Diary of an Advertising girl

Tea Making - a guide for Americans.

2012-02-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

I'm in LA again. The weather is beautifully blue skied and the people are as perky as ever. The only thing that is letting this whole experience down in the absolute lack of any tea making skills.

Now, I know you guys might argue that making tea is an unnecessary skill for a US citizen. You might argue that you prefer coffee. Or that you got your independence back on the 4th of July in 1776 and your terrible tea making skills are your way of reminding us that we aren't at home here.
Why should you pander to British whims? But let me tell you this. Tea making is something to be proud of. You will make an instant friend the moment you make a good cup of tea for a British man or woman abroad. We know you are a bigger, stronger, richer country and could totally kick our butts if you wanted. So why not humour us? Make us a nice cup of tea.

Here's the very simple instructions.

1. Tea Brand. This is VITAL. Pick a good British brand like PG Tips, Tetleys or Yorkshire tea. All three are winners with the British public. The teabags will not be fancy - they rip if you press them too hard. Fancy muslin bags simply don't seem to let the flavour out so good. And those folded in half tea bags - they are rubbish.

These are perfectly good teabags which will make strong tea.

This is an example of a shit tea bag...it's Liptons. Liptons sucks ass.

2. Take the order. When you ask "Would you like a cup of tea?" The answer yes is not the end of the story. OHHH NO. You need to ask how they take it. Milk, no sugar is mine. One sugar means one teaspoon of sugar. If you want someone to be really happy ask them how strong they like their tea. They might like it milky, medium or strong. The answer "builders" means strong and sugary - it comes from the way builders used to have vats of tea on building sites which sat all day and got really strong. Or so my dad, who was briefly a builder, tells me.

Almost everyone likes tea in the middle two colours. Very light and very dark are rare.

3. The cup. A mug of tea is definitely the preference for most. This is a china mug not a clear glass mug. But look, if you made me a cup of tea in a vase or in a cereal bowl I'd still be grateful - although I'd think you were a little weird.

4. The brewing. You can brew your tea in a cup or in a teapot (if you're posh). Put the teabag in then pour boiling hot water onto it - by the time you've filled the cup all you'll need is a couple of squeezes of the teabag with a spoon and you'll have a lovely dark colour. It should be dark brown.

5. The milk. Most people like semi-skimmed milk in their tea. We never take cream in tea. And we never heat the milk or make it frothy. That should stay firmly in the world of coffee. Milk goes in last if you want to check the colour is right.

So that's it. If you know anyone who works in a coffee shop please send this post to them. As a homesick British person. I'd really appreciate it!

And lastly here is some tea trivia:

The British are the largest per capita tea consumers in the world, with each person consuming on average 2.5 kg per year.

The bubbles on the top of a cup of tea poured from a tea pot represent money. The more bubbles, the more money you will come into soon.

British people like to "dunk" their biscuits (cookies) in tea.

Tea leaf reading used to be common - women used to look at the pattern that loose tea left in the bottom of your cup to tell your fortune.

Some people of the older generation use a cup and saucer - pouring tea into the saucer before slurping it from there. Frankly it's a bit weird and no young person does that.

Cravendale and the muppets

2012-02-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

I BLOODY LOVE THE MUPPETS

There I've said it. Basically anything they do is fine by me. Now they've teamed up with the Cravendale team to make more brilliant Cravendale advertising. I just love the randomness of this! How much would I love to have written scripts for Kermit? Like totally! (sorry been spending a lot of time in LA recently).

The ad is part of Cravendale's sponsorship of the Muppet Movie (good call milk people) in which stickers of the muppets can be collected and stuck onto milk bottles as so.

Brilliant. I would definitely smile every time I opened my fridge if there was a muppet in it. Plus it's a great way of getting children to drink more milk. Healthier bones will be the result - mark my words.

Which ad agency came up with the campaign? Damn it it was Wieden and Kennedy again.
Well those guys work really hard so I have to be pleased for them.

British markets - erotic, good for thieving and giant pencils

2012-01-13T06:07:00.000-08:00

I adore videos where old footage have been given new funny VOs. Is that a joke which ever gets old? Check out this documentary on British Markets from the 70's.

Bookshelf tidying - how do you do yours?

2012-01-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

My Fiance WIll and I have just moved into a new house. One of the things that Fiance was really looking forward to was having more bookshelf space. In our last flat we had to have a two deep system. The back row were books which were slightly out of favour - including Fiance's Geoffrey Archer's which make me shudder to even look at (yes I'm a book snob). In the new house almost all our books fitted on two sets of built in shelves in the front room. But how to organise them? Fiance and I decided on a strict size order where all books of a certain size were placed together on a shelf and so on to create straight lines wherever possible. I have been to other people's homes (Krista if you are reading this) who have employed a colour system: less straight lines, but pretty like a rainbow. Libraries have to work on an alphabetical system (of course) but I think this is pretty ugly in the house. Eventually, when I actually have bought a chair on which to stand (we have no furniture at the mo)I will reorganise the books again, so that, where possible the books of the same size are also ordered either alphabetically or by colour. Yes, I'm that kind of person. Oh and by the way, in case you were wondering how I managed to hide the Geoffrey Archer novels in my new system, they are in the charity bag.

Oh and here are some book organising animations to please everyone - even those not as anal about bookshelves.

LA adventures

2011-12-01T01:30:00.000-08:00

The best thing about being in LA with work are the restaurants you get to go to.

I've particularly enjoyed them on this visit to Santa Monica and even made it up to Hollywood for a dinner in Soho House Hollywood. Incidentally the only celeb I saw is one of the girls from The Only Way Is Essex. If you are American and reading this it's like The Hills.
Anyway I've eaten a lot of sushi. I've enjoyed Sushi Samba (sashimi to die for), Sushi Roku (swishy) and Hama Sushi (amazing lobster miso).
I ate steak in Boa (just amazing melting meat and the sides..oh my mouth waters) and tuna steak in Shutters (simple and delicious). The pizza I had in Stella Rosa was the yummiest that's ever tickled my tastebuds.

There have been some bum notes. But really Santa Monica is a foodie heaven.

Sunset at Shutters in Santa Monica.

Lobster miso in Hama Sushi in Venice, LA

Soho House Hollywood.

So the only problem is now I am well and truly spoilt. I already have to make my own guacamole in the UK...I don't fancy trying to cook my own Lobster!

Back to Lala Land and my first ever Thanksgiving.

2011-11-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

Hello hello

It's been a while hasn't it. It hasn't been that my brain has frozen into a green bean that fell out of a bag of green beans in the freezer and got stuck to the freezer drawer. Oh no. It's actually that I've been leading a very hectic life recently. This isn't like when you told the teacher your dog ate your homework. I am not just making up excuses.

Work has been all-consuming. I've had a huge project. It's been very exciting but stressful. In fact it is the best project I have ever worked on. I'm not going to say this to my boss (until I get drunk at the Christmas party) because I'll sound like a loser. Noone wants to be that excitable. But I'm really proud of what we have produced. It's not finished yet of course, so I'm probably jinxing the whole thing.

The project has meant that I have spent the last 2 and a half weeks in LA. I currently reside in a rather swanky hotel. It was where Shane Ward filmed a music video. Shane Ward? Come on you remember him from X factor. Louis Walsh says he's a big star!!

During this time I also enjoyed my first Thanksgiving dinner. My two colleagues and I were lucky enough to bag the company of two of the LA Creatives for a dinner in a cozy old fashioned restaurant where we had turkey, bread pudding, mash, corn, greens and even an apple crumble for desert. Afterwards we had a pyjama party (minus the pjs) watching classic movies like Beetlejuice and Sexy Beast under duvets lying on cushions on the floor. It was like being 15 again.

Lovely work friends and I.

yummy.

So thank you America for having me. I liked your holiday very much.

Definition by list - who are you?

2011-10-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

Often, when I'm walking by myself, I play games in my head. One of my favourites is called list of me. You are all going to think I'm very sad but list making is one of my most favourite activities. List of me is simple - I list what I'm wearing, where I got it and how much it cost. If it was a gift it counts as free...unless you know the price. But when you think of it a list can define your day too. How many cups of tea you drank, how many times you emailed your partner, how many posts you wrote on your blog. Here's my list of me today. I'd love to read your list of you so please send me one.

Silver and semi precious stone earrings: Christmas present from my Dad from Crundles in Swansea. (counts as free)
Silver Necklace : present from my ex bought in medina in Tunisia.(free)
Platinum and diamond engagement ring: bought by Fiance in Bond Street. (free)
Red bra: present from Fiance from Agent Provocateur in Selfridges (free)
Purple pants: Calvin Klein discount store in Bridgend (£4)
Seven for all mankind jeans: Gilt staff sale in New York. (£30)
Black vest top: hand-me-down from my colleague Krista (free)
Black cardie: from Mango on Oxford Street (£40)
Black trainers: Gola from Bridgend discount store (£12.99)
socks: M&S (a complete guess: £2)
Leather jacket: River island in Swansea (£100)
Total outfit: £188.99

Things I spilt on my jeans today: White wine at lunchtime. Berrocca.
Things I've eaten today: porridge, strawberries, blueberries, honey, squid, prawns, roast potatoes, beef, figs and parma ham, stew, bread, pizza, spinach, egg.
Estate agents emails: 6.
Number of houses I've liked that I've been sent today: 0
Times I've changed my mind about buying house: 3.
Number of houses looked at in Swansea just to see what I could buy if I actually lived there instead of London: 8

Ok ok send me your lists and I promise to read them and comment back.

Love to you all xxx

Charles Matton's exhibition - one of the best I've ever seen

2011-09-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of Charles Matton don't worry, you're not retarded, he is little known, especially when you consider how talented he really was. A French sculptor, painter, photographer, model maker and many other things, his work has been mostly hidden away and only come to light in the few years since his death in 2008. Perhaps he was knocked back and lacked confidence, perhaps he hated self-promotion, perhaps he felt like fame would damage his art, either way I feel it is a shame that the world can only now see these masterpieces.

