Please make it stop

Realmenwritelongcopy is still away on his hols

I love football.

I love the World Cup.

I love the fact I have 2 computer screens and the games are broadcast online.

But here are the 5 things I currently hate about the World Cup :-

1. Vuvuzela's

2. Vuvuzela's

3. Vuvuzela's

4. ITV HD making me miss the Steven Gerrard goal on Saturday

5. Vuvuzela's

Grunders is back

Realmenwritelongcopy is on annual leave again. Grunders is back

Despite the fact the World Cup is on, I have a backdated list of DIY jobs at home and a 7 month pregnant girlfriend to tend to, nothing could stop me guest blogging for RMWLC for a week.

I realise since my guest blogs last year RMWLC has been having almost weekly mentions in Campaign. My aim this week is to make sure this never happens again. Stay tuned.

Blogging for The Man

The word going around the staff kitchen is that head office has been tracking my progress with interest.

They sense I’m destined for big things. They've spotted my potential.

How do I know this? In short, they asked me to write a post for the company blog.

As you can imagine, I jumped at the chance – an opportunity to put my skills to use in order to promote the company was just too good to pass up. Also they made it very clear I had no choice.

You can read the post here.

Obviously they were delighted with what I wrote. Phrases like ‘destined for senior management’ and ‘rising star’ have been banded around freely in recent days. Which makes such a nice change from the usual murmurings of ‘offensive body odour’ and ‘gross incompetence’.

I’m just trying to keep my feet on the ground and remember the principles that have served me so well up until now: hard work, diligence and brazen brown nosing.

How real men spend their bank holiday

• Rise early thanks to early morning wake up call from the Mystery Singer (see previous post).
• Head to DIY store to buy screws and thingey that stops Baby RMWLC opening cupboard doors and pulling all manner of deadly kitchen implements on her head.
• As I walk in, try to ignore burly staff member rolling his eyes at my chinos and hush puppies.
• Feign a ‘working class’ accent and ask for wood screws. Going on instinct, decide not to ask why wood screws are not made out of wood.
• Scurry out of DIY shop clinging to last shreds of masculinity.
• Begin work with an indefatigable spirit of optimism.
• Read fitting instructions for thingey. It requires FOUR screws. Feel spirit of optimism draining away.
• Drill four holes.
• Drill four more holes.
• Drill more holes.
• Working on the principle that if infinite monkeys sat in front of infinite typewriters one of them would write the complete works of Shakespeare, continue randomly drilling holes in the hope that eventually four will be in the right place.
• Mrs RMWLC marches in to ‘see how things are coming along’. Cower while she rains down all manner of deadly kitchen implements on head before storming out.
• Return to task with renewed sense of purpose.
• After two hours, become hysterical and start dressing the tools up like dolls and giving them names.
• Mrs RMWLC calls Bob from around the corner. Bob comes round and completes the task in around 4 seconds.
• Note Mrs RMWLC gazing wistfully at Bob.
• Long for the bank holiday to end so I can return to being a monkey at a typewriter.

Do you know this man?

Fans of David Attenborough films will be aware of the interminable patience of his cameramen. They spend weeks, even months, lying in wait for that one moment of magic.

Well I've waited two years to capture this.

And at 4:30 this morning, my patience finally paid off.



Many times in the last couple of years I’ve had the genuine pleasure of being woken by this man singing and dancing opposite our home.

At first, we assumed it was someone on their way back from the pub. But it’s too late/early for that. And anyway, look at those moves. Here’s a man in total control of his body.

I can’t tell you how hard he was to capture. Countless times, he’s stopped performing just as I got there with the camera. Or it was too dark to show up. Once he even spotted the camera flash and scampered away.

Even now I have to say I’m a little disappointed I didn't get any of his singing. That’s where his real strength lies.

When I do you can be assured I'll post it.

In the meantime, can anyone identify this man? Perhaps he’s performed outside your home? Or at your wedding or Bar Mitzvah?

