ThoughtSpurs

Mama Cass didn't choke to death on a ham sandwich. It was heart failure. So now you know.

Things are not always what they seem. I checked and double checked the text of my book. The mistake I made was that I checked the 'facing pages' option when I made the PDF necessary to upload the book to my printer. I was looking at the data today and notice that my book was half as many pages as it is in reality. I had a moment of meltdown. After a conversation online with the printer I realised the error was mine and after a long day had resolved it. I had to redesign covers to accommodate new dimensions. It was a beautiful day in Auckland. Again. I was stuck inside fixing my mistakes. It's important in life to fix your mistakes.

Grudging favorite: Kevin Roberts' Blog. Sometimes I think it is important to disagree. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Agreeing isn't thinking. Baby, this is ThoughtSpurs, round here we think. So the next on my list of permanent links is Mr Kevin Roberts. Did you know that Kevin keeps/kept an office in the terrific Saatchi office in Auckland? There is/was a stair from reception to his rooms. It was/is called Stairway to Kevin. Brill. For that pun alone he wins the next permanent link: KRCONNECT . (Not a very Lovemarky name though…I have always found it hard to fall in love with a girl called Hilda or Ena•. •Ok, Ok, the world loved Hilda Ogden and Ena Sharples from the ancient Coronation Street Programs.

Couple of things. Had dinner with my friend and colleague Greg Tabron the other day. mentioned I had seen a trailer on TV for a movie called No Country For Old Men. Greg became quite excited, jumped up and pulled a copy of the book from his heaving shelves.(Readers are leaders). I have reading it every moment I can - it's one of those books. I love the way the characters talk. (They do it without quotation marks.)Hanging out to see the movie. Total package. Some interesting and encouraging comments from Stan Lee, the Author of BrandDNA , one of my favorite places in the blogosphere. Stan reminds me that that the way to get traffic to your site is to give something of yourself. Stan makes a contribution and gets links in return. Thanks mate. You'll have seen that I stuffed up the other day and changed my template by mistake - so your permanent link was lost. Well it's back and at the top of of the list. Loyalty rocks. As do you.

Who said self publishing was going to be easy? I have spent the day working on the Brain Forest Press page for Vanishing Act. I am really not much of a designer. Quite rudimentary. Even less of a web developer… but what the heck? What else are beautiful summer's days for if not sitting around making web sites. Tragic really. I turned down an invitation to go out and play this evening. Regretted it as a soon as I put the phone down. But I had to figure out why my forms weren't working properly. Sorted. I thought it would be fun to see what others thought of my choice of music on the Vanishing Act soundtrack. So I have put a survey of some of the songs online. People who complete it and join the mailing list will go into the draw to win one of four copies of the book (hardback). I am also offering custom editions for a small additional charge. I'll modify the art for the text to put a personal dedication page in the front pages - So you will be able to write a personal note ...

Writing Vanishing Act was an interesting experience. I wonder if I have become so conditioned by contemporary culture that I couldn't see it simply as a novel. In my mind I visualised it as a movie. I have been researching the accepted formats for writing a movie script and I have a trial version of some software called Final Draft that I will use to get my head around it. I've also created a soundtrack for the book. Is that a first? The tracks are listed on the final page of the book. Some of the music is referred to in the text itself and others are simply related inn some way, mood maybe. Have you noticed that some movie soundtracks feature music that you don't remember hearing in the film? Often they play over the credits or are featured as a fragment or something overheard in the body of the film. Well, thanks to the wonders of modern technology here it is: The Vanishing Act soundtrack. You can buy the tunes from the Apple iTunes store. Of course the producers of the m...

I'm a little annoyed. I was fooling around putting a blog together for Vanishing Act . On Blogger.com I didn't realise i was inadvertantly deleting the template for this blog. So all the customised elements like links to blogs I read and recommend were lost. When I have a minute I'll have to rebuild. It was probably time for a refresh anyway. I am also going through a rebuild of my website. Ah, the web…

A much coveted ticket to the TED conference 2008 which will give the holder access to the main theatre is for sale on eBay . The current bid is for $10,000 (US), the proceeds go to an architecture charity (I know, weird). Given that TED is sold out for years in advance this is an opportunity for someone with deep pockets. Me; I'll keep watching the videos online. It would be nice to meet Meg Ryan though (It's part of the package). Because she is cute as a button. Or was. I always wondered about her role in City of Angels . Brain surgeon. Bicycling. No skid lid. Dies in collision with truck. Now, I realise you'd probably come off significantly worse off mano a mano with an 18 wheeler even if you had a full suit of body armour. But every brain surgeon knows that 22.34% of all head injuries come from bicycling accidents*. Go figure. I wonder if she's still cute, after the accident and all. Back to TED. One has to wonder how much cash is sloshing around the worlds of corpor...

Here's the latest in the genius campaign for Lynx. Valentine's Day is coming. Order Serious Brownees now to ensure mad passion later . (Now a scientifically proven fact).

Took my daughter to the library to indulge her interest in Roald Dahl - something to be encouraged, yes? I flipped through the latest Car magazine. Delighted to see the new Fiat 500 took home the Car of the Year gong, whipping the likes of Porsche and Rolls Royce. Other than the new Ford Mondeo the judges didn't feel the any of the others shifted the paradigm. It's not enough to be good or even great anymore. Interested also to note that the 'greenest' vehicle manufacturer in the European market is………drumroll…Fiat once again, whipping out Toyota (sixth, from memory). Even with the hype over their hybrids it wasn't enough. Fiats cumulatively emit fewer carbon emissions. Footnote. The series of double page spreads in the front pages of Car magazine are abysmal. It used to be that a spread was something special and to do it for a car brand was the ultimate (in my book anyway). I think my favourite of all time, if only because I can remember it after all these years - f...

Vanishing Act is now available to buy. I recommend the PDF version at the moment because it is instant. Hardback Paperback or as a PDF download. I look forward to your feedback.

I like to draw but this guy's stuff is something else. Process Recess is the blog of illustrator James Jean . It is astonishing to see how his work moves from sketch to finished piece. I am in awe of his Moleskin sketches. Not sure if I'm inspired to do more or simply discouraged and will put my pen away for good. Reminds me of a story. One that might salve my anxiety. I was with a friend and her children at their bach. One of the kids, a high spirited, rough and tumble,pre-teen boy was watching me sketch. He told me that he was hopeless at art and didn't, logically, like it. "It's easy. It doesn't matter what comes out the other end of the pencil." I had him make a scribble. Naturally enough it was an energetic, thermonuclear kind of a scribble. A right, I'll show you wiseguy kind of a scribble. 30 seconds later it was an armadillo. The truth is that everything becomes an armadillo if you want it to be. "See, drawing is just scribbling with style...

How times have changed. A very, very strange Australian Caltex ad from the 60s. Fair Dinkum explained. The French one is notable for being terrible but featuring a wonderful Citroen DS convertible.

A few weeks ago I was flipping through a copy of the Australian Financial Review's magazine BOSS (which is not as dreary as it sounds). It contained a story about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com (perhaps you've heard of them?). It reminded me of seeing Bezos being interviewed by 60 Minutes back in the day when new web sites made it to mainstream media. I was impressed by his down-to-earth charm and nutty, un-self conscious laugh. At the time he also drove a humble Honda Accord to work (in spite of being worth 500 million). In the BOSS article he made a remark I have been thinking about since: (paraphrased from memory): Don't obsess about your competition. Obsess about your customers. After all when did your competition ever give you any money? I don't think he was advocating operating in a vacuum. Obviously an airline needs to know about the weather as well as whether a passenger has a special dietary requirement or prefers Pinot Noir to Riesling. Here's an in...

Toyota have revealed a concept car called the i-Real. According to this video the concept is that you can control the vehicle with one hand while talking on the cell phone with the other. Or drink. Both critical transportation functions, don't you think? Oh, forgot to mention the 'social networking function' that is built in. You know what I'm going to say next, don't you? Why? Let's face it, in the realm of really stupid ideas this one floats instantly to the top, bobbing amongst other monumentally stupid ideas like the Segway and the Sinclair C5 - which, coincidentally had three wheels too (though I don't think it quite managed 30kph). Is there a market for such a contraption. Can't see why not? In the era of obesity and lumpen stupidity there will be a ready market. I suggest targeting diabetics of the future. They won't need their legs anyway (Remember the scene in 'The Graduate', what business should you go into in the future?…one word -...

A commercial from a UK energy company made using recycled clips to illustrate their commitment tot being 'green'. Cute. But I am not so sure that the premise of a firm that has never advertised suddenly initiating a charm offensive - 'making a commitment to reducing carbon emissions 60%by 2020' isn't, in itself, increasing the firm's carbon footprint. Surely a campaign showing their customers how to reduce their electrical consumption would make more sense than a corporate message wasted on a significant percentage of the audience who either don't understand the message of are indifferent - not customers, cynical etc? I hate to say it but there is another thing - the energy used to make the commercial from a quilt of old clips would, in all probability, be just as high or higher than shooting a simple ad, or making it with graphics from a laptop. The number of activities associated with the montage would have been monumental. In the words of that great 20th ...

I was interested in the idea of Innovating by jumping sideways ( from Where's the sausage ). Instead of trying to develop and promote musical acts the same way as the traditional record labels Simon Cowell takes a different path "He has attacked a big market by coming from an adjacent one. So, he starts with the promotion via a TV series, building up interest in the artists and making money on phone/text voting each week. He then releases the hit single online first (more money). Then the CD. Then there is the tour with the top finalists." In fact Cowell has always taken this approach (he worked with David Hasselhoff/Night Rider, WWF Wrestling Stars, American Idol etc…) he is music's P.T. Barnum ("No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public.) "The businesses best equipped to capitalise on the changes in the music market structure are those who are adjacent to it. They know enough to see the opportunity, but are not encumbered by ex...

My 15 year old son has spent almost every day playing golf these summer holidays. He's obsessed. And quite good. His handicap is around 6 at the moment. I feel as though I hardly see him. So I have come up with a new name for myself. The GolfFather (Inspired by a few moments of Coppola's movie of nearly the same name - I like the scenes in Sicily - do they play golf in Italy?).

Watching Sixty Minutes, saw the story of Davy Hughes - the owner of Swazi clothing of Levin. Turnover 10 million (apparently). He likes to hunt and eloquently argues why that's o.k. - he has quite a line of chat. The whole story was tinged with weirdness though. Mr Hughes has been tarred liberally by the brush of narcissism. Watching him trotting around the (Tararuas?) in a kilt with an eighteenth century musket was all just a little cringe inducing. But the thing that struck me most was the video footage of him killing an Alaskan Grizzly bear. The bear ambles into frame, minding its own business - being a bear (whose diet is usually salmon and berries, not people). With the animal passing by the great white hunter takes a shot from a few feet, felling the bear. Not very noble. I might have simply considered him an eccentric - we need more eccentrics. I might have had I not recently watched Werner Herzog's movie Grizzly man . In the extras was a documentary that showed another...

Valentines day story two. "Chocolate contains theobromine and caffeine, compounds that provide a mental boost, and phenylethylamine, or PEA, which stimulates the nervous system, increases blood pressure and heart rate, and is suspected to produce similar feelings experienced when a person is "in love." ( care of Web MD ) Now, when did flowers ever accomplish something like that? Contact Toni at Serious Brownee for your loved one's Valentine's Day Surprise now.

Everything produces a carbon footprint - even the most seemingly benign or passive things. Some industries are obvious polluters, but many of those businesses are trading in carbon markets and offsetting their filthy habits by planting trees. Some are even changing their ways. I was intrigued by the claims of my webhost in the United States to be 'green' - in fact they are carbon neutral: "DreamHost is carbon neutral. We've calculated the impact of everything that DreamHost uses and leaves behind in the course of our daily work. All of the resources that we use - paper in the office, electricity for our servers, even the gas in our cars that bring us to the office - leaves behind some kind of soul-sucking residue in the world. When we learned that running DreamHost generated as much carbon dioxide as 545 average-size homes we realized we had to do something to neutralize our emissions. With a bit of research we found the most effective approach begins with resource con...

I just deactivated my facebook account. Read an article from the Guardian reprinted by the Sunday Star Times about the background to the site and its founders. The thesis was that it is all very sinister and libertarian (Left and right at the same time? - isn't sinistre Italian for left?). All that is all well and good. The article didn't really chime with my views. Turning off my account was simply a product of finding the whole thing a little lame - as reported earlier in the week. Today I have been trying to finish reading the excellent Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. The story takes a long time to get cracking but I can tell you, with fifteen pages to go it is a cracking read. I can recommend it to you with complete confidence.

It has been a while since I flipped through a copy of Car magazine . It once had biblical significance to me when I worked on car accounts. I admire it for the investment in photography and writing that would leave one desperately wanting to expand one's carbon footprint - though such a thing did not exist at the time. I have the same regard for Top Gear on television. It's all in the production values, son. (Actually it's more than that…both Top Gear and Car have something crucial. Their own voice. For better or worse Jeremy Clarkson says what's on his mind. Agree with him like a devotee in a cult of just laugh out loud at his ranting, doesn't matter. He's Clarkson and it entertains). On the topic of finding a voice I was reading with interest the article in the August 07 edition featuring the new Fiat 500 ( which I blogged about when it was still but a glimmer in Fiat's eye - Bambina returns. ) AN excellent section called "An Education from the Mini B...

I was curious to see what my I.Q. was in an online test by Tickle. I'd been bugged by their banners for years. Finally succumbed. I was surprised by the result. I won't tell you the score but I was intrigued by the analysis: " Your Intellectual Type Is: Word Warrior You are equipped with a verbal arsenal that enables you to understand complex issues and communicate on a particularly high level. These talents make you a Word Warrior. Whether or not you recognize it, your vocabulary is your strongest suit—use it whenever you can. Since your command of words is so great, you are also a terrific communicator — able to articulate big ideas to just about anyone. Your wordsmithing prowess will also help in artistic and creative pursuits. The power of words translates to fresh ideas off paper too. Since you have so many words at your disposal, you are in a unique position to describe things in an original way, as well as see the future in your mind's eye. In short, your stren...

Technology is our friend. Right? I sometimes get the feeling that, no matter how interesting the latest and greatest is it is impossible to play with everything - and get anything done. I know twitter has its devotees but I can honestly say I have found it as interesting and useful as a garden ornament. I'm just not all that interested in the utterly banal ('Explain your blog' I hear you cry out as one.) Facebook is nearly pointless. I've tried, but I just can't see its utility. Scratch that. Facebook is rubbish. A monumental waste of time on par with Tamagochi. Stop feeding it. It will curl up its toes. Linked In. Jury out. My problem with it is that there are the mad linkers who want to accumulate people as if it was some kind of a game - always in search of the missing link. When it is relevant, I'm all for it but I'm not interested in random hook-ups. Blogging? Best thing ever. Really. What do you think?

I don't get Lost. That's Lost with a capital L; after all, who doesn't get lost lost from time to time? I once got lost in east L.A. in a shiny new rental car. It wasn't till later when horrified friends told my wife and I that tourists with big maps shouldn't stand around looking baffled in that part of town, but that's a whole other story. The TV show Lost, created by J.J. Abrams didn't click with me. But his talk at TED does. Take a few minutes to watch this video. He talks about his obsessions, making things (books, boxes), magic, the influence of his grandfather and the magic box he bought from a store in midtown Manhattan - 50 dollars worth of stuff for 15 bucks, which he never opened and how that has influenced his film making and story telling. I chuckled to myself when watching the clip because just the other day I blogged about: a) Jaws - the movie - and b) Tom Cruise Both make appearances in this clip. Ah, synchronicity. I also completely agree wi...

I have noticed the Saab ad on the tele. I like the pictures and I love the music (which seems to be an increasingly important part of global advertising). But I'm baffled by the one-size-fits-all approach. Here in New Zealand the ad has nothing to do with fuel. Or anything in particlar. Curiously enough it works better for it. On an interesting, related point: I read somewhere that the US TIVO service has done a study. Ads that are slanted more to the emotional end of the spectrum are more likely to be eliminated than factual ads. Think about that.

Ed Hilary died the other day. 88 years old. A good trot. I've been disgusted by the level of media coverage. On the day of his death there was NO OTHER NEWS COVERAGE on the 6 o'clock bulletins. Apparently nothing else happened in the whole world that day. Shameful. especially when I wanted some information about the 24 hour Xtra blackout. Much more important to me. Sentiment aside; I stand by my thoughts of April 05 : Mt Everest holds a special place in New Zealand 's consciousness. Ed Hillary climbed it with Tenzing Norgay and actually got to the summit and back in 1953. It may be that the English climber Mallory made it to the summit before the New Zealand beekeeper. But Mallory didn't make it home to tell the tale. Ed Hillary is widely regarded as a great New Zealander. One of the greatest. I agree, but not for the reasons most people do. Climbing Everest for the first time must have been challenging for him and I'm glad he 'knocked the bugger off' for hi...

Christmas is behind us, but there is another ritual festival pending: Valentine's day - or Saint Valentine's day. The history of the day is shrouded in convoluted connections. The Roman Catholic church has a number of Saints called Valentine on its books. Obviously it was once a more popular name for a chap than it is today. Or, perhaps, people made the connection between being named Valentine and being brutally martyred and decided the risks were just too high. Bob is notably absent in the names on ' The Big Book of Saints '. Perhaps its a generational thing? As with most festivals on the modern calendar there are two ends of the spectrum. At one sits a pagan pre-Christian origin. The idea of Valentines Day as way of expressing one's love and devotion to one's nearest and dearest is comparatively new. Before Chaucer's day there is little or no record of it. Did you know that Chaucer and Shakespeare had to make a lot of language up? Shakespeare was the first...

Prehistoric compared to the Sumsing Multi-task. I particularly like the toasted sandwich function. Check your temperature after though.

Exhibit A: Bjork Much as I like Bjork's music I was pretty shocked to see her violently attack a journalist on television tonight - the footage was historical, shot in Thailand. Today she reportedly assaulted a New Zealand photographer in an attack that ripped the shirt from his back. Um…wrong message for our kids. I was appalled that a policeman interviewed expressed an opinion that the security camera footage, which would corroborate the photographer's claims, would be irrelevant unless there was an official complaint. The assault by Trevor Mallard in the corridors of power saw him hauled in front of the court by a Private citizen who laid a complaint. Maybe there's an opportunity here. Surely there is someone out there who is offended by celebrities being above the law. I don't know what the law is in Iceland but you're in New Zealand now we don't attack people willy nilly. And, if you do and live in South Auckland, you go to jail…we believe in law and order...

"Everybody who is honest is interesting." Stefan Sagmeister Things I have learned so far in my life

I've been obsessing about books.The blog has been uncharacteristically silent because I have been trying to finish my story Vanishing Act. Well the job is done. It needs some smoothing and shaping but, version one is in beta. You can preview it as a PDF or paperback here if you are interested. I need to think about the cover typography I hate DIN but have used it anyway - I suppose it is a lazy default. I made a conceptual type arrangement but it didn't grab me. If you have any ideas for a concept, using the pic of dolphins receding into the gloom, let me know. I have included the image of the book One Perfect Day ( Via Covers blog ) because I love the wit in the idea. Just trying to inspire myself really.

Something of a movie day yesterday. I took my daughter Zoe to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks . She had made some chipmunk ears and pinned her faux leopard skin tail to the tops of her trousers, which might have alarmed an actual chipmunk, but never let a little naturalistic verismo get in the way of a good time I say. My expectations were low for the fill itself. The original cartoon, which I remember from my childhood hardly made it into my top ten of cartoons and the novelty of novelty songs featuring sped up voices to suggest a rodent ensemble doesn't seem as exotic today as, perhaps, it might once have in simpler times. So, if Peter Jackson can bring The Lord of the Rings alive (btw, I thought the Ents - tree people - in LoTR were the least successful character designs, maybe because they were absurd from the get go - talking, walking trees are less believable than growing Orcs in the mud - I mean who hasn't done that?)…if PJ can bring the vista of Middle Earth vividly to li...

This is what technology is really all about: practical utility. Très, très drôle. Thanks to Ben Kepes for the link. ( His blog is a cracker - well done that man.)

One of the things you notice when traipsing about Wellington, the capitol city of New Zealand is that the civic leaders have had the great good sense to plop sculpture around the place. If you've been following this diary you'll know I have a thing about sculpture. Not a studious, learned sort of thing-more a snickering, bloody hell look at that, call that art sort of thing. So, Wellington was a rich vein to tap into. In front of the train station there is a statue of a little bald bloke who, on closer examination turns out to be Ben Kingsley. Ok, Ok, Gandhi, but an easy mistake to make. I mean, you wouldn't expect to find a statue of Ghandhi stepping out from the train station in Wellington, would you? My goodness gracious me no. Actually the thing that struck me about the statue was its stature. Not quite as overblown as the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. but this effigy is certainly somewhat more statuesque than the Mahatma himself. I have a feeling the Wellington w...

Back from a trip to Wellington. S'funny I've been there many, many times but never on holiday. So spending time with locals was a revelation. I was invited to stay at Seatoun Heights. The home was brilliant, the view even better. An interIsland ferry would steam by every so often. One doesn't see that in Auckland. Lots of fun. Pictures follow.