Charles Matton's exhibition in "All Visual Arts" in Kings Cross is free and contains over 36 of his pieces. In themselves they look like a lifetime's work. First there are the beautifully intricate miniature rooms - every detail constructed with such painstaking care that each book looks readable, each newspaper perfectly printed, each duvet creased and dirtied as if they had been lived in. Matton uses mirrors to create rooms that have depth and space outside his construction. They allow you to pear into adjoining corridors, to believe that the libraries in a single box actually sprawl on forever. The mirrors also play tricks on you. Sometimes you struggle to work out where they are. Sometimes they appear to be in one place when actually it's just wire and symmetrical object arrangements. But the best thing about his rooms is they seem to tell stories. stories of absences, stories of sad lives, stories of decay and neglect as well as collection and even, in one disturbing room - masochism. Even the light is included, lightboxes creating shadows in rooms and light falling from fake windows making patterns on carpets.

Matton's efforts to keep his art works original meant he would produce large paintings only in order to reduce them and hang them in his tiny microcosms. So to produce one piece of model making he's have already created 12 pieces of separate art. In another piece he depicts the room of a sculptor of the human form and fills his room with tiny handmade sculptures.

But that wasn't the end of the process. After all this work he would then photograph or make paintings of the scenes he had created. Each capturing scenes that seem hyper-real.

Here are some of my pictures of the exhibition but the true effect and the feeling of discovery and exploration that you get as you walk around can only be appreciated when you see the exhibition. Do not miss it.

And these are the pictures he took of the models.

For this work matton had to paint every picture in the collector's bedroom. The full sized pictures he painted for this piece are displayed alongside the model. He then reduced them down to use.

This painting was made from one of his bathroom models.

His most disturbing piece is this attic scene from the house of a masochist. He posed for all the degrading images on the wall too. In this and in the bedroom scenes in particular you get the sense of a whole story being told.

This is the most Francis Bacon piece to my mind. His sculpture explores human shapes and forms and their movement and distortion.

NEWS FLASH: Giant baby trashes bar!!!!

2011-09-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

I'm really not quite sure what this video is. But it's pretty funny. Baby drinks alcohol (fake I hope) and does what a baby does: cause mayhem. It's also got puppets. I like puppets. Watch and enjoy.

Unleash your fingers: Galaxy SII for France

2011-09-15T05:35:00.000-07:00

A pretty nifty new way of representing touchscreen in an advert. Check out this lovely bit of choreography and animation.

Guy is nice to watch too methinks.

Arthur Kannas, one of the founders of Heaven Conseil, who is a specialist in communication and online marketing said: “I watched Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky and I knew right away that this viral video had to feature music. Then the universe of dubstep and urban style popped into my mind. I just had to find an original way to reflect the values promoted by Samsung (…) When I discovered Jay Funk, I knew he was the artist I needed. His dance expressed a language that reminded me of phone handling. The Samsung phone becomes the extension of hands".

Love it when there is a nice poncy arty explanation for the ad too.

I'm buying a house, but more exciting than that...

2011-09-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

Everyone...I am finally joining the adult world and making a commitment to bricks and mortar. the lucky lucky house will be a little victorian terrace near Greenwich. I will love it and paint it and convert the loft and clean it's skirting boards. I will remove the textured wallpaper from the ceiling and paint over the brightly pine varnished built in cupboards. i will restore the fireplaces and then fill them with crap like candles. oh house I will love you.

...But not as much as I will love the two kittens I will buy as soon as we have a spare £700. After a life of having to convince my parents to buy a pet (they finally got a gorgeous Ragdoll kitten called Maisie who now lives with my Dad) I can get my own at will. And just to celebrate, I'll get two. Because I can. They will keep each other company when I'm out, and keep me company when I'm in. They will snuggle up on my lap to watch X Factor and purrr loudly when I'm trying to sleep. They will annoy me by scratching my new sofa and throw up on my work. And I will love them.

The question is which breed shall I get?

A Ragdoll like Maisie?
A Maine Coon (apparently they aren't lap cats but they are beautiful)
A birman (is it just a not-as -good ragdoll?)
A british blue (my favourite option but now I'm thinking not fluffy enough)
A Norwegian Forest cat - apparently very clever and lively
Or something else?

Font fun

2011-09-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

Ever doodled words in bubble writing in class? Ever written your name with a sparkler? Well you were probably creating some lovely typography. One of my art director buddies sent me this font website after the words "handwritten" came up a bunch of times (art directors usually look a bit concerned when this idea rears its head).
http://www.handmadefont.com/

There are some seriously inventive ways of writing here - including ones using smoke, flowers, fruit and even poo (that one grossed me out).

And what's better than inventive type? Animated type! Loving this!

Sparkler from Handmadefont on Vimeo.

Back to the start - Chipotle and Coldplay by Willie Nelson

2011-09-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

This made me feel a little teary. Nostalgia is so strong. For a time when things were simpler and more beautiful. Love this advert.

Dale farm gypsies - losing their homes even though they are on their land

2011-08-31T02:21:00.000-07:00

I promised to publicise articles in support of gypsy communities when I see them being mistreated. Here is a good example. The community of Irish gypsies in Essex on Dale Farm are set to have their homes bulldozed soon because they did not gain planning permission for their homes. The council argue that this is because they are on green belt land. Now I am all for protecting the countryside. But the land that they turned into a traveller site was actually a scrap yard before - hardly the rural ideal that the word "green belt" calls to mind. Plus the gypsies aren't squatters. They own the land. Thirdly doesn't this strike you as unfair considering news reports this week that there aren't enough new homes being built to match demand and that the process of gaining planning permission is too difficult and lengthly. In the article below Vanessa Redgrave has gone to meet the community and draw attention to their plight. The Guardian has written about it in a positive light - taking the side of the gypsies. I doubt very much if they will get the same notice or sympathy from the conservative press.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/vanessa-redgrave-dale-farm-travellers

Oh look...in fact I've found an article written from (predictably) the other side in The Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031921/Vanessa-Redgrave-Lives-ruined-Essex-travellers-evicted.html

What's your opinion?

Honk if you're human!

2011-08-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

It's nice after years of human bashing "oh aren't we awful we're causing global warming", "god we're horrid all this war and greed and killing, "no one's faithful...Ashley cheated on Cheryl again" stuff, to hear someone celebrating humans for the marvellously clever things that we all are. We can make cars and toilets and the internet! Yay us! That's why I like this advert for BBC knowledge. Its also really cute. Aren't the animators great! Yay us again!

Look here's another cute one. Apparently they're by Three Drunk Monkeys.

Aardman produce the world's largest stop motion film

2011-08-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

Its lovely for us ad people when we get to work with brilliant studios and directors to produce something really artistic and beautiful. This is what has happened to the creatives who work on Nokia over at Weiden and Kennedy.'Gulp' is a short film created by Sumo Science at Aardman, depicting a fisherman going about his daily catch. It was shot on location at Pendine Beach in South Wales and every frame of this stop-motion animation was shot using a Nokia N8. The film has broken a world record for the 'largest stop-motion animation set', with the largest scene stretching over 11,000 square feet.

It must be nice for the team. A little birdy told me that Nokia are cutting their budgets because their handset sales are dropping. Weidens have certainly been laying people off of late. Anyways enough chit chat, watch and enjoy.

Gulp. The world's largest stop-motion animation shot on a Nokia N8. from Nokia HD on Vimeo.

And here's the making of, which as Emilien pointed out, is pretty good too.

Beat-boxing Subway battle - with some awesome dance moves.

2011-07-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

OMG how much do I LOVE this video to advertise Subway's new American Sandwich?? And I'm proud to say (and a little bit jealous too) that my friends Melissa and James, Creatives at McCann-Erickson London, made it. Great casting, great dancing, great song. Well done guys.

The man without a Facebook

2011-07-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

My Fiance is a socialmediaphobe. Ironically he IS on Facebook but never checks it. He IS on Twitter but moans about the juvenility of tweets and Twitterers and he doesn't have a blog. He would be quite happy to live like the man in this fake movie.

This video was sent to me by my colleague Rey. He looked at my Facebook page and came over to my desk to comment on a status update I'd made. I was confused. "Why didn't you just put a comment on it?", I asked. So he sent me this video.

Pretty poster project

2011-07-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

1200 Posters is a project by a collection of illustrators working around the themes of community, collaboration and conversation. On the 12th of every month for a year, they are releasing a limited-edition print (100) by a different artist.

Check out the site here:

http://1200posters.com/about/

I would imagine they will sell out pretty fast because one of the posters was featured on Emerald Street - the email that Stylist magazine puts out every week. But here's a few of my favourites so far:

"Ask what's possible, not what's wrong. Keep asking." Poster by Catherine Chi. Inspired by: Technicolor, gilded objects, paper ephemera, red lacquer, music halls, torch songs, society portraits, and thrift stores.

"Talk to people you know. Talk to people you don't know. Talk to people you never talk to."Poster by Ole Tillmann. Inspired by: Spongebob Squarepants, Helge Schneider, Palimpsest, what's underneath/inside things, the ocean.

"Treasure curiosity more than certainty." Poster by Lia Marcoux. Not sure what inspires her...

Theo Altenberg - colourful fluid oil paintings

2011-07-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely sure how Theo Altenberg manages to achieve the affect that he does on cardboard but it's certainly beautiful. Looking at his paintings is like looking at clouds - you see forms that might represent mountains, fire, human bodies, caves in the sea dripping reflected light and emotional states appearing but whether they are seen by the artist himself as he paints is a mystery. See what you can see in these expressive paintings.

http://www.theoaltenberg.com/wp/

What happens when you die.

2011-07-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've just written a post on "what happens when you die" on my book blog. If you'd like to read my version of the afterlife then please head over to The Copywriter's Bookshelf:

http://copywritersbookshelf.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-happens-when-you-die.html

Apples: only this kitten knows they are evil!

2011-07-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

You might have assumed that the green apple was fairly harmless. Only this kitten knows the truth: that they are evil aliens from outer space who must be attacked! People! watch this cat in it's courageous attempt to defend human kind from the deadly green apple.