Any information leading to a positive ID will be richly rewarded.


I’m disappointed with my camera work on this one. I had too much zoom on it
and was trying to hold the camera with one hand so I could stay out of sight. Sorry.

A case of The Mondays

You'll never believe this but someone ACTUALLY just asked me if I had a case of The Mondays.

Now you too can smell like a real man

A while ago I posted this brilliant ad.



Little did I know then that a major high street retailer would soon produce a new line of fragrances based on a character even more manly and desirable.

That’s right, ME!

Behold, Next’s new line of man scent, which goes by the snappy moniker of Performance. (For the slow/art directors among you, my surname is Mance, see?)


Here’s what it says on the label:

Performance cologne is masculine to the core, combining the refined sensuality of bergamot, jasmine, and starfruit with the powerful virility of cedarwood, men’s changing rooms, cobra venom, mace, the SAS storming the Iranian Embassy and sheer musk. Performance is a potent blend that draws you in and envelops you, like a ninja on a dark night.
CAUTION: use sparingly.

Douse yourselves in the stuff immediately.

Monday morning mildly amusing movie moment

Going old school this week

My foolproof guide to deciding who you should vote for

Here are some things you should do before you vote:

• Read the manifestos.
• Read what a variety of papers have to say on the different parties’ policies.
• Read about the situation in your constituency and who’s standing this time.
• Watch a debate or two.

But to be honest that’s a bit of a hassle.

So instead just use my simple guide, which helpfully shows you who to vote for according to agency role.

Suits. What you want to see is change. Changes to copy. Changes to artwork. It doesn’t really matter whether those changes actually makes things better or not. Change in and of itself is good.
Your vote: Conservative.

Planners. I know I know, after doing all that research and listening to all those focus groups, it does seem rather unfair to have to limit the proposition to a single thought. Far better to ram 3 opposing ideas in there.
Your vote: tick all the boxes and assume it'll sort itself out somewhere down the line.

Board members. Given Labour's plans to tax earnings over £150,000 at 50%, I'm guessing there’s going to be a lot of “Hmmm… that David Cameron’s got some interesting ideas” and “I’ve always been a fan of Big Society”.
Your vote: Conservative.

Art directors. I once had a neighbour called Jimmy (this is a bit of an aside but stay with me here folks). Jimmy was a lovable benefit-cheating ex-con who lived upstairs. I once had the pleasure of appearing as witness in a case of racial harassment against him.

What’s brilliant is, Jimmy was cleared of all charges on the grounds he couldn't be racist because he hated everyone.

Which is kind of like you guys. Shouting at suits. Shouting at planners. Shouting at your longsuffering writers. So because you guys have so much hate, I've decided the BNP is your ideal party of choice.

Of course it’s a little unfair to compare you to the BNP. They do after all have the decency to discriminate between those they hate and those they don’t. But it's what Jimmy would do.
Your vote: BNP.

Copywriters. Sadly, there’s not a party in the world lefty enough for writers who are, to a man, a sorry collection of lilly-livered bleeding heart liberals.
Your vote: Lib Dem (admittedly they're not that liberal, but they are the anti-Tories and also Clegg has that weedy nerdy writer look about him).

So, according to my calculations, if everyone follows my recommendation we'll end up with either a Tory majority or a hung parliament with an uncomfortable Tory-Lib Dem alliance.

It's exciting to think that this blog is now so influential it can determine the outcome of a general election!

Monday morning mildly amusing movie moment

Welcome to the first in this occasional series.

I thought this might be a good way to start the working week.



Now I'm no movie buff, so I think it's safe to say that if I feature a movie you haven't seen, you should probably take a long hard look at yourself and the direction your life's going in.

Interesting

I thought this was worth posting.

A while ago I began the bellybutton fluff chronicles. This thought-provoking series logged my bellybutton fluff, with the aim of finding meaning in the seemingly random volume of fluff gathered from day to day.

