ThoughtSpurs

"The world is an unequal and unjust place, in which some are born into wealth and some into hunger and misery. To explore why, in this ... all » controversial Channel Four documentary the young Swedish writer Johan Norberg takes the viewers on a journey to Taiwan, Vietnam, Kenya and Brussels to see the impact of globalisation, and the consequences of its absence. It makes the case that the problem in the world is not too much capitalism, globalisation and multinationals, but too little." I found this video interesting and thought provoking - put an hour aside. Move over Bono here comes Johan Norberg… It is interesting that the Swedes were the first to have a multinational company - When Nobel invented dynamite the Swedish government banned the export of explosives so Nobel was forced to establish factories in other countries. I used to date a Swedish girl - curiously enough she was a Swedish Swedish massage therapist. Where is she when I need her? I have a pain in my neck fr

This morning I had a meeting with Steven Carden, author of New Zealand Unleashed - the country, its future and the people who will get it there . Interesting chap. Works as a consultant with McKinsey & Co. Recently returned from the US. I am preparing a review of the book for Idealog and a short piece based on our discussions (so I won't preempt it here). I was reminded how important it is to get out and talk to people with no other agenda than to exchange ideas. Ideas are the raw material of ideas. By the way - get a copy of the book. It is worth reading and filled with interesting and thought provoking material. The conversation is a crucial one for New Zealanders to have. I can't link you to it because it doesn't seem to be available through Fishpond yet.

OK. This is what my blog is 'worth'. And below it is what Guy Kawasaki's blog is 'worth': blog is worth $7,339.02 . How much is your blog worth? My blog is worth $4,677,213.90 . How much is your blog worth? Wa wa wee wa...heppy days... There's a movie on Mr Kawasaki's blog (I feel obliged to call him Mr Kawasaki now - sort of like one of Donald Trump's apprentice wannabe's ) that I like because it supports my theory about disintermediated creativity. How about the guy who puts in a couple of hours a day, makes 6 million dollars a year from Google's Adsense programme and has no employees. I like the sound of that. No Employees. Start your own gig, …I don't want to be the laird of the manor. I'm sure if you looked inside your heart you wouldn't want to be my serf either (because that would be seriously kinky). No Plan, No Model, No Problem...(1.5 Hours but worth it).

Do you ever just sit there with a legal pad and a ballpoint pen? Here's my take on Stanley kubrick. 5 minutes no thinking about it. Not great. Kind of wonky. But hey. Grist for the mill. It's one thing to post it to a blog, quite another to imagine you can make a living from caricature...which supports my earlier contention that, when it comes to ideas: Just do it. (as opposed to telling yourself " I'm sorry Dave...I'm afraid I can't do that... "(HAL no).

This is my 500th post. The funny thing is that I was trolling through some old material on a storage drive. I used to have a domain name called 'TravellingCompanion.com', something told me back in 1989 that travel would be an important segment on the web. It sat unused for a while (I had loads of domains including WombService - for first time mums and GoodGrief a portal into the after-life...cradle to grave). Conversations with my mate Steve Garton convinced me that I should come up to visit him in Hong Kong. The web was going off there. The wealthiest man in in HK was about to float TOM.com on the stock exchange. It had no business model, no purpose or evident way of generating money but Hong Kong was ablaze with excitement. Given that the principal player was fabulously wealthy ordinary folk seemed to believe that some of the good fortune would rub off on them. I imagine it would be a good idea to make a record of my trip for my (then) wife to be able to read every day. I ha

Ecky thump, by the eck, mooms n dads are goin' t' loove this. The producers of American Idol have ratcheted the game back a few notches. Pop Idol meets the Royal Variety Gala meets the old Barrymore My Kind of People formula. Things have gotten to the point where dumbing down becomes dumbing up. Take a proven formula. Give it a tweek. Find a way of adding children into the mix and away we go. I can sense the dark shadow of Britain's Got Talent looming. And before you take a shot at me for criticising the cute little kid who sings, I'm not. It's just there's only so much Aspartame I can chew. Oh and please...please...No New Zealand franchise. Please. Thanks to Singapore's MrBrown for the advance warning.