Helicopter Dick and other genius moments

2011-07-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

Working in the office on the day that should have been the summer party did have its perks. The best being our head of Traffic showing me the amazingly funny and celebrity splattered music videos from The Lonely Island. Most of you Americans will be very familiar with these videos since, I am told, they play on Saturday Night Live (correct me if I'm wrong). So this post if for those unlucky enough not to have already seen them...or lucky enough to be viewing them for the first time. Watch out for guest appearances by Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga and more.

Here's their official website:

http://www.thelonelyisland.com/

And here's a taster of the gems you will find there:

Sharks...making adverts better

2011-06-21T04:09:00.000-07:00

Thomas my advertising buddy and part time collaborator on this blog (I steal everything he sends me) sent me this brilliantly funny Snickers Commercial. This ad takes quite a boring premise, the focus group saying that Snickers taste good, and gives it a funny twist by making it about sharks eating people that have eaten snickers...ooohhh they taste good! Made me laugh.

Oh and here's some more sharky advertising- less dark, quite sweet really.

awww dolphin

agghhhh shark!

Big nose?...yes that's me. Thanks for making me feel shitter about it

2011-06-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

BGH in Argentina is promoting its new line of silent Air conditioners with the campaign "Big nose". People with a big nose, who need air filtered more due to their capacity to take in more at one time, get a discount of 25% on their air conditioners. All you have to do is to measure your noses in the Nose-o-meter which flashes and sets off an alarm if you touch a sensor with your over-sized honker.
I would rather die frankly. I have been blessed with a rather big nose and if a store assistant or anyone pointed it out, let alone an alarm going off to tell the whole shop, I would burst into tears. Yes I'm vain, yes I'm sensitive, yes I have no sense of humour about my physical appearance. But seriously. Only a boy creative team would come up with an idea like this (a boy team at Saatchi and Saatchi). And I assume only men will venture into the shops to pick up their discounts. This is a perfect example of the creative idea which makes you male creative boss laugh and every stupid dumb arse male in your agency really excited, only to go out and be totally inappropriate. Sorry for my rant...its just that I'm rather sensitive about this issue. In fact I feel a little upset. Excuse me. I've got to go and...sniff...blow my 25% discount giving asset.

Blame Canada for having such beautiful olympic branding.

2011-06-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the rebranding work for the Canadaian Olympic team? It's very pretty. In complete contrast to the UK's effort which kicked up a storm of discussion and derision in the media. And also in contrast to the boring effort of the USA who, unsurprisingly, have been pretty conservative.In fact their team branding looks like it hasn't been changed since the 1950's.

Here's the Uk's attempt...90% of people in the UK hate it.

Here's the USA's version...I would imagine that 90% of people don't have any opinion on it

Here's Canada's...pretty don't ya think?

Here's a video which explains how the design was thought about.

The Canadian Olympic Team Brand from Canadian Olympic Team on Vimeo.

Being a design that doesn't contain itself is strange...I wonder how this is going to translate into olympic athletes' outfits. Maybe they will use just the mapel leaf with the design internalised.

Vision Express...the worst service ever?

2011-06-14T03:25:00.000-07:00

Vision Express Oxford Street have as usual sent my contact lenses to the wrong address. Since this about the 10th mistake they've made - including:
Not recording my appointment so they had no register of it when I turned up.
Giving me three months supply for only one eye twice, sending to the wrong address three times,
Telling me they couldn't fix my glasses then, when I'd bought new ones telling me they had the spare part needed, and then telling me that I couldn't complain to anyone about it,

...I will now be leaving them never to return. Utter idiots.

Falling in love in Bali.

2011-06-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've done a lot of falling in love recently and its really taken the puff out of me. But what can you do when you've been to the beautiful island of Bali and some of your heart has stayed there. Parts of my heart have been dropped in the blue waters just off the Gili islands and been eaten by sea turtles. Some has been stolen by naughty monkeys in the monkey forest at Ubud. Some of my heart got left in the hotel shuttle bus with the long eye-lashed giggling Balinese guy who hummed out-of-tune to the radio every day. Some of my heart got swept away with the plates in Naughty Nuri's rib shack, to be licked clean by hungry travellers. Some drifted away bumping into rocks while white water rafting, and now floats between the steep palm tree covered slopes of the valley, driven under by tumbling waterfalls. I gave some of my heart away in return for the birthday cake from hotel Tepi Sawer and the polo shirt given as a gift to my Fiance. I gave some in payment for the bronze statue of Ganesh and the detailed story of his life written by the shop assistants. And I left bits of my heart all over Bali as my offerings to the gods, trod underfoot on pavements, by fat god statues, ones with big sharp teeth, ones with big hanging breasts, on walls, in temples, in restaurants in shops. So you'll see there isn't much of my heart left for London.

Tiny living in a room that transforms into a whole house.

2011-05-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

A guy in Tokyo has designed a tiny apartment which uses the same space over and over to create different rooms via a series of pull out walls and fold down beds. This is an amazing use of space and, surprisingly simple technology too. Clever clever stuff.
Thanks to Timethief for this vidoe who I found on Blog Catalogy - the new blogging site I've joined.
Here's her link http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/timethief/blogs/

It also reminds me of this advert for Stella Artois by Mother.

Silhouette Bears made of tape and other arty offerings from Lenneke Van der Goot

2011-05-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

Artist Lenneke Van der Goot combines a few great things in his work:
1. Bears. everyone loves bears - esp Yogi and Paddington.
2. Tape...so useful! and
3. Windows - preferable in any building...apart from a secret bunker where you might hide Terrorist fugitives with dyed beards perhaps.

Here are some pieces of Lenneke's work. Unfortunately his bio is in German but I'm pretty sure he was raised by bears and spacemen and developed a scientific method for floating around forests. Oh and he went to Stoke university.

http://www.lennekevandergoot.nl/dev/start.php

Apart from the bears I really like his paintings - moody, lost in the forest pieces that speak of loneliness.

Let me know what you think.

Colon...gets rid of 101 stains

2011-04-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

hahahahaha....colon.

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The nooks and crannies of Welsh history

2011-04-26T08:49:00.001-07:00

In school I was taught a fair bit of Welsh history but actually its the local history, the history of private grounds, families, buildings and tiny villages nestled in the trees in Gower that really interest me. This bank holiday my fiance, my sister and my dad went exploring south Wales looking for wedding venues and found lots of little histories, like mysteries waiting to be unwrapped.

First there's the story of Old Pennard, the village abandoned to the march of sand and erosion by Three Cliffs bay.

Then there's the story of Llanelen, the Gower village that took in 7 sailors from a ship wreck and buried all the other dead sailors in a mass grave. The sailors were thought to have influenza, caught because they almost drowned. Unfortunately it was the plague and the entire village died and was buried within a week. The village is now ruined under the woods near Llanrhidian.

Then there's the story of Craig y nos castle. Once it was the home of the famous opera singer, Madam Patti who sang for royalty and had many rich and important guests. She even built a theatre where she would give private concerts. After her death it became a home for TB sufferers, including children who were separated from their families and treated with lots of cold air and exercise. many children and adults died there and their ghosts, including the ghost of a little boy are mean to be seen in the windows.

This is the Penrice estate in Gower. The family apparently once owned much of Gower, they still own Oxwich bay.

This is Craig y Nos castle - the haunted ex-TB hospital and home to Madam Patti

This is Madam Patti's personal theatre inside the TB hospital.

Sing against the public sector spending cuts

2011-04-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

The recent Unison marches in London were partly overshadowed by the violence of the minority. Here's the other side in a video by Nottingham Unison (public sector trade union) featuring the talents and voices of the London branch too. My cousin Leo is the one singing out against the Tories at the beginning. I didn't even know he could sing like that. Go Leo!!!

The plight of the public sector is very close to my own heart as my family mostly work in the public sector. My Mum was a social worker, my dad a teacher, my Aunty and cousin work in Croydon Council in waste management. Also I hail from Swansea, where the local economy is based mainly on money from the public sector. In fact Swansea is such an extremely public sector - orientated place that every time they talk about cuts on the BBC news they mention Swansea.

All I can hope is that the Conservative Party listen to the people. And if not, I hope they get clobbered in the forthcoming local elections.

Royal wedding craziness

2011-04-15T09:36:00.001-07:00

Britain (and probably America too) has gone royal wedding crazy. And it's big bucks for the economy (sorry big pounds) - the only good news the chancellor of the exchequer has had this year. Not only are Kate's fashion choices making Issa very popular and wealthy, and her engagement ring changing the fashion for diamonds to sapphires, there are postcards, flags, t-shirts, mugs and even toilet seats with Kate and Will's emblazoned on the front. It's not the best taste but it is good fun. And we British love a bit of tongue in cheek jubilation.

Here's T-mobile jumping on the band wagon in brilliant style with a looky-liley jamboree wedding ceremony executed by Saatchi and Saatchi. Don't you kinds wish Wills and Kate would just do this and surprise us all?

Here's a little making of video:

Two dogs sharing a lovely polite dinner - GENIUS!

2011-04-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Love it. Thanks Antoine C, lovely work buddy.

Wooden Phone commercial - most longwinded ever

2011-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

The video is for the Touch Wood SH-08C, a phone with an encasement made from discarded wood. It will be released by NTT Docomo in Japan later this year. The commercial was filmed in Kama City in Kyushu, Japan.

Morihiro Harano, creative director at Japanese ad agency Drill, said of the ad (via the New York Times) “We did not add any artificial music at all”. Hmmm...surely it's impossible that that ball wouldn't have even fallen off once? I guess there was a lot of editing involved.

In any case it takes ages to get to the product at the end. Beautiful piece of film but could have been half the length to get the point made. Smacks a little of art directors wanking...

Skittles ad - disturbing

2011-04-01T02:36:00.000-07:00

OMG! I actually feel a little violated by this. Funny though.

Revealed!!! The truth about Barbie's home life!!!!!

2011-03-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

STOP THE PRESS!! Barbie is a psychopath! And we have the pictures to prove it. Taken by undercover photographer Mariel Clayton these photos show the depraved bloody reality of Barbie's life - her alcoholism, her excess and worst of all, how she decapitates men and women and stores her victim's heads in her bathroom.

It turns out that while Barbie spends her day posing as a vet, a ballet dancer, and a princess, by night she is scouring the streets and luring men back with promises of sexual favours only to murder them. She often even drinks their blood. How Mariel Clayton escaped her clutches I don't know!
Also Barbie has a rather nice house with two spacious bathrooms. Well I guess she's probably made of money.

Adidas 3d experience - projection

2011-03-31T09:50:00.000-07:00

Adidas France - 3D Mapping Projection from The Cool Hunter on Vimeo.

I'd love to have seen this event in person - a brilliantly immersive 3D projection for Adidas France by The TCH Access Agency.(at least I think it's by them?)

Escape machine

2011-03-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

Escape Machines - Surprise from The Cool Hunter on Vimeo.

How cute is the woman in the wooly hat who wants to go to England!? Anyway this is a nice silly idea very well executed by DDB Paris for the French travel company Voyages SNCF.

Microsoft parody

2011-03-30T02:39:00.000-07:00

Every now and then brands like to put out a "vision of the future" advert. These adverts don't advertise anything that the brand has actually made, but merely make imaginative speculations about what could happen and then try to claim that's what their companies are all about. So recently Microsoft made one. "Look", they said, "we aren't trying to match Apple. No, No, No. We are trying to shape a completely new word." Silly sausages. Here's a very good spoof of their ad.
(Oh and Thomas thanks for the link...thieving again)

Angry Birds - THE MOVIE!!!

2011-03-30T02:33:00.000-07:00

So I have a confession to make. I'm posting stuff that Thomas, my work friend, is sending me. Guilty! But they are too good not to share. So here is the Trailer for Angry Birds the movie. Hilarious stuff.

Suck don't smoke.

2011-03-28T03:57:00.000-07:00

Love these adverts for Chupachups Lollies - compared to cigarettes they are the healthy option. These ads say student portfolio to me. But that's not a bad thing. It's actually that you can see the strategy and the ad is very pure in it's execution. Its the kind of ad you see in the best student books - ads that haven't been contaminated by budget or complicated product point which the client wants to address. So yes, I like. I wish it was mine.

Blink Vintage

2011-03-25T08:10:00.001-07:00

My friend and once-creative partner Liz Moss has set up a gorgeous new website called Blink Vintage to sell her brilliant vintage finds. Here's what she says about her website:

"Blink Vintage is Liz Moss. An avid collector of all things pretty and pre loved. Hoping to one day have a house of her own to fill with vintage delights but for now her little flat in South London is bulging at the seams. So what better way to continue to feed her passion than to share her finds with others. Blink Vintage is born."

So have a gander and buy someone lucky something unique as a gift. Liz will also act as your personal Vintage spotter so if you don't have time to find something gorgeous just tell her what you want and let her do all the hard work for you.

http://www.blinkvintage.com/

I particularly love the way she has taken old photographs and transformed them into gift cards. Such a unique idea.

Here's just one of the gorgeous Vintage items she has for sale.

Famous people wot I av seen

2011-03-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Ok I admit it, I'm bored. This is what happens when you pin down copy too far in advance of a meeting.

So, while I wait I'd thought I'd amuse myself in writing a list of all the famous people my other have spotted/met over the years. And yes, I want to hear your spottings too. And no, it doesn't count if you paid to see them or saw them on any kind of stage.

1. Prince Harry and Chelsea Davie - Elbowed past them in Selfridges, realised who they were, then stalked them into the naughty underwear section where they giggles at nipple tassels.

2. Jerry Springer - getting in his car in Florida. He has a nice car. In fact I was looking at the car and that's why I spotted him.

3. The entire cast of Goodness Gracious me, the Kumars etc - went to a charity party and they were all there - maybe I broke my own rule by including them as they did kinda go on a stage and we did kinda pay for tickets but Mira Syal did come say hi.

4. Rupert Penry-Jones - spent a few days doing voice overs with him. He's pretty cute - very tall and quite muscly. But he was always a bit sweaty as he motorbikes around.

4. Colin Salmon - This was two days recording Voice overs. He was in Spooks too by the way, and No. 1 Ladies detective agency

5. Jason Isaacs - Him wot was evil in Harry Potter. He didn't have the blonde wig and was almost unrecognisable apart from the very blue eyes - Voice overs again. Nice guy.

6. David Walliams - He was coming out of Claridges -so tall!!

7. Cynthia Nixon (aka Miranda from Sex and the City) - she was coming out of the Ivy's club/hotel thingie and getting in a car. I stared a lot so she glared at me and I stopped. She was in London for the premier of sex and the City 2. Her hair was really blonde.

8. Darius - Again - really tall! He let me go in front of him at the gates on the tube. Now don't judge me too harshly but he was pretty hot in the flesh.

9. Jimmi Carr - walking around near Bond Street. He clocked us clocking him so we tried to play it cool.

10. Boris Johnson - other half spotted him pretending to be a tramp walking about in South London. He smiled at my fiance in a "oh dear you clocked me dressed even more tramp like than usual" kinda way.

11. Paul Nicholls - Hanging around chatting in Soho. No he wasn't wearing that green jumper with the holes that he wore in Eastenders. In fact lets make this an Eastenders section so I don't have to list them all separately. I sat next to Scott Maslen (aka Jack Branning) in a sushi restaurant in Soho. He wasn't as cute in the flesh. Guy who plays Phil Mitchell in a pub in Falmouth - he owns a club down there. He was even redder in real life than he is on the telly.

12. Sophie from Peep Show - in Soho...nothing interesting to say about this really - but I do love peep Show. Soho is the number one place to spot minor celebs it seems!

13. Cameron Diaz and A Rod - My fiance spotted them at the luggage carousel at Heathrow. Apparently she was hot, but in a really weird fake way - like her face had had surgery. He didn't know what A Rod looked like so he only realised it was him later.

14. Lilly Allen with Keith Allen - saw them when Lilly was a little girl and Keith was buying her some toys in Hamleys. I only recognised him as the guy from those tooth fairy adverts.

Guest blog posts...lets begin!

2011-03-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hello all. I think it would be fun to do a bit of a blog swap - I'll guest blog for someone else and they can do it for me. Now since I am a person with an advertising centric blog the guest blogger should be someone creative. You could be in the same industry, or in something related like marketing or media, or simply have your own craft blog or write poems about pandas...or something else...fridge freezers perhaps.

If you are interested in guest blogging for me, or me guest blogging for you, please let me know. It's a great way to gain a few more followers and it will be fun too.

The most beautiful books

2011-03-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

If I was judging a competition to find the most beautiful book covers then I think that Coralie Bickford-Smith’s Penguin designs would win. With their beautiful patterns that look a bit like very expensive wallpaper the covers give a subtle hint at some of the themes of the book.

"The cover is there to serve the content, so the content has to be taken into consideration. How and to what extent the content is represented on the cover varies of course – sometimes it will be quite literal, other times more oblique, or even just a suggestion of mood and tone.” ~ Coralie Bickford-Smith

Dorian Grey's peacock design reflects the idea of vanity.

Great Expectations's chandeliers suggest the trappings of wealth which Pip falls for when he moves into society leaving Joe behind. Also the beauty and allure of Estella.

Tess's cover suggest the rural setting of the book and the hard farm work, as well as earthy natural beauty.

Fitzgerald's books were written in the 20's and contained themes associated with the era of decadence and flapper societies- reflected in the art deco designs.

Thanks to Brain Pickings for these pictures:
Read more: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/11/22/coralie-bickford-smith-penguin-book-covers/#ixzz1HEdseO7P

There's an app for that!!!

2011-03-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Loving this cute song by sesame Street which nods towards Apple

5 x 15 - Talks

2011-03-08T03:54:00.000-08:00

My work colleague Jane is attending a speaking event where they have 5 respected figures each allowed to speak on any subject for 15 minutes. The speakers are journalists, television presenters, writers etc...here's Janet Street Porter doing a hesitant and slightly scared but still funny piece on her uses for shower caps. Enjoy.

http://www.5x15stories.com/index.php?/videos/Janet-Street-Porter/

Alpha, Bravo story

2011-03-03T07:49:00.000-08:00

My colleagues are putting on an art show soon and they asked me to write some stories for it. The theme is the alphabet and their angle was the phonetic alphabet - you know: alpha, bravo, charlie etc - the thing you say on the phone when someone doesn't understand your Welsh accent. Anyway the challenge was to write an extremely short story - no more that 150 words using all of the words in the phonetic alphabet once. Here are 2 of mine:

Victor Bravo had been champion Tango dancer. He had also danced the Foxtrot in an Oscar winning movie. Those were the good years. He’d played golf with Mike Tyson, dined on kilos of caviar and romanced rich yankee women with names like Sierra and Delta. But, it was hotel gigs that kept him going. India, Quebec, Lima: he’d danced the world and tried every style, even Zulu! But then he met rich Juliett November. She swept him up in her purfume calling him her “Romeo” and threw out his sparkly uniforms. His love made him her pet, her echo and she could see through him like an x-ray. Her Papa, Charlie contantly belittled him for not being an alpha man. That’s why Victor Bravo had taken to hiding whisky bottles around their home.

Juliette had only known Romeo three days, 2 hours and 37 minutes. But she had dreamt of him since last November. He was an echo in her mind, dancing the tango, the foxtrot with her in the exotic India hotel. And when she finally met him, a Yankee smart in his uniform drinking whiskey with Victor and Mike, she felt as if he saw into her soul, like an x-ray. Born in Delta, Colarado, he had spent that last 5 years in Quebec, Lima and the Sierra mountains and a little place called Papa in Somoa, leading his group. He was a real alpha male, as fierce as a Zulu warrior, yet funny. On their first date they watched a Charlie Chaplin video, she nicknamed him Johnny Bravo and he confessed he played golf merely because he thought he should. They talked about Oscar Wilde and ate a kilo of ice cream. It was then she asked him to marry her.

Fancy a go? I'd love to read other people's so if you do please post them on your blogs and link them here - or just comment them. Thanks!

Cats with THUMBS!

2011-03-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

Lovely advert for Cravendale. I was a big fan of the last stop frame animation Cravendale campaign, but this is great too! Apart from the animation at the very end when they walk through the door that is. Over done egg.

Books not Bullets

2011-03-02T03:21:00.000-08:00

Untold Stories is a short animation which is part of a new campaign, Books Not Bullets. The campaign seeks to highlight the plight of child soldiers. Books Not Bullets is the brainchild of a group of Kirklees teenagers after they heard firsthand tales of genocide survivors. Its a sweet film with a very naive drawing style influenced by the work of the pupils. Take a look and tell me you're not moved.

From Detroit

2011-02-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

I guess it's a bit late to be talking about Super Bowl adverts. But I just saw this. And I love it.

Now I'm not American. But this advert taps into the same feeling of huge worth and potential that Alicia Keys's New York does. I get emotional and almost awed watching it. I love the pride it conveys about Chrysler's heritage and in Detroit as a whole. Detroit has its problems from what I have heard. Large areas are deserted as the population has rapidly decreased. In fact a survey in 2009 said that 10% of the city's houses were vacant. So I guess the advert has an added sense that the people who stayed in Detroit are believers. They grew up in an area that made cars and cars are in their blood.

It also does a good job of telling you that Chrysler is a quality car made by people who live in a country built for cars and who care about luxury. I'm not American but this advert made me want to be. And what's more. I made me want to buy a Chrysler 200.

Preparing for a client meeting and there's nothing for it...

2011-02-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

There's only one thing that can save us now....(Cue my Homie Bonnie Tyler)...

It's my birthday

2011-02-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

Im 28 on valentines day. And I'm away from friends and family in LA so please wish me a happy birthday and cross your fingers for a good day! Thank you!!

Venis Canals, Venice Beach....n...some other LA stuff

2011-02-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Howdy folks (do I sound American yet?). I've started to really enjoy my time out here in LA. Which is a good thing...it's my 20th day! On Friday night I decided to go it alone and go to a sushi restaurant. I spoke to concierge and they suggested Wabi Sabi on Abbot Kinney. Apparently it was some first friday of the month celebration on the street - an added bonus. So I rocked up to Wabi sabi and asked for a seat on my lonesome - they gave me one at the sushi bar next to a group of girls. They turned out to be really lovely and adopted me for the night. Cheryl, Ruby and Jackie - thank you all! I followed then to a wine bar called "The Other Room" where I got rather too drunk. The next day was hell, but the fact that I had had a proper night out, made friends and did it all by myself really made me feel so much better. Sunday i decided to exploit my new found "go it alone" confidence and set off bright and early for Venice. I walked all around the lovely canals taking pictures and looking at architecture while burning my shoulders. It was perfect. I loved it. Then I headed down to Venice beach and marvelled at all the freaky people. Before I knew it I'd walked all the way to Santa Monica. Walking back down Main street I stopped at the Victoria (Old Victorian...or something) and watched a bit of the Super Bowl. Then I walked all the way back to the Ritz and got there just in time to see the sunset. Perfect. in the evening I took myself for a romantic dinner in The Cheesecake factory and sat on the veranda with fairy lights and the boats bobbing. It was magical.

Here's my iphone pictures:

Bad ass honey badger - OMG!

2011-02-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

The team in LA are obsessed by this video. Check out this bad ass honey badger. OMG he's eating a snake! ewwww! The honey badger just don't give a fuck.

Superbowl!

2011-02-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

Being in LA at the moment means Superbowl has become a part of my life. Im not really interested in the sporting side. But what is exciting for us ad types are the big brands doing superbowl adverts. Here's a cute one by VW...only problem is...I don't remember much about the car....French Art Director hates it.

Gypsies: the most discriminated against ethnic group on earth.

2011-02-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

Recently everyone has been enjoying watching a programme called "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding". I myself have watched a couple of episodes. First to laugh at the huge dresses, secondly to marvel at the children's dancing. But the last episode I watched really got me thinking. It showed scenes of gypsy homes being torn down after a community of gypsies who actually OWNED the land were denied planning permission after a lengthly court fight. Yes, that's right. They OWNED the land. What's more is that they were now homeless and were forced to take their caravans with their toddlers to stay at the side of a motorway. How unsafe. The gypsies complained that this would mean that they were separated from their neighbours and family members and that they didn't want to be offered housing in council estates by the government for this very reason.

I looked at this human rights site and found the following report:

http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/rights-of-gypsies-and-travellers/index.html

Planning Permission for Caravan Sites

As has been said, (see Introduction) before the enactment of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994(CJPOA), local authorities had a statutory duty to provide caravan sites for Gypsies and Travellers under the Caravan Sites Act 1968 (CSA). However, the CJPOA 1994 removed that duty and gave local authorities and the police draconian powers to evict Gypsies and Travellers from unauthorised sites.

At the same time that the CJPOA 1994 was passed, the government introduced planning policy which favoured the private provision of sites for Gypsies and Travellers. Circular 1/94 Gypsy Sites and Planning (Circular 1/94-in Wales, Welsh Office Circular 2/94) stated that Gypsies and Travellers should be ‘encouraged’ to purchase land themselves and apply to legitimise their own sites through the planning system.

In theory, requiring Gypsies and Travellers to use the planning system would seem an equitable approach but for this policy to be credible there had to be some real prospect of obtaining planning consent for private sites. The House of Lords cast doubt on the effectiveness of this policy in South Bucks v Porter, Wrexham CBC v Berry, and Chichester DC v Keet and Searle. The judges observed that Gypsies’ and Travellers’ attempts to obtain planning permission almost always met with failure: statistics given to the court found that 90 percent of applications made by Gypsies and Travellers had been refused and that the number of sites that had been authorised had fallen far short of what was needed.

Circular 1/94 suggested that local planning authorities should assess the need for Gypsies’ and Travellers’ caravan sites in their administrative areas and identify locations where the land use requirements of Gypsies and Travellers can be met. If suitable locations could not be found, then local authorities were required to set clear and realistic criteria for establishing caravan sites.

However, very few local authorities complied with the policy in Circular 1/94. Little attempt was made to quantify the needs of Gypsies and Travellers and few, if any, local authorities identified suitable locations for such sites, preferring instead to adopt criteria-based policies which often included unrealistic and unclear requirements that had to be met before planning permission could be granted.

---------------------

It seems that local governments are doing little to help the problems of this group of people.

[Before we go on let me just explain the term "gypsy". Gypsy refers to the Romani people, an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent. The English term Gypsy (or Gipsy) originates from the Greek word for "Egyptian" (which is where people thought this group came from). ]

The site also details many other cases where gypsies were discriminated against. In fact in one of the episodes in "My big fat Gypsy wedding" gypsies talk about the fact that when venues find out that a wedding is a gypsy one, they suddenly are told they cannot have the venue. Sometimes meaning much-dreamed of weddings have to be reorganised at the last moment.

I also looked into Gypsy history and found a horrible catalogue of human rights violations. Please excuse the copy paste but here's what I found:

The Romani were enslaved for five centuries in Wallachia and Moldavia, until abolition in 1856. Elsewhere in Europe, they were subject to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their children, and forced labor. In England, Romani were sometimes hung or expelled from small communities; in France, they were branded and their heads were shaved; in Moravia and Bohemia, the women were marked by their ears being severed.
In Norway, where a law was passed in 1896 permitting the state to remove children from their parents and place them in state institutions. This resulted in some 1,500 Romani children being taken from their parents in the 20th century.
During World War II, the Nazis embarked on a systematic attempt at genocide of the Romanies, a process known in Romani as the Porajmos. Romanies were marked for extermination and sentenced to forced labor and imprisonment in concentration camps.They were often killed on sight, especially by the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) on the Eastern Front. The total number of victims has been variously estimated at between 220,000 to 1,500,000; even the lowest number would make the Porajmos one of the largest mass murders in history.
In Czechoslovakia, they were labeled a "socially degraded stratum," and Romani women were sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population. This policy was implemented with large financial incentives, threats of denying future welfare payments, with misinformation, or after administering drugs (Silverman 1995; Helsinki Watch 1991).
An official inquiry from the Czech Republic, reported: "the problem of sexual sterilization carried out in the Czech Republic, either with improper motivation or illegally, exists" with new revealed cases up until 2004, in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

I'm pretty shocked. It seems to me that the mockery inherent in this new programme "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" which is currently airing in the Uk is just another example of a group being targeted for discrimination. The title is mocking, the music is mocking. The narrator is mocking. Even the children are mocked, My friend who works in a Secondary School in East London says that she has taught some traveller (Gypsy) children and is shocked by the amount of abuse and discrimination against them that she has seen.

And oh lookie- The Guardian (classy left wing paper) agrees with me:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/30/gypsies-david-cameron-george-osborne

Oh and, surprise, surprise, the decidedly down-market, right wing, hate-filled Daily Mail decides to stick their boot in instead:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1350903/My-Big-Fat-Gypsy-Wedding-makes-Katie-Price-look-classy.html

What can we do to help? Im not sure really. But I've written a post of Facebook bringing these issues to light. I've written this post on my lowly blog. And I'm posting the link of a support and campaigning organisation. If I hear of any petitions in my local area against Gypsies I will not sign them. If I hear of any demos in support of their sites being given planning permission I hope to be able to support them.

Please think about doing the same.

http://www.dosta.org/en/content-10

Doodododo This is Hugh Pugh reporting from Fishguard

2011-01-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl in Wales, Mummy, daddy, Kate my little sister and a small number of other people in Wales sat down to watch the most unheard of comedy sketch show ever. It only ever aired in Wales and no brands would pay for adverts during it. But it was immense. I promise you. It has a lot of Welsh jokes - like Joking about how backward Wales is and our lack of technology. But us Welsh love a good laugh at ourselves so it was all gravy munn. It's pretty rude in places, but I was allowed to watch it coz my Mum went to college with the guy who wrote and acts in the show (John Sparks).