Anyway, this morning I discovered this in my back pocket.


For those of you who can’t make out the fuzzy image, it’s actually a raisin coated in fluff.

So that just goes to show, it’s not only bellybuttons that attract this stuff.

Please add your thoughts in the comment section. It’d be great if we could have a decent debate about this.

When pitches happen to good people

You can feel it in your water. And your bowels. Possibly even your gizzards.

A pitch is coming. The traffic guys look over. Then quickly look away. They start MURMURING.

Getting asked to work on a pitch is like premature ejaculation. You know it’s coming but there’s nothing you can do about it.

The traffic bloke wanders over casually and softens you up with a few hopeful words about a big TV job coming in a few weeks.

Then just as he leaves, he drops the news, “Oh there might be a pitch coming in for you guys”.

He’s gone. But the news lingers long after him, as if it had been farted out.

Now you know two things. First, you won't be socialising, seeing your family or sleeping for the next two weeks. And second, at the end of it you will almost certainly be hated.

Because chances are you won’t win. Success or failure depends on a zillion possible factors, only three of which you actually have any control over.

It's not all bad though. There’s a wonderful sense of camaraderie with a pitch. Everyone mucks in with an opinion on exactly what you need to change, or what the client might be thinking. Right up until the last minute they’re offering suggestions for changes, or even completely new bits of work.

Thankfully this is one deadline that doesn’t move. Finally the day comes when the people with the expensive clothes totter off with their bodyweight in foamboard and you step out blinking into the daylight.

You remember grass. And trees. And friendship. And beauty. And love.

Then a few days later you find out that you lost the thing.

No one in management looks you in the eye for a week. You carry the stale stench of failure, which at least guarantees you won’t be asked to work on another one for a while.

It's back to business as usual for you. Ah yes, business as usual. Now we can go back to baulking at even the client’s most reasonable request. “They want me to write an introductory paragraph? In three days? Can’t be done.”

Good old current clients, with their low expectations.

My book

I’ve been pretty quiet lately. But I can at last reveal the reason for my silence.

That’s right, I’ve written a book.

A few other bloggers have boshed out books lately so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

I had no idea just how easy it is.

Admittedly it pretty much wrote itself once I'd come up with such a clever concept. It’s basically this: If Andy McNab worked as a copywriter. And was published by Mills & Boon.




I’m understandably pleased with the cover.

Although our hero should, in my humble opinion, have a beard. (The press have speculated wildly about who my main character, Dave Mans-man, is based on. I’m not giving anything away but let’s just say everyone who reads this blog has heard of him and he is typing RIGHT NOW. That’s all I’m saying.)

As my loyal blog audience, I can exclusively give you a sneak preview below:

Dave Mans-man strode powerfully yet sensually into the agency. All talking stopped as every jaw dropped open with deep yearning.

“Dave, Dave!” panicked the voluptuous titian-haired young account girl “The client’s got a change to the copy and every other writer’s tried to crack it but no one can because it’s impossible.”

His smouldering eyes fixed her with a penetrating stare that said “I want to tear your clothes off and ride naked with you on a stallion across a meadow in the moonlight.”

He sat down steamily and began writing.

His bicep rippled with every word, the account girl involuntarily quivering and shivering with excitement as he wrote.

“There” he thundered masterfully, handing her the words. She gasped as she began reading. It was everything she thought it would be and yet every word was imbued with a raw masculinity that thrust itself powerfully into her mind.

Just then, loads of Johnny foreigners armed to the teeth stormed the building.

Dave Mans-man dived for cover whilst pulling the girl to safety and pulling a grenade launcher out of his trousers.

"Brainstorm this, terrorist!" he screamed, mowing down a dozen foreign-looking baddies with a single bullet.

TO BE CONTINUED...

You can pre-order it today.

A post that’s nice about a planner yet is IN NO WAY a climb down from last week’s post that was mean about planners

I dunno if you lot all have boyfriends in planning or what but there were quite a few comments sticking up for them last week.