I've seen this advertised on the tele. Interesting. Looking forward to checking it out. From the NZLive.com site (just discovered it - nicely done - excellent resource). Atamira: Maori in the City is a three-day celebration of Maori creativity and enterprise. This event will be a landmark showcase for Maori creative and entrepreneurial achievement. Atamira: Maori in the City aims to inspire Maori to maximise their entrepreneurial, economic and cultural potential, and will present a combination of creative expo, Thrive business show, rangatahi forum and awards celebrations. The event will bring together leading Maori creative and business people in an environment designed to foster the creative entrepreneurs of the future. Confirmed entertainment: Che Fu and the Crates, 1814, Nesian Mystic, Northern Advocate, Ill Semantics, Urban Beat, Zero-T, Ruia, Katchafire Plus Special Guests. cost: Free Featuring: , Che Fu Nesian Mystik, Northern Advocate, Ill Semantics, Urban Beat, Zero T, Ru

See, I told you so. When people parody - even in a nasty way - or maybe in especially nasty ways - it means they care. Why, in this case, I don't know. Somewhere along the line today I glimpsed someone asking the question why the Olympics needs to reinvent itself every couple of years (allowing for summer and winter Olympiads). The brand isn't graphic design. I want you to remember that, especially if you are a graphic designer, you can't create a brand in Illustrator or Photoshop. Thanks to Meme Huffer

My watch ticks. Now that might not sound very surprising but the thing is that I haven't worn a wristwatch for nearly four years. Why would I? My laptop has a clock, my cellphone has a clock and, quite frankly, I'm not driven by compulsive time keeping. I could probably adjust to my circadian rhythm and cope with requests for my presence. So my new watch ticks. Nothing at all digital about it. In fact, no battery and no automatic movement. It has been marking the passage of time since the 1920s - or so I am told. I don't really care, any more than if it doesn't keep perfect time. The old girl's workings have had a bit of a clean. A new lens replaced the yellowed, crazed original, a new (nylon) strap makes it functional - if anyone knows where I can get a nice continuous leather band to loop through the lugs soldered onto the case I'd be grateful for the tip. So, have I become a Luddite? No, not at all. With the pending launch of the Apple iPhone making the news

The logo for the London Olympics has caused a storm in the world of design professionals and The Great British Public. The blog Design Observer is typical of the furore. Here's the comment I added to the thread.It is number 160+, so deeply buried that I thought I would take it out for a walk here: It's always easy to be critical of things that shock us. In this case the criticism is probably justified. But I have one nagging thought. What if the alternative was some sort of slickly conceived and executed orthodoxy - which is common in design; variations of what things 'should' look like (a throwback the rigor of modernism - form and function riding in tandem and all that). It fascinates me how things that were considered mad and unacceptable when first introduced become accepted with familiarity. Imagine having the cojones to approve Frank Gehry's Guggenheim at Bilbao. The size of the budget, the prestige of the project and the fact it was funded from the

It is chilling top watch these clips - to think they give these folks guns and votes. I hadn't heard of Chaser's War on Everything until now and now I wonder about the sorry state of New Zealand TV. Game shows are on the ascendant and satire is as absent as it ever was (you can't descend from flat earth). Maybe the Australian culture is just better at producing larrikins. The Wikipedia describes Larrikins thusly: Many commentators have noted the larrikin streak in Australian culture, and have theorised about its origins. Some say that larrikinism arose as a reaction to corrupt, arbitrary authority during Australia's days as a penal colony, or as a reaction to norms of propriety imposed by officials from Britain on the young country. Larrikinism is a significant element in Australian culture, and has emerged repeatedly, informing Australian contemporary art, popular and youth culture and political debate. Evidence of the larrikin influence includes traditions of free, r

'Rich with ideas'. That is the motto of Idealog magazine transplanted by its new owners after I had sold my stake in the business. Their prerogative, I suppose. I haven't been comfortable with it since it was first mooted. The original idea was ' the voice of the creative economy '- which, intentionally, had an old-world charm and was focused on giving a voice to the people who do the work (I don't believe organsiations are creative - but dependent on the individual talents they organise). So, what is my problem with 'Rich with ideas'? Its short and sweet. It contains an alluring promise...perfect, surely? Actually it is anathemic to most of the people who are actually engaged in the creative economy. But, perhaps, it is important to restate my understanding of what the creative economy is (in alphabetical order): * Advertising * Architecture * Art markets * Crafts * Design * Designer fashion * Film and video * Interactive leisure software * Music * Per

Ummm.. Err... What are you some kind of communist? Thanks to David Slack's Island Life.

Watching Simon Schama's Power of Art (my Sunday night destination viewing), tonight's subject is Picasso. Of course we all know the story of Picasso. As a child he could draw like Raphael (we know that because he told us), and spent his life trying to draw like a child (ditto). I have to admit my knowledge of Picasso is partisan. I read a biography some time ago that was, shall we say, less than flattering: Life with Picasso by his lover Francoise Gilot - worth a look though. I have always admired the prolific volume of his work. Quality and quantity irrelevant except as a stepping stone from one stage to another. That reminds me of another story, one about fashion designer Ossie Clark. Clark was quite the man about town (London) in the sixties. He clad the Rolling Stones in swirling, sexually ambiguous chiffon, he made buckets of money. Then he spent it. Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll. Years later, diminished he arrived at the home of his friend David Hockney. When Vanity Fair i

How is this for a design shift? The Schimmel Pegasus . Why does a piano have to look like a piano? Are there some things we want to maintain a narrative relationship with their historical signifiers? Pianos mean Beethoven (but probably not Mozart - not sure that what we understand as piano were around in Wolfy's day - perhaps someone could inform me on that?). But you understand the point if piano mean classical music, then shouldn't they be 'classical' in design? Nah, bugger it, I'll take one of these. Don't wrap it.

Ok. I admit it. I'm jazzed by the America's Cup. My dirty little secret is that I've never been aboard a sailboat. But go Team New Zealand. Grant Dalton is an impressive leader. I hope he can keep things under control. That is the key. Don't be psyched by Butterworth and the Swiss. I think the ValeNZia thing is cute. Maybe that's why Martin Tasker has stopped saying Valenthia.

Cold, blustery weather today. I slipped into Newmarket and caught a movie at the Rialto complex. I decided I would get a ticket to whatever the next screening was. As it happened the film was Paris Je t'aime . I'd seen the trailer on the Quicktime site..."Why not?" I thought. Unfortunately, once the film had ended I was left with just the 'Why?". The movie is a series of vignettes directed by a number of directors. All are set in Paris. Nothing wrong with that; you could set a series of vignettes in Paris and populate them with well known actors doing little cameo turns and it would turn out ok. Alright, no it wouldn't. Too many flavours, too many half formed, badly expressed ideas. One minute Bob 'oskins is a middle aged man trying to rekindle his passion for his wife by picking her up in a bordello, then next Frodo Baggins is trying to get it on with a vampire. I know, sounds terrible doesn't it? It was. I was eager for the end to hove into vi

I remember smells, some of which I would sooner forget. For some reason when I catch a waft of opium perfume I associate it with a girl I used to date when I was in my late teens. She was convinced that Opium was the height of sophistication. All I knew was whenever I smelled it I wanted to have sex. Mind you I was in my late teens and needed very little provocation to want to have sex. Her mother called me The Prince of Darkness but I think it was out of affection. I remember music in a similar way-by association. Certain songs and genres represent specific times of my life, so much so that when I hear music that I associate with, say, the time I drove around the far north of New Zealand one summer (1984) in a tiny Suzuki delivery van, I find myself overcome with nostalgia - a time when I was as thin as a contraceptive, the sun was warmer but didn't burn, and I thought that my mullet was the height of good taste. I suppose the connection between smells and sounds is that they wor

I have been wondering whether the creative economy is something that often flies under the radar because creativity is fundamentally an individual activity. How many people are writing novels for publication while they earn their living in a day job? Designers who create t-shirts and sell them through Threadless.com or Cafepress.com are participating in the creative economy. You don't have to be Peter Jackson or have millions invested. When I do a project for a client in the United States or Australia those export dollars are as valuable as every one earned by Tim Finn's album. There are plenty of us, working unheralded, unorganised and, largely, unaided. I must research the numbers - I imagine, collectively, we're a substantial group and would probably benefit from a little more attention.

There is a tradition in advertising of translating old standard jokes into ads. The beer googles ad above is an example. ( C/o Brand DNA ). I guess the trick is to find clients who haven't heard it all before. Have you heard this one?: A Scotsman, an Irishman and an Americas Cup sailor walk into a bar. Barman says "What is this…some kind of joke?"

This morning I was invited by David Slack as a guest on Findlay McDonald's radio show (Radio Live). The name of the station was ironic on this occasion. As I drove into the city for the interview I thought I should tune in to get the flavour of the session. I caught a fragment of an Australian correspondent describing rising water reserves in New South Wales as it transitions from drought to flood stricken-ness. Then the line went dead. When I arrived at the station my hosts informed me they were off the air. Some problem with their transmitter. Not to worry. I sat in the booth with Messrs Slack and McDonald chatting generally while Zoe coloured in on the chair beside me. I felt a little relieved in a way - its a lot of pressure being called in as an 'expert' on brands. I've learned that media people can ask questions that are unexpected to spice up the conversation. When we finally got underway the conversation was pretty easygoing. The most interesting part was probab

Hmm...exaaactly. John Stewart on the money as usual. Of local note this week was site of Mark Sainsbury's bathos laden coverage of the young woman hounded by the Weekend Herald after she spoke anonymously to the rival Sunday news about her knowledge of deviant sex practices in the police to the extent that she committed suicide. He has a short memory. His own show harrassed a young woman on the street outside the district court in Auckland after she had pleaded guilty to a drink drive charge (not a criminal offence in New Zealand - simply a offence under the Transport Act) and in the name of 'name and shame'. Well New Zealand 'journalists', consider yourselves 'named', oh and erm... 'shamed'. I'm pretty sure the ratings on TVOne have been steadily falling and newspaper readership will soon be able to huddle in a draughty community hall.

An interesting graphic representing the budget of the United States for 2008 . In the interests of scale and context: the New Zealand GDP (our total output - rather the government spending budget) is about 106 billion dollars. The budget for the US Air Force alone is 136 billion dollars. The budget for farm subsidies is 15 billion (give or take a hundred million) - do we subsidise our farmers?. The map is worth checking out online. You can move around and zoom into the detail in a sort of google earth kind of way.

How about this ad for Lynx? (Lead me not into temptation...) Driving back from a meeting this morning I caught the music review on the National Programme on the radio. Two singers were discussed, neither of whom I had heard of before. Both I would describe in the chanson style but from different ends of the musical spectrum Martha Scanlan and Carla Bruni. I thought Scanlon's sound was similar to The Cowboy Junkies and Michelle Shocked (remember the Anchorage song). I googled both performers. Turns out Bruni is an heiress with talent. The anti-Paris, ironically the video for her song is set in Paris the town. She was a supermodel and socialite - busted up one of Mick Jagger's marriages (which she denied by claiming to have been but one of 10 lovers). Great sound though. Like the guitars.

I haven't been writing because I haven't felt like it. Or eating. Been knocked about by a cold or flu. Haven't had an official diagnosis because I don't believe in rushing to a doctor to be told what I already know. Most colds just pass, don't they? When I was a kid there was another kid in my class who had a perpetually dewey nose. There was always a droplet on the end of his nose or a crusty delta from nose to lip. He went on to become an accountant and fine, upstanding member of the community. Even his chronic malady seemed to pass. I need to finish marking first semester assignments tomorrow, so back up to Massey in the morning. I took some pictures of the chickens the other day - chickens and pukeko - they wander freely about the village. It's kind of funky. Every now and then there's a cull, but mostly they are left to themselves. When my ex ran her chiropractic clinic in the village we went for lunch together one day, locking the door behind us. When

Sometimes words begin to creep into the vernacular, migrating like lost geese from their correct place of use. At the moment the word that is 'robust'. People who want to sound important or intelligent add in robust as an adjective for the flimsiest of reasons. "I would like you to make a robust effort on your colouring in Zoe..." Already, 11 minutes into the 6pm news bulletin I have heard it used twice.

Patents are one of the measures of the health of a creative economy. Countries with more patent registrations are assumed to be more innovative. Therefore they are in a better position to earn revenues from sales of a unique product or process or from licensing intellectual property in other markets or incorporating owned innovations in other company's processes. A patent theoretically offers a monopoly to its owner to exploit the invention without direct competition for a specific period of time (usually a period of 20 years from the date the application is filed). Filing your idea or invention for a patent can be a time consuming and expensive process. There is no guarantee that the patent will be granted. The application has to be examined to ensure that it meets the criteria necessary to secure the patent. You can save yourself a lot of money and grief if you do the preliminary work yourself. You can search the IPONZ database for registered patents to ensure its novelty (

Circoripopolo An interesting little Spur from Talent Imitates, Genius Steals

I said I would let you know how to protect your ideas. The first thing is to value them. If you don't are are willing to give them away for free, then it will be fair for anybody else to appropriate them. You put an idea into the public domain if you are casual about who you tell. The second thing to do is indicate your proprietorship of your idea. If you are going to share it with others - say you invent a product that helps people to pick up doggy doos on the beach and in other public places and need to find a manufacturer to licence the concept then you should insist they sign a non-disclosure agreement. If they are unwilling to do that, then don't show them anything but a clean pair of heels. If they will quibble in the beginning they will quibble throughout the process. Don't be paranoid, be prudent. Make sure you indicate your copyright on the concept. It might sound a little cheesy - I remember wondering why big clients insisted on wrecking my layouts and making my c