Here's some clips of the zany "Barry Welsh is Coming" for your enjoyment. I esp love the black and white reports by Hugh Pugh.

Lonely in LA LA

2011-01-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. Last night I attempted to go for a walk around Venice, only to be told that at 5pm it wasn't safe. The concierge kindly put me in a cab and told the driver "take her to 3rd street promenade". The words "I don't want to go there" didn't quite get out of my mouth so that's where I ended up. 3rd street and main street are the only places in LA I have actually been already. So anyways there I was. London college was sleeping all day and didn't want to come. I was too lonely to shop and every time a shop assistant wasn't super nice to me I wanted to cry (like when I was looking for a medium in a top and a shop assistant came over and said "excuse me Mam, but we only carry size small"). So I decided to make the most of London College's absence and eat sushi. He can't eat sushi coz he's allergic. That means I'm missing out on all the amazing sushi in LA (makes you realise how utterly horrible and crap Yo Sushi really is...mind you I already knew that). So I went to Sushi Roku in Santa Monica. By my self. I sat at the end of the bar and drank cocktails and ordered lobster rolls, salmon sashimi (dreamy), spicy scallop rolls and eel sushi. YUM! It was kinda sad I guess but i enjoyed it.

Anyway here's some more pics from my trip. This is my breakfast scene - looking over the marina at marina del ray

Paris haute couture

2011-01-26T18:55:00.000-08:00

In a spare moment I came across these beautiful if slightly strange Haute Couture creations from the Paris shows.

I can't do simple stylish dressing. But I have a sneaky suspicion that I could be happy wearing outlandish haute couture. Admittedly I'd go home and put my Target Pjs on but outside of the house I would be weird and fabulous. Someone please give me the money and I would wear these - maybe not the headgear...

This is Khaled el masri

I'd never heard of Khaled el Masri. I googled him and found that it is also the name of a suspected Al-Qaeda operative, believed to be a native of the former Soviet Union. Errrr....I guess that's not the guy who made this dress. Then I found this website:

http://www.khaledelmasri.info/en/

Here's some of his gorgeous exotic Queen-like creations from his Winter 2009 collection (seem to be the latest on his website):

Givenchy's collection by Italian designer Riccardo Tisci consisted of ten dresses inspired by the traditional Japanese art of butoh. According to wikipedia:butoh (舞踏 Butō?) is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku-Butoh (暗黒舞踏 ankoku butō?) movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience.

slightly drunk right now post

2011-01-23T21:28:00.000-08:00

Hi lovely readers.
I am a little under the effects of a bottle of red I shared in a lovely Tapas restaurant in Santa Monica. But nevertheless I wanted to write a little post. I had a lovely day today. Had a little swim in the hotel pool, after a little cycle in the gym, then went into work for 4 hours. But you know its fine working when you like the people you are working with. The creative team out here are totally great. And after we finished for the day, two of them took us out for tapas. It was on a street named Abbot Kinny (or something).
Anyways here are some pics from my trip so far. Mostly from the plane. We had to land in Goose, Canada because a guy got sick with stomach pains. I know it's cruel but I get stomach pains so bad that I can't move sometimes and I don't go making planes land! Anyways it took us 3 hours to get back in the air.

Think this was snow not cloud.

Snow over Canada

De-icing the runway - eat your heart out Gatwick and Heathrow.

On the runway - Goose - it's pretty quiet looking

Back in the air and over USA

The pool. My feet.

From my hotel room window - Marina del ray

Oh and I took all these shots on my iPhone4 - pretty good for a phone camera huh?

Out in LA LA land again

2011-01-21T21:07:00.000-08:00

Hello people. I am out in LA for the second time. Even got to fly first class. It really wasn't that spectacular and there were no celebs. I ask you...without the celebs, what's the point? Honestly when everyone else goes first class they get to sit by Tim Burton. I did get to lie on a flat bed and had very attentive flight stewards n stewardesses. And I got a white table cloth and champers on request. Unfortunately as I was going straight into the office I didn't fancy the hangover so I mostly declined alcohol. Boooo!

Well I'm going back business so maybe I'll know what the ups of first class really are after that.

I'm in my hotel room now which is rather swanky. But I miss Fiance. Who is actually in NYC. Must tell him to water my plants when he gets home. Poor Boris and Manwell are wilting by the second.

Tomorrow I don't actually have to work very much so I could take a taxi somewhere. I have no idea where to go. If anyone has a recommendation please let me know!

Over and out.

Weird Lego thief short film

2011-01-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Like it...it's weird.

What creatives talk like...every day!

2011-01-13T09:39:00.001-08:00

My Creative Director sent me this "so true" comedy sketch by the geniuses that are Mitchell and Webb. So if you want to find out how us "creatives" talk watch and laugh at our expense.

Christmas Party Story

2011-01-12T03:42:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Happy New Year!! I hope you've all resolved to read and comment on my blog this year (please do!!!). Last year ended with some scary stuff, some family drama, some brain damage from serious alcohol intake and a hell of a lot of cheese.

So first of all the scary stuff. Work asked me to read a story at the Christmas party. "Yes ok" said I, inwardly curling up and dying prematurely. I had no idea what I was going to read to 70 clever advertising types when they were drunk and just wanted to reach desert, so I decided to look at my blog and see if I could find any inspiration.

It might sound weird but it's easier to type "diary of an advertising girl" into google than going through my bookmark bar to get to my blog - so I typed it in and randomly it brought up a really old post of mine called "Ways to be Welsh"
http://diaryofanadvertisinggirl.blogspot.com/2010/01/ways-to-become-welsh.html

It was obviously a sign from the Gods of the internet so rewrote it slightly and submitted it for approval with the Planning boss. So two weeks later I find myself standing in a spotlight surrounded by a circle of slightly drunk people all looking at me expectantly. SHIT! So I began. I meant to do the first sentence in a strong Welsh accent. Unfortunately I couldn't stop. I did the whole thing in a really strong accent. I acted my piece, I walked around bare footed and gestured and I got so into it I wasn't Adgirl any more, I was Angharad from the Swansea valleys. It helped. I had forgotten how acting can take your fear away. And people laughed at all the right places. It was great. Then finally it was over. I was so high I had to down two glasses of wine. Lots of people came up and told me how good I was. It was a wonderful feeling. So one of the scariest things I have done all year became the best. Thanks blog!

Here's a bit of me in action:

Merry Christmas from google

2010-12-17T06:10:00.000-08:00

The nativity re-told for our age. Follow that star on twitter! Haha nice.

Stats like you've never experienced before

2010-12-17T03:01:00.000-08:00

Hans Rosling's 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes. Fascinating statistical study of the world and how standards of living have developed.

First ever film made by cats!

2010-12-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

The first ever film shot entirely by cats! Actually pretty entertaining...and a good advert for Friskies!

The cutest video I've ever seen!

2010-12-14T02:17:00.000-08:00

Spurred by the fact that there are only 200 three clawed sloths left in the world (very sadly this is probably due to the fact that they are too lazy to get down and dirty) my friend sent me this very cute video from the sloth orphanage. It's the cutest video ever!

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

And on wikepedia it says they are actually competent swimmers! By the looks of it they are competent - but so slow they don't go anywhere...esp if there's a current. Take a look:

Student protests

2010-11-30T06:27:00.000-08:00

Half an hour ago I got accidentally caught inside a police defence line. Batons raised up against me it was a wall of black and yellow - like angry wasps blocking my way. I had gone out from work to collect my contact lenses (yes I'm obviously very dangerous) at Oxford Circus and bumped into a student protest. They were banging drums, holding a few protest signs, shouting a bit. There were almost as many police officers and riot vans. When even more police arrived the protestors sensed they might be being kettled and began to move....

(Kettled by the way is the police tactic that sees them trap and contain protestors in a small area. Protestors, finding they are trapped, get very angry and violent, then they calm down and just want to go home. This tactic is supposed to be only used when protestors are already violent. last week my friend Max who is doing a phd got caught in such a holding and was there for 10 hours in the cold with no food or rest).

...anyway as soon as they started trying to move the police, sensing they might loose their opportunity to contain the students went mental, running, and driving riot vans across the central road island to block their path, straight into protestors. I saw an unarmed man who looked like a geeky mature student grabbed by three police officers and pinned against a police man roughly while he held his hands up in a gesture of peace.

The scene was too much for me. I have huge sympathy for the students and I hate to hear about peaceful demonstrations that are brutally controlled by the police. I started crying. At that point I found myself faced by the wall of police officers with batons. It was threatening and frightening. I walked straight at the line slowly and looked at the floor, they let me pass.

Max told me that last week while the papers reported the bad behaviour of the student protesters and made them seem like extremists, they didn't report that there was a protest held by older graduates with their children, as well as younger school students that was charged by police on horses.

The police force should be ashamed. David cameron and Nick Clegg should be ashamed. In a democratic country this should not be happening.

Berlin! Ich lieber dich!

2010-11-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

In November I went on a trip to Berlin. When Fiance and I were looking for a hotel we came across this insane artists' hotel. Fiance was desperate to stay. I was not. Now I don't want to be a spoil sport - I love art. It's part of my job. But I don't want to sleep in it! I want a nice comfortable hotel room that I can relax in. Check out some of the rooms:

http://www.propeller-island.com/rooms_neu/room_detail/g/index.php

2 cages and a toilet at the top of a tower

Impression of being inside a kaleidoscope

Sleep in coffins or the bed underneath.

A friendly prison cell complete with toilet in the bedroom.

The bed is suspended from the ceiling so fat people can't stay here.

Here the bed appears to float because of the strange slanted floor.

The furnishings hand from the ceiling and beds are hidden under the floor.

The floor is hilly like being in a mine.

I didn't stay but if anyone chooses to go please let me know what it was like.
And just a litttle word about the people in Berlin - they were soooo lovely! And very polite about our lack of German. So thank you Berlin!

Poems for her.