Whatever. Mr RMWLC is his own man, not the type to pander to the murmurings of the masses just because he is terrified of losing readers.

It just so happens that I was going to write a nice post about a planner anyway.

The fact is, today I am genuinely sad at the departure of a guy by the name of Sameer. Because in an industry that seems to be losing its share of crazies, he is one of the precious few oddballs left.

This is a man who, in my early days here at Partners, re-briefed me by handing me a Philip Larkin poem, reciting a few lines, then ambling out of the office. A man who can weave quantum physics, Gershwin and the Bernoulli Principle into a brief to sell frozen peas. A man who once tore up ten pound notes in front of me to illustrate his point (it was about one of our clients so I guess I shouldn't say who).

Most crazy of all, here's a guy who doesn’t actually tell a client something unless he believes it. I know! Mad as a fish.

In recent years there's been an alarming trend of agencies increasingly hiring sensible types. Awful people who have made us more efficient, productive and businesslike and generally done all they can to ruin the industry.

What so many people fail to understand is that without Sameer and people like him we’re just an accountancy firm with a snazzy reception. We’re just salesmen in jeans. Estate agents with marker pens.

So it's with a heavy heart I watch him pack up his pie charts and collection of wacky striped jumpers and head off to Mindshare. Good luck to you Sameer. We hope to see your kind again (but we doubt we will).

A conversation Mrs RMWLC overheard on the bus yesterday

Two gobby girls talking loudly:

"Guess what."
"What?"
"You know that DVD we watched? It ain't broke. It's something called a 'flashback'."

True story.

Following the success of my recent campaign to ‘STOP hiring art directors. FULL STOP.’ today sees the launch of my new movement, to MAKEPLANNINGHISTORY.

Planning is a shameful stain on our business.

Every year around 10% of an agency’s wage billings is wasted on planners. This is money that could be spent on biscuits or toilet roll.

Enough is enough!

Join my campaign where we say “No!” to brainstorms. Where we cry "No more!" to briefs being held up for weeks while they research things like 'the target market for electricity' or 'what kind of person drinks water'.

Here are some ways you can get involved in the campaign:

Add the MAKEPLANNINGHISTORY twibbon to your twitter pic (no I have no idea why either).

Buy tickets for the MAKEPLANNINGHISTORY benefit gig. It's going to be at the Wetherspoons in Leytonstone. Already confirmed are Lloyd from X Factor and local church tribute act Nuns 'n' Moses.

And most importantly, give money:

• £2 will pay for a planner to have a meal with normal people to get some ‘insights’ into the fact that none of them give a monkeys about brands.
• £20 will retrain a planner as a childminder or an academic, so they can babble away harmlessly without troubling anyone.
• £200 will buy a goat. Goats are cool.
  

Please join my campaign today and help create a better future for us all.

Every parent's worst fear – having an art director

I almost spilt my extra-milky ultra-weak Earl Grey this morning as I saw Baby RMWLC, focussing hard as she tried to walk, pulling an ‘art director’s face’.

You know the one I mean. That endearing one when they’re focusing every last brain cell on the task at hand (colouring in without going over the lines) and they stick their tongue out of the corner of their mouth and narrow their eyes in concentration. Yes, that face.

I couldn’t believe it. A child of mine an art director?! Talk about a cruel twist of fate.

Thankfully, a few soothing words from Mrs RMWLC coaxed me out of my despair.

She explained that behaving like an art director is a developmental stage that all children go through at around 12-18 months.

In fact, as a child matures they at one time or another possess the mental capacity of all agency types. It goes roughly like this:

Art director (12-18 months). Responds to simple instructions. Babbles 2 or 3 words repeatedly. Demands constant mothering.

Studio (18-24 months). Can put on shoes.

Account Director (2-4 years). Joins 2-3 words in sentences. Feeds self with spoon. Can count to twenty.