I got a message from Brian Sweeney the other day - publisher of The NZ Edge blog and spin doc for for Kevin Roberts. He took exception to my post about my comment on his blog that he failed to publish. I wrote a post about how I think that any thought should be published (unless it is in some way vile by community standards - bad language, spam...those kinds of things). I put great deal of thought and effort into my comment and, in doing so added value to his community. I never claimed it was right, but simply a part of a discussion. In short, I thought it reasonable to expect that my response would be posted. Well, I am reminded once again of the excellent little book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, a Toltec Wisdom Book . Number 3 is: Don't make assumptions. In his reply Mr Sweeney said that it had merely been an oversight and that the comment had subsequently been published. I felt I had been a bit harsh on him so the caboose on that little train of t

For years I have been toying with an idea. ...shit, forgot it... No, I've got it back: Here we go... ...nah, gone. Playing with you. Creative people - don't mention your ideas to anyone. That's lesson number one. Until you make it plain that your idea belongs to you keep it to yourself. In the creative economy the most significant way of profiting from your ideas is to deny others. You don't need suits . They need you. You may feel that granting power and control to someone who is more comfortable with the people with the money Will save you grief then I need to put you straight. Most suits are crooked. They Will take your ideas; they will either appropriate them, distort them or make a deal which makes it seem like you were irrelevant in the conception or execution. I have a terrific book (somewhere...I have to rent storage for books) called Chiat Day - The First 20 years. Brilliant. In it there is a story that relates how Steve Jobs of Apple made a visit to the agenc

I've had a bit of a tense week. So today I have been chilling. Came across an interesting clip on Russell Davies blog. Thought it might be nice to share it. I'm a sucker for anything New York. I must make an effort to return there. I'll never forget the first trip I made. There was a chap living in a refrigerator box on a traffic island in in front of the Helmsley building. As I walked past he offered me a telephone receiver - do you remember the old kind with the thick, springy cord?- it wasn't attached to phone. It looked as though the dismemberment had occured in a moment of terrible violence. The innard wires dangled like gizzards. "It's for you." he said from inside the thick cardboard box. He had cut the top half open so the flap could be shut. It was October and beginning to feel quite brisk. A searing wind swept down the avenue in the canyon of tall buildings. I noticed that it was a tight squeeze for the occupant with a heavy greatcoat covering wh

I once worked for an advertising agency called Rialto - between 1986 and 1989. My friend Brian Harrison hired me as a copywriter. With him as creative director the agency had a terrific run of winning awards and accounts. It was an interesting time. I learned a great deal both good and bad. The stock market crashed in October 1987 (or, euphemistically, 'corrected'). I was in New York on holiday when it happened, or rather leaving on a flight for London. When I opened the NY Times to the headline screamed the news. When I arrived London there was hurricane that tore trees out of the ground in Kew Gardens. Omens, perhaps? When I arrived home from the trip I sensed that nothing in advertising would ever be the same again. It wasn't. Much of the life was leeched out of it by the extraordinary correction of clients. As the paper tigers of the boom years went up in flames the prudent survived and the clung to their budgets in a combination of canniness and desperation the residu

A few days ago I left a comment on the NZEDGE website . Though subsequent comments have been posted mine has not. I cross posted it here The interesting thing to me is the question of what one allows to be posted on one's website after inviting visitors to comment. Here is my policy. You comment and I post. I moderate the comments on the following basis: Read. Check for vileness (bad language, spam, ...that's pretty much it.) Why, after all, would I invite you to speak, then shut you down? A shame really. Perhaps the Edge sight seems more interested in spin than participation in the conversation. Bottom line: ideas don't expand when you feel the need to control them. I would say that if you promote ideas then promote diversity, not homogeneity. Leave a comment. Better than even chance it will be published.

I can remember having ads banned or pulled simply because their either showed murder, made fun of Catholic confession or featured women with exceedingly large boobs (Auckland Opera - Rigoletto, Tip Top Ice Cream - Crofters cheesecake minis, Kent Heating - woodburning stoves). Seems like now we can do and say what we like. At least on the Internet. On the web we 'pull' information towards us - rather than having it shoved in our faces while our seven year old daughter asks us what the prurient gag in this weeks trailer for ' Two and a half men ' means. And that's a good thing. I'm still trying to preserve what's left of my own innocence without having to worry about allowing my kids to remain kids for as long as I can.