2010-11-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

One Moment

Once, when she tucked me into bed,
standing on her tiptoes to hug me in my top bunk,
I closed my eyes.
Memorized her arms about me.
Her hair soft on my cheek.
Her warmth.
The darkness of the room, the mobile hanging from the ceiling,
moving,
slowly…
The ragged curtains, the bed against the wall, the globe’s subtle glow.
I held her close.
That moment, like a photograph of feeling,
still fresh as dew.
7 years wise.
I knew that I couldn’t catch her forever.
So I took the picture.
And locked it in my heart.

She said

“Shall we walk back along the shore, just you and me?”
she said.
Surf washed our feet with smiles, we dreamt our runaway dreams.
“Come with me to the party! I don’t want to go on my own”
she said.
I soaked up a new person, glowing with friends.
“Would you like to come to Tescos?”
she said.
I ran to fetch crusty bread, bring her tarragon, tangy cheese.
“How was your day?”
she said.
Cross-legged on the cold granite counter everyday I told her my fears.
“Jazz-club! Niceeee”
she said.
We giggled, made faces, conducted twiddly solos with fingers.
“You’re not listening”
she said.
So I cuddled up close, loved Austen’s beautiful words.
“Let’s ask them to play True!”
she said.
We twirled, swayed, tapped, sung our breath out, sole owners of the floor.
“It doesn’t matter if you fail everything”
she said
I worked safely into star-light, got straight A’s, made her proud.
“When you’re older you’ll live in London”
she said
So I fell for the lights, tall buildings and glittering promises.
“My head hurts”
she said
So we speeded in soup fog from Cornwall.
But she said nothing at all.

The wait

In that hot white bloated bed she lies.
Her skin is unwrinkled perfect.
But her hands are fat with tubes.
Aunty Julie reads her the last pages of Maeve Binchy.
“She’s got to know what happens”, she says.

In the morning, I tell Kate to help make sandwiches.
We make sure everyone has their favourite.
There’s strength in sandwiches.
Outside the crows circle. Like they can smell blood.
Pathetic fallacy says my English teacher father.

I wear the same big thick teal wool jumper every day.
It’s comforting.
In the corridors, we are all there.
We haunt the hospital, red eyed.
We are the dead, inside.

Taking turns to look at her.
We tell each other stories of flickering eyes.
Spasms of fingers.
We see each other full of hopeless hope.
The nurses say nothing.

Barbie debate goes on

2010-11-03T05:12:00.000-07:00

If anyone would like to see the videos that my friend Giles mentioned in his reply to my post about Barbie advertising then here they are.

The first is the Nike campaign for children being encouraged to play Sport:

The second is the scary video which hows you how to look like a perfect plastic Barbie doll.

I would like to stand up for the way girls play with dolls. While I am in no way saying that Barbies are good roll models, playing with dolls is a learning experience. Personally I am the type of person that role-plays scenarios in preparation for confrontations, issues etc. Even now I talk to myself when I'm alone and play out what I would say to someone in my head if a situation arose. This helps me straighten out what my view is and sometimes even stops me from saying things I could regret.

The problem is that if little girls learn and practice for life with dolls, they won't ever chose dolls that are ugly, or over-weight, or have muffin tops. Children are naturally drawn to beauty. It's hard-wired into all of us. So what can Barbie do? I'd say that Barbie are making the right moves. If only they would stop making everything pink.

So is Barbie a good role model as they claim? Or is it manipulative? Or both perhaps? Please send me your thoughts.

Barbie - when I grow up...

2010-11-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

And a slightly different version:

I can't help think that as lovely as this ad is it should have shown a Barbie that wasn't a ballet dancer. Not that ballet dancers aren't wonderful and that it isn't a magical impressive career - it's just that it's so barbie and so girly. I'd like to have seen vet Barbie or doctor barbie at the end.

In any case it's a wonderful advert, a lovely idea and a break-through for the brand. When I was growing up my Mum wouldn't buy me Barbies because she said that they were an unrealistic view of women - with their huge boobs, tiny waists and feet. She didn't want me to think that's what I should look like. I love my Mum and her feminism. This is an advert that seeks to talk to women like my mum. Clever move Barbie. Clever move.

London restaurant recommendations

2010-11-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

Grab em while they still have tables! Here is a list of great restaurants in London as picked by advertising folk:

Le Trois Garcons, Shoreditch: like a surreal, dark fairytale.
Hawksmoor, Shoreditch: melting steaks, amazing cocktails.
Village East, Bermondsey Street: Go for Chateaubriand or brunch.
Odette’s: Primrose Hill. Welsh chef Bryn Williams trained with Marco Pierre White.
Bistroteque, Bethnal Green, beautiful food with Tranny Cabaret to follow.
Gourmet San, Bethnal Green: cheap, unassuming, authentic Szechuan food.
Andrew Edmunds, Soho: Cute French restaurant, good for a date.
Fino, Soho: Spanish tapas, seafood and piglet!
The Wapping Project, Wapping: art and food in a warehouse.
Gaucho, Hamstead Heath: expensive but wonderful Argentinean.
Le Mercury, Islington: chefs in training for top restaurants = good food, cheap prices.
St. John’s, Smithfield/ St Johns Wine and Bread, Spitalfields: famous for their meat (whole pig anyone?).
Tsunami, Clapham/Soho: fashionable Japanese.
Levant Restaurant, beautifully decorated tasty Moroccan.
Boho Mexica, Shoreditch: Mexican food at its best.
Maze Grill: Grosvenor Square: Gordan Ramsey’s steak house.
Stingray’s café, Tuffnall Park: cheap wholegrain pizza and pasta etc.
Rasa, Stoke Newington: Famous Southern Indian restaurant, lauded by critics

The Selby - one day it will be in my place!!

2010-10-20T04:21:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posts recently (as pointed out by my good friend Sarah). Work has been busy and so has life. Anyways I thought I'd share some pictures from brilliant and quirky interior design blog The Selby. The Selby go round to the houses of interesting people - often designers and performers and take pictures. Some people are famous. Most are not. Here are a few that inspired me.

http://www.theselby.com/

Guy Blakeslee and Maximilla Lukacs. I like to imagine that these two live in a cabin in the forest in a hippy community where it's still the 70's.

Mike and Jen: this couple have done what I always believed should be done with the boring downstairs toilet. make it a colourful place full of things to look at. The downstairs loo is so often neglected in people's houses but actually it's an opportunity to go wild!

Celestine and Harry: Writing a poem on your wall hidden by clothes is lovely and whimsical.

Louis Vuitton family home (love this building!): Check out the gorgeous art nouveau fireplace. Jealous!

Simon and Martin: I love the way the picture above the fireplace reflects the heat from the fireplace and gives the room a warm cosy glow in a modern way.

Jamie Isaia and Anthony: This is the perfect study - lined, crammed with books with a traditional desk in the middle - almost buried.

Malene Barnett in Brooklyn. I love the colours she uses here - the way they somehow suggest the heat of Africa.

Eavesdropping - the best story I ever heard

2010-09-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

There is a lovely little article in the Daily Telegraph today (which is currently free on the iPad!!) called "To overhear is to understand". It reveals the fact that Prince Charles loves a good eavesdrop (with those ears how can he help it). In fact he loves to eavesdrop on visitors at his royal residences, even getting down on the floor to listen. Brilliant. The article is about the social benefits of eavesdropping - how it teaches us that not everyone thinks like us and how it informs the work of writers. So now I think is the perfect time to tell you the best story that I ever overheard.

It was while I was standing on a packed bus in Swansea, Wales. Next to me were two middle aged women. I will paraphrase because I overheard this about 4 years ago.

Well, said one, my daughter was on the tube in London and these three guys got on. The middle one was being held tightly between the other two as if he was drunk. My daughter said she hadn't paid much attention to them but she soon noticed that a lot of people were leaving the carriage. Looking down the tube she could see that the other carriages were still full but hers was emptying. Then this guy who was sitting quite close moved over to her and told her to get off at the next stop. Bemused she did. As soon as the tube had left them on the platform she asked him what the hell was going on. The man in the middle of those two guys who looked drunk, he replied, was actually dead.

I'm Comic sans WHAM in your face Helvetica!!!

2010-09-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh gotta love snobbery.

Ikea cats - sooo cute - nice idea too.

2010-09-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

Plus check out the making of because the creative team are CUTE!

Being a dickhead's cool

2010-09-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

No seriously people this is my industry, Shoreditch where I used to work...everything that surrounds my life....sad.

The darkest dream I ever had

2010-09-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

A few times in my life very strange things have happened. Things that made me wonder if unconsciously my brain had told me the future in dreams.

I have only ever dreamt that two people I loved have died. First was my Grandad. My Grandad was apparently healthy. He was my big cuddly Grandad who was fit and active. One day I dreamt that I threw a ball at him and he keeled over and died when it hit his chest. The doctors (in my dream) said he had had a heart attack. A year later my Grandad died. He had undiagnosed cancer and by the times he died it was through his whole body. He died very very suddenly. In the morning Mum called to say that he had flu, in the afternoon he was dead.

Some other strange things happened when Grandad died. The heavy doors of the theatre blew open and all the doctors noticed how strange it was. My Grandad hated hospitals. My family think he was getting out of there. Then that night my Mum lay awake in bed with me asleep beside her. She felt a hand heavy on her leg. She said that instantly she felt calmer. She knew it was her dad telling her that it was Ok.

A year later for an art project during my Foundation art project I asked my Mum to pose as a dead person for a collage I was putting together. She is the only person I have ever pictured as dead for a piece of art. A few months later, now studying advertising in Cornwall, I dreamt that she died. In the dream I grabbed her dead body and screamed and screamed for the entire dream. It was truly the most terrible dream I had ever had. A few months later she had a brain hemorrhage and died within a week.

They are the only people who have ever died in my dreams. And then they both actually died shortly afterwards. Both were apparently healthy.

And another strange thing is that my cat Maisie has only ever regularly sat with her paw resting on two people. My mum and my Grandad.