Account Exec (5-8 years). Speaks in sentences. Constantly asks questions.

Creative Director (8-12 years). Knows right from left (in most instances). Fluent with few infantile substitutions in speech.

Planner (teens). Awkward in social settings. Worry about being ‘normal’.

Copywriter (20+). Full cognitive development.

Pretty enlightening, huh?

You may be surprised at how developmentally advanced planners are supposed to be, but they do tend to be pretty smart. The point is they actually choose to say those things.

I'm just hoping Baby RMWLC grows out of this art director stage quickly – it's a bit much having to wipe away someone else's drool all day. Then come home and have to do the same.

By the way, if anyone has an Account Director that they've successfully potty trained, please do leave any tips in the comments section.

The tickets are now DIAMONDS

Nicked from The Denver Egotist

You weren’t there man

Yesterday, as I donned my muffler and balaclava to brave the trip home, a colleague joked that I looked like a soldier in the SAS.

He wouldn’t have been laughing if he knew the dark truth.

I've seen things that would make your irises pale in horror. Ooh the stories I could tell if I wanted (but I don’t talk about it because I'm the strong silent type).

Although my days in the special forces are now far behind me, it got me thinking about the similarities between my former and current profession.

Sure, I did some terrible things for Queen and country. I murdered men with my bare hands. And killed a wild pig by jumping out of a tree and stabbing it with a spear whilst wearing a bandana. A bit like this.


But that’s nothing compared to the things I’ve done since.

Unspeakable acts that haunt me.

I guess we've all done jobs in the past we're not proud of. But I just can't seem to get them out of my head.

Often I wake in the night screaming “Only 34.9%APR” or “Head along to our showroom now for your last chance to get low low prices!!!!”

Mrs RMWLC is understandably worried about me. She’s tried to get me to talk about it but how could she understand? I never want her to know about the things I've done to keep a roof over our head.

Occasionally I still see some of my old comrades. Copywriters who did some jobs with me back in the day. Men with dead eyes. Men with consciences so seared, they’d write a leaflet selling North Korean arms to the Myanmar government in UV ink on heavily bleached un-recycled paper as soon as look at you.

We nod silently at one another. A nod that says ‘Ooh the stories we could tell if we wanted (but we don’t talk about it because we’re the strong silent type).”

Sometimes I kid myself there might be some redemption for me. That maybe if I could write enough ads for lost puppies or endangered monkeys I might atone for all the wrong I’ve done. But I know it’s pure fantasy.

I should go back to killing. At least I was fairly good at that.

Irishman urinated on French bread in protest at Henry handball, court told

A true story from the superb newsfromireland.com

BY KEVIN BRADY

(ROSCOMMON, IRELAND) A drunken unemployed plasterer who was found urinating on the French loaves section of a large supermarket in protest at the infamous handball incident in the France vs Ireland World Cup qualifier, was this week given a suspended sentence, fined and bound over to keep the peace.

Frances “Smokie” Larkin, The Meadows, Killareagh, Co Roscommon pleaded guilty to the incident at Maher’s ValueStore supermarket, Killareagh, one week after the match which Ireland controversially drew after the French goal was deemed to have scored despite a blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry.

Gardai Anthony Flanagan told the court that he had been called to the store at 11.15 on the morning of November 25.

“When I reached the shop, I was informed that Mr Larkin was causing a disturbance in the bread section and when I got there, he was urinating on the French bread section and stamping on a loaf. I later ascertained that the loaves were brioches, a sort of French bread.

“When he saw me, he tried to run away but I apprehended him and grabbed him by the arm. He said ‘that’s for Thierry Henry, guard. If you have any pride in your country, you’ll let me go.

“Then he said ‘that’ll teach them, the cheating French bastards.’”

I love the way the Gardai later ascertained that the loaves were brioches.

If there are any French readers out there, please could you confirm whether or not this did indeed 'teach you'?