced for over a year now, I’ve realised something. Freelancers are humans too.

So today I’m starting a new campaign: Adopt a freelancer.

Given the success of my previous campaigns to Make planning history and Stop hiring art directors FULL STOP, I'm confident this will also capture the imagination of the industry and usher in a watershed of wholesale changes.

Think about it. In the history of humanity, has there ever been a more terribly oppressed people group than freelance creatives? (Other than fans of The Cure and they kind of deserve it.)

Freelancers are never offered a cup of tea. Never invited to the pub. They’re forced to use whatever broken furniture/computer equipment has been discarded by others.

And yet do you find freelancers writing long, whiney, self-obsessed blog posts about how terribly hard it is? Not a bit of it. They soldier on, courageously accepting their inflated pay each week.

Do you have any idea, dear reader, of the difference it could make to a freelancer if you said "Hello"? If you nodded at them in the corridor or even, dare I suggest, smiled? Once I sneezed and the person next to me said “Bless you” and I was so pitifully grateful I almost wept.

So please, for 2012, join my campaign and Adopt a freelancer. Because, remember, one day you could be a freelancer too.

Don't feed the data monster

While we’re on the subject, this is a very good post on the data monster that Facebook has become.

It’s the sort of post I like to think I’d write if I was a proper blogger (although mine would include fewer typos and references to the Manic Street Preachers).

Drugs! Drugs! Drugs!

I was interested to see this, by McCann Digital Israel – an anti-drug message using the new Facebook Timeline format.

However, I’m not really sure what the message is supposed to be. Other than perhaps to stay away from drugs or you’ll end up looking like Gaz from Supergrass.

It’s just not clear which life is better.

From a hair point of view, it's a close call. All I can say for sure is that if you've got stupid hair, a drug habit won't help.

Other than that, I would say the chap on the left does look a bit fed up.

But at least he doesn’t have to go to work in a shirt and tie. And he got rid of that annoying girlfriend (anyone who makes you take one of those ‘couple together taken by themselves’ shots and post it on Facebook is definitely a wrong ‘un – you're better off without her mate).

Of course you’ll all remember this thought-provoking piece I wrote a couple of years ago.

Even back then, I was warning we need to be careful what we put on Facebook because once you’re gone, you’ll be perfectly preserved forever in all your pointlessness.

Regarding the broader question of whether the timeline feature is an improvement or not I'd say it's proof, were it needed, that Zuckerburg is the anti-Christ.

Looking back at old posts hits a similar level on my Cringe-o-meter as rereading old diaries *SHUDDERS*. And now Timeline makes it far easier to do that.

Dunno about you dear reader but I for one am considering embracing hard drugs to escape from it all.