on the cover of a magazine

I went along to the V&A village fete last night. It was a great fete despite the very very long que outside that seemed to go back to Harrods. I've been to the V&A on a Friday night before and had fun here, here, here, here, and here so was quite hopefull for the fete.

My favourite bit was the 'WH Stiffs' stall run by Harry and Rhonda from multistorey. They did a bit of smoke and mirrors with some blown up magazine covers, a very sharp scalpel, some clever lighting, a polaroid camera and an idea that has been in hiding for 5 years. Like this basically...

Good stuff.

the lost generation

Continuing my analysis on the Sunday papers I found this bit in the Sunday Times Style magazine extremely interesting.

"I'm a big believer in owning real things. I call my generation the Lost Generation, because everything we own is digital. If the information was wiped, everything we've done would be gone for ever."

It's from an interview with Kate Nash (I've no idea who she is). It reminds me of the digital archiving stuff I wrote a while ago. There's a very interesting and as yet unconsidered issue around how much of ourselves or our aquired information and thoughts we are putting into electronic things (email/facebook/myspace/blogs) and what happens if we loose access to this stuff.

Anyone who's ever been caught out by hotmail's 'don't check your mail for 30 days and we'll wipe your inbox' rule, lost their mobile and all the numbers in it, or had the disheartening information from their IT team that email is going to down indefinetly will know this could be a bit of a worry.

wiki comedy

Where Are The Joneses? is an online comedy that is being written via a wiki, has a youtube channel for the end products and a blog of the whole process. Very 2.0.

It's being put together by Steve Coogan's BabyCow production company which could stand it in good sted as they've done some great stuff in the past.

There was a good point in today's Sunday Times that the web has really captured and taken forward film and music but never really got any where with comedy. Other than 'you been framed' type clips on youtube and captures of stuff that's been on TV anyway.

egg plant

I just got back from my holidays to find a mini aubergine has grown outside of my shed.

I'm hoping it's going to be the best tasting aubergine I've ever eaten. I'm not that keen on aubergine normally so it's got a good chance. As long as the snails stay away.

tribal youth

This is a very interesting little presentation by Albion on Skype. Also slidehsare is a good little app to add power points into blogs and stuff.

FMCG weekly shop with W+K

I realised last night I'd done the above Wieden + Kennedy themed weekly shop this week. I've been buying Yakult for a while now as I mentioned here before. I've also started getting Lurpak as I liked these ads a lot.

Then when I was reading the W+K blog on Friday night I saw this ad they did for the Guardian weekend supplement on British beaches and thought I'd get that aswell.

Forming this nice little package of W+K FMCG shopping. I was even thinking about getting some Cravendale but I'm off on holiday on Wednesday and can't get through a litre in that time.

budgie man

I just saw The Budgie Man outside the Tate Modern. If you're ever on the SouthBank on a Saturday be sure to give him a look in. He's better than most of the stuff inside the Tate.

mogwai

Mogwai (in surround sound) were very good at Somerset House last night. It was kind of like this but 90 degrees clockwise.

'being nice' as a marketing strategy

As a life long non-tea drinker I knew nothing about Yorkshire Tea 12 months ago. I didn't even know they existed. Now they're my favourite tea brand (even though I still don't drink tea, or coffee for that matter). Here's why:

This week Yorkshire Tea sent innocent some bunting made from their left over packaging for our longest bunting in the world attempt.

They also sent us some tea and biscuits when the innocent kitchen was being decorated.

Then they again popped up at Russell's interesting conference with yet more tea and buscuit donations.

So 3 times in the last 12 months they've come into my field of vision and each time for just doing something nice for someone else. I suppose the pessimistics would say that they're just looking for free advertising like everyone else. But to me they've taken the time to cut out 30 odd bits of bunting and glue it all together, do a bit of research into what other people are up to (our kitchen was broke) and hand write post cards.

It's not exactly a revolutionary new marketing strategy but I think a lot of brands could do a lot worse than to employ some to go out and make friends (with consumers, their peers, their stockists) and commit some random acts of kindness.

Just like Yorkshire Tea are. Well done Yorkshire Tea.

desk shot

Joby just asked me to take a picture of my desk and send it him for something he's doing. I thought I'd post it here aswell. Here it is.