A few weeks after my Mum died I had one of the most vivid dreams I have ever had. It was so vivid it was filmatic. The lighting was bluish - a bit like the lighting of Sweeney Todd. I was married and I was mortally frightened of my husband. He was a butcher and murdered people for meat. I had had an argument with a woman in town and I told my husband knowing that he would kill her. I watched as he butchered her flesh and pulled out her heart. I felt so so so guilty. It was my fault she was dead. My husband gave me the heart and told me to get rid of it. I went out onto the street and walked up a cobbled street. Suddenly I saw a huge black cloud whirling towards me. I hid from it because I knew it was evil. When it was gone I walked down to the cliff above the beach. There was a (strangely) huge paper drying rack onto which the town's rubbish was being thrown. I threw the heart onto the rubbish rack below and it became lost among the muck. Then I woke up.

I don't really know what the dream meant. But I had a rather extraordinary driving instructor at the time who had told me he could interpret dreams. he told me that the dream was about my guilt. I was subconsciously guilty, he said, of murdering the relationship between my Mum and myself. I thought it was rubbish until I thought carefully about my feelings of guilt regarding my Mum. In the months before she died we had rowed badly. I'd also been a little ungrateful about my birthday present. Maybe that's actually what the dream meant in part. But I also think that the person who was having their heart cut out was me. It was my own heart that I threw onto the rubbish. Perhaps.

Abandoned, forgotten, haunting

2010-09-10T02:55:00.000-07:00

I found the work of Andrew Moore through Creative Review and was immediately entranced by his images of decaying Detroit. Here are some beautiful ones for you to see. To see more visit his website: http://www.andrewlmoore.com/view_project.php

The Beatles story by Rock Band

2010-09-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSLLxRmR3nY

Beautiful animation by Passion Pictures.

Psychedelic trippy music video

2010-09-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

Gong - How To Stay Alive video by Wakyo Productions, directed by Haruka Sakota.

Love this. It reminds me of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band video. Also loving the song. Gonna look up Gong on Spotify immediately!

Learning - the doodler's way

2010-09-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

When I was studying for my school exams I would doodle. Not aimless doodling but doodle learning. The brown paper covers of my textbooks would become covered in tiny drawings showing how Corrie lakes formed, or the order of the planets, or the formation of igneous rocks. This learning method was one that I devised myself and was very effective. I usually got above 80% in my exams. It was effective because in order to visualise something you really have to understand it first, you also have to linger on each point for the amount of time it takes you to complete your doodle, then it also helps it stick in the mind as a visual - something you can actually see in your head during the exam. And finally it stops your mind from getting bored while you are reading information and wandering onto last night's episode of Eastenders.

At the time I thought it was just something I did, but having moved into advertising and become immersed in the world of graphics I have found there is a whole industry that does a similar thing, and it has a name: Info-graphics. Here is a brilliant TED talk by David McCandlesson info-graphics where he shows how much clearer seeing information visually is.

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html

And here are some of his data Visualisations:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

I heart Marina from Marina and the diamonds!!!

2010-09-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

Tipex it out and write your own bear story

2010-09-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/tippexperience

The poor hunter doesn't want to kill the nice bear so he tipexes the command out and you get to write over it - Hunter "fucks" a bear anyone? Come on don't tell me that wasn't what came to mind first!

Arcade fire film down your street!!!

2010-09-02T01:57:00.000-07:00

Check out this amazing new interactive video for Arcade Fire's new song built using html5 - I think it's probably the cleverest online video I've seen ever. Put in your most loved address at the beginning and wait for the surprises to begin.

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

I may have slept with Henry VIII!!!

2010-08-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

No I don't mean his rotting skeleton was actually in bed with me, but possibly his ghost! This weekend Fiance and I stayed in The George and Pilgrim hotel in Glastonbury. We had the Henry VIII room so named because it is said that Henry VIII stayed in the hotel at the time of the reformation. Coolio. The downside is that the hotel needs a slight overhaul. I'm sure that many of the timbers date back to the 1400's because the hotel sagged and sloped all over the place and made me feel a little sea sick. The spiral staircase trapped all the nasty smells from the kitchen too. But if you overlooked the weird walls which channelled the noise from the television into the bathroom, plus the noises of the people in the room next to us, and the ability to lie in bed and hear the guy in the next room snoring, it was pretty cool. Maybe. Maybe next time I will stay at the Best Western.

Beautiful Leaf chapel in Japan

2010-08-19T05:44:00.000-07:00

Looking through one of the books in our new office library "Patterns in Design, Art and Architecture" I came across a beautiful and very unusual wedding chapel.

The Leaf Chapel iin kobuchizwa in Japan floats on the grounds of Risonare hotel resort in Kobuchizawa, a beautiful green setting with views of southern Japanese Alps, Yatsugatuke peaks and Mt. Fuji.

The chapel is formed by two leaves, one glass and one steel. The steel leaf is timed to lift at the moment when the groom lifts the bride’s veil. This exaggerated sentimental gesture is balanced by the breathtaking details of the leaves themselves. The steel leaf, weighing 11 tons, lifts silently in one motion and reveals the natural backdrop. The steel leaf, perforated with 4,700 holes in a floral pattern, creates beautiful natural lighting inside and also glows elegantly at night.

Stunning. Pity it's a little far for me. but you never know...Maybe a little trip to Japan?

The Last Exorcism advert through Chatroulette

2010-08-19T04:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSaurw6E_Q&feature=player_embedded#

Very very clever advertising!! Oh my lord i feel traumatized!
(follow link coz silly blogger.com cuts off half the video if I post it)

The skanky English pub game

2010-08-19T03:01:00.000-07:00

Points awarded for the following British pub finds:

old men wearing funny hats - 10 points per person.
fireplaces - 2 points
at least 8 different beers on offer - 5 points
dogs - 10 points per dog
skanky carpets - 2 points
a busty barmaid - 5 points
only one toilet per sex- 2 points
down an alley - 15 points
suspicious looks from locals - 15 points per stare
regulars not talking but just sitting at the bar - 10 points per man
Slurring random - 20 points per chat.

The Sketchbook project

2010-08-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Whilst looking at some fellow bloggers blogs I came across a brilliant art project that anyone in the world can get involved in. It's called the Sketchbook project. This is how it works:

You sign up to the project (it doesn't cost much) and get sent a sketchbook which you must fill with your own work on one of a number of themes. Send it back to the organizers who will arrange them into exhibitions as they travel around the USA. After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view.Anyone - from anywhere in the world - can be a part of the project.

kelly L at [Insert Clever Title Here] blog is taking part so good luck to her!

http://arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject

Here's some of last year's entries:

A bloke called Brian tells advertising people what for

2010-08-17T08:32:00.001-07:00

Self flagellation of a cat owner

2010-08-16T09:22:00.001-07:00

I have to tell you all that I am a horrible horrible person. Why? Because I snipped off a bit of my trusting, docile, sweet-natured cat's skin. Before you report me to the RSPCA please know that I am truly deeply sorry. It was an accident and I really wish I had snipped off my own skin instead.

Poor little Maisie has had such a rough time recently. First she started shaking her head, so the vet gave us ear drops. After three courses of ear drops she looked so pathetic. The head shaking persisted and added to that the drops had made her ears and neck sticky. Then she was left on her own with just a daily visit from my sister while my dad was away for a week. She hates being alone and cries whenever she can't find people.

Then we took her back to the vet who sedated her and examined her ears to find there was a build up of discharge and drops in her ears and she has a middle ear infection. So she had her ears cleaned out. When she got back she looked happier but her fur hadn't been groomed in a while and she looked a bit scraggy (she is a long haired cat - a Ragdoll). SO I decided to groom her and cut out all her fur mattes with scissors. Only I wasn't concentrating and I cut off a piece of her skin!!!

It didn't bleed. I can only assume I cut through a couple of layers but not all. Maisie let out a pitiful little cry but still let me pick her up afterwards. She is so gentle and so sweet. Now every time I think about what I did I involuntarily put my hands over my face. Which I just did in a big meeting in front of my boss.

So Maisie, I'm so so so so sorry. I will never take scissors to you again.

Advertising. The land of the Copycats

2010-08-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

In my last agency we had a thing about sending around adverts which have blatantly ripped off another advert/ a director's reel/ a photographer's work. And now, thanks to my French Art director friend sitting opposite me, I have a whole website to indulge this hobby.

Check out the unashamed copying this guy has spotted. It is shocking!!

The message is - Creatives! There's no need to be original! Just buy some old D&AD annuals and watch some ads from other countries and you'll get paid for ripping off other people's ideas! Bargain! Plus you may even win a Bronze Lion at Cannes!!!

Check out the skullduggery of my fellow Creatives at http://www.joelapompe.net

When Adgirl met Royalty

2010-08-06T03:38:00.000-07:00

A year ago I was in a mad shopping frenzy before my holiday. I needed a new bikini so Fiance and I headed to Selfridges and to the upper floor where underwear and swimwear are. Failing to find any bikinis that cost less than £80 I elbowed my way past a girl with long blonde hair and two guys. Suddenly my Fiance grabbed hold of my elbow and swung me into an aisle.

"Do you know who you just elbowed out the way????"

"No"

"That was Prince Harry and Chelsea Davy!!!"

"NO WAY!!...Who's that other guy?"

"Dunno, security?"

So what were they like in the flesh? Chelsea has a very snubby nose and her hair was in BAD condition. Harry? Well he just looked pretty normal. He was wearing a padded gillet. Very royal family.

Fiance and I looked around for Special forces police but could see no one hanging around wearing dark glasses and talking into a walkie-talkie like in the movies so we decided to stalk the royal couple from a safe distance. We followed then as they went to into the lingerie section, where they stopped and looked at naughty nipple tassels and giggled.

I would have taken a picture and sold it to heat magazine but I thought that if I tried undercover agents might swoop like something out of The Borne identity. So I resisted.

And that was the day that Adgirl met HRH Prince Harry. The end.

PS: If you guys have any great "bumping into a celebs" stories please let me know!

Intriguing and beautifully shot short film

2010-07-22T10:40:00.000-07:00