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.

Advice for young creatives

Keep a copy of everything you do. And I mean everything.

That includes the insert you did offering Buy 1 Get 1 free on Budget Mince. And the shelf wobbler for thrush cream you're not especially proud of.

Because sooner or later you'll be trying to get a bit of freelance, just a little something to tide you over before the Christmas break, and a recruiter will say something like:

"I see you've done lots of creative stuff. But can you write 50% off on a shelf wobbler?"

"Yes."

"Because I can't see any examples on your website."

"No. I kind of assumed anyone can do that."

"So have you got any examples?"

And you'll think, 'GAH! That Mr RMWLC is always right!'

Christmas preparations for real men

One of the worst things about freelance life is that you’ll be at home with your family more. As a result, your wife will give you jobs.

So many jobs, in fact, that you will consider turning this into a DIY blog. And actually write a post on How to install a Christmas tree.

How to install a Christmas tree

Once some chancer has fleeced you and you've spent £30 (£30!!!) on a tree that Charlie Brown himself would reject, you’ll need to stick it in a stand.

You may find the tree doesn’t sit properly in the stand because the cretin lumberjack or whatever his name is doesn’t know how to cut a tree straight and gave you a wonky bottom bit of the trunk that needs evening out. (You should have spotted this when you bought it but you didn’t.)

To saw it you’ll need a saw. You can borrow a saw from a man, most likely a neighbour. The man will look down at you for not having your own saw. He thinks he’s so much better than you just because he built his own extension out the back and he’s got a van but he’s not all that. I saw him drinking on his own down the pub once I think he and his wife had had a row.

Saw it.

Put it in the stand. (Take care when positioning the tree as the pine needles are really sharp. If one goes under your nail you are likely to yelp in pain and maybe swear in front of the kids.)

Stand back to see whether or not it's straight.

Wrong

Wrong

Still wrong

Still wrong. What is up with this thing? I’ve been waggling it around for half an hour now.

Right

Congratulations. You have installed your tree. Now you can move on to the next job on her list and this will not end until you get another gig so you'd better get on to some headhunters or something.

At last!

It's that time of year when I can wear this and look AWESOME for a whole month.