I can't go on. Or, rather, I can go on. That's the problem. I've decided to confine my blog posts to stimulating matters of interest, rather than rants about things like the Muliaga fiasco. And in th run up to the election for the New Zealand parliament I am going to avoid talking about politics, political parities* and the other things that agitate me. The problem with being non-partisan is that every party does things that bug me (whereas if I had a favourite team I could forgive, turn a blind eye or, better still, blame the other party for woeful indiscretions and cock-ups of my own side). It seems to me the issues that matter (to me at least) are non-partisan in any case: taking 'sides' on issues like sustainability, justice (different from law and order) and the pursuit of happiness (or at least decent, enjoyable lives) etc...are not matters that should be subject to political debate. What reasonable person doesn't want these things? Given that New Zealand&

I have just launched a new magazine. Junk. It's kind of underground. Very secretive. All about the things we buy and why. More later. I shouldn't even be telling you this. You didn't see me. We didn't speak.

I started to flip through the Phaidon Design Classics volume 1 (of 3) to kill a few moments. It turned into a momentous massacre. Wave after wave of moments falling like Persians at the hands of the Spartans. Needless to say I was late to my next appointment. It is brilliant overview of design and filled with 'Now that I did not know' snippets with which to annihilate design poseurs at dinner parties. Case in point - I did not know that the Citroen 2CV originally had plastic windows and a magnesium alloy chassis to save weight. Very space age for 1948. Actually the 2CV reminds me that, above all things a design should be useful. That might seem like a doggedly modernist view, but not really. My post-modern tendencies mean that a design need not be used for its originally intended purpose. The 2CV began life as a utilitarian object that made no statement. If you use one these days it probably means you are making a statement about your own identity. I'd sooner have an old 2

This just in..(and, I am sure, already blazing its way to inboxes all around the world). Bono is at a U2 concert in Ireland when he asks the audience for some quiet. Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands. Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone... "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies." A voice from near the front of the audience pierces the silence... "Stop feckin' doing it then!"

Trolling through the seaside village of Devonport this afternoon I noticed the Department of Doing have expanded their operation down onto the street front. After weeks of construction it looks like they will soon be ready for the big reveal. It is odd for an advertising business to have such a public face. I enjoyed reading the directives of the company prominently displayed in the window (Linds Redding of The Deparment of Motion Graphics was one of the founders and it has his creative style written all over it). All good fun. Nice to see a creative business doing well. An inspiration indeed.

This is a Skoda Sabre. Even though Volkswagen own the brand now I will never be swayed. I understand how my parent's generation felt about the Germans and Japanese as a result of the traumas endured during and following WW2. For me the trauma I suffered at the hands of the Czechs will never be forgotten. Ever. Some brands can never be convincingly repaired. No matter how good their ads are. Actually I think the Skoda Sabre that annihilated my adolescence was made of cake - a hint of rain and it turned into a trifle slush.

Driving across the Harbour Bridge this evening I came across a rainbow, managed a one handed shot. To the chap in the Porsche who tooted, yes it was me, but what's worse, photography or yapping on the cell phone?

Conventional wisdom says that car ads should conform to specific sets of rules. Or so it would seem. Winding roads, perhaps a music track that has been appropriated emphasise how rebellious you are or sophisticated, or funky or... (insert - vacuous description here). Populate your ad with shiny examples of the kinds of people you imagine might enjoy your little ensemble of technology, plastic, metal and rubbery bits. Thankfully Fallon in London have come up with a new recipe and if it doesn't make you go all gooey about Skoda then nothing will. In my case nothing will because I will never forget the night of my school ball. I was 15...the woeful Skoda Sabre I had borrowed to transport my date broke down...in the rain. Not a good look. Sharon Whitaker never spoke to me again. Damn you Skoda!...damn you all to hell. Visit the Fallon website That's an order.

I've had a survey going on the blog for a while. I waited till there were a hundred responses at least. Just checked in an the quota has been passed and here are the stats: What do you think of the topics covered? Balanced 0.00% Random 13.10% Interesting 84.20% Dull 2.70% Rate the quality of writing awful 0.00% ok 2.70% good 23.00% very good 38.50% excellent 35.80% What do you think of third party content (YouTube videos etc) Very Interesting 38.50% Quite Interesting 53.90% Not Very Interesting 7.60% I realise the questions are ambiguous or open to interpretation - but that's how these things go. Data isn't enough to make decisions on. Funny to note nobody thought it is 'balanced'. Quite Right. As you were.... Quack.

What the heck, it's Saturday night...