Life and pondering the merits of a NO REFUND CULTURE
Archive for June, 2009
Word from nowhere: Dopey inter-relationship phrases
Jun 13th
This doesn’t strictly fit into my ‘Word from nowhere’ category. In fact it could be in a new category called ‘Words from a known source that you say all the time with your partner and make you laugh’. But hey let’s go crazy and keep it in the former category …
Chad and I have a number of daft phrases which we have accumulated over the last six years (it was our anniversary yesterday) and use all the time. Here are a few…
- “It’s like Beirut in here!”: when a place we are in is really noisy or really quiet (this comes from a Catherine Tate character)
- “I knew before”: this is in a French and Saunders sketch. You have to say this really loud and the ‘before’ needs to last about five seconds. This is definitely one for when we are indoors at home!
- “I can do that!”: another Catherine Tate special – a very liberating catchphrase as it encourages you to do anything
- “Have you ever heard of a thing called Butter? Gold in colour and slippery to the touch”: If I say the word ‘butter’, as in “Could you pass me the butter please?”, then Chad out of reflex says this (it’s a scene from Little Britain)
- “Oh bless”: we say this one in a sickly sweet way, mimicking this comedy airhostess that served us on a plane who said it ALL the time i.e. “Hi there, oh bless, would you like some tea? Oh bless you, here is your tea of bless, thanks, bless” -no kidding it was brilliant
- “That madam is a one cent coin”: This has to be said in a dramatic, breathy and condescending way. We say this if someone does something unintentionally annoying. This one is from the funniest shop worker in the history of people that have worked in a shop. A Little Britain character in her own right who works on a cross Channel ferry
So share with me some of your dopey catchphrases please..
Sensible(ish) post: High definition blogging!
Jun 11th
Here is a post from today on my work blog called ‘High definition blogging!‘. I cannot take credit for the post title (which is inspired if you read the post). My business partner came up with it. She is on fire today and came up with a great creative theme for a pitch that we are preparing for next week.
Anyhow, the summary of the post is:
- Pollster surveyed British GPs and patients on their use of the web
- Wrote in a magazine article that one in four patients were blogging
- I called the pollster author to check up on this crazy stat – turns out by ‘blogging’ they meant ‘reads’ nor ‘writes’ a blog (odd definition)
- Minor concern that this figure is now going to get touted around the UK pharmaceutical industry as gospel
- Great research though and the market research agency have what looks like an amazing data set that I would love to investigate
Grumped: BA turning into Ryanair
Jun 9th
In a massive traffic jam on the M25 having been picked up from T5 by a taxi driver. So a Grumped moment is at my finger tips…
Milan trip was good. I even managed to catch a bit of the old part of the city with a late night walk followed by an alfresco beer with Chair and our my lovely client. All very pleasant although it was pointed out that my eyes were blood shot and I looked like hell (the daily disposable contact lenses are very unforgiving after 18 hours of wear).
My Grumped moment relates to my flight out to Milan on Saturday.
I stupidly attempted to check in two bags. My micro suitcase and a laptop bag (doubling up as an ‘on-site event bag’). The latter contained scissors and all manner of other sharp pointy things that you cannot take through Security – and hence why I wanted to check it in.
Anyway I wasn’t allowed to without paying £35 pounds as my ticket only allowed one bag to be checked in. This was despite the fact that both bags together weighted less than my allowance.
Most annoying and out from my mouth popped the title of this post. This was met by a harsh look – batted back with my most smiley of smiles. ‘Frosty’ then couldn’t – I guessed faked – not being able to print me a receipt and inconvenienced me further with a trip to the baggage desk where ‘Incompetent’ was unable after 10 minutes to print me a receipt.
Learnings from experience:
- Don’t fly British Airways – I know they are our national carrier but they are expensive and don’t give you a better experience
- Remember to get your jumbo suitcase from storage before you fly
- Pay a few pounds to have your small case cocooned in 200 metres of security plastic wrapping. As the Spice Girls said “two becomes one” and you don’t pay the extra (as I did on my return journey)
So ziga zig argh BA. I hope the £35 compensates for my new BA avoidance strategy.
Word from nowhere: Vomitus
Jun 9th
I have worked in healthcare communications for a long time now but yesterday was the first time I have had to use the correct medical term for chundering (delightful).
Another favourite medical term of the same genre is ‘Flatus’. Don’t know what this is? If you had flatulance you would be passing a number of them!
Whoever said PR was glamourous didn’t work in healthcare
PR ;+)
Omnigatherum: Leaning Tower of Pizza (boxes)
Jun 6th
In Milan working this weekend. Remember the TV show ‘Catchphrase‘ with Roy Walker? His catch phrase was say what you see..
Modern living: Green, maroon and moronic
Jun 3rd
We have European Parliamentary elections tomorrow (not local ones where I live). I’ve already cast my vote via the post – I’ve missed out voting in the past because of ending up not being able to get to a polling station in time (normally because of work) so I have been a firm believer in the security of a postal vote for the past 10 years.
So I’ve already marked the ‘X’ on my ballot paper to be counted. I’ve voted for the party that run my Borough, who are also the party of my MP (I live in Brent and so feel free to do your own homework). I can tell you that I didn’t vote for the Green Party – and today just reinforced why…
We got back to Camden from a prospective client meeting at lunchtime. So a colleague and I jumped out of the cab and dashed to a favourite sandwich eatery to get, surprise, surprise, a sandwich. As we started walking down Camden High Street we could hear someone ranting on a megaphone in the distance.
We turned round a few times and as the traffic started up from the traffic lights the words ‘Vote Green tomorrow’ came into ear shot. Then the orator came into view. A lady passenger of a maroon Toyota Prius was heading toward us down the road, window down, megaphone hanging out of the car with luminous green ‘Vote Green’ posters sellotaped to the rear windows. Again she cried ‘Vote Green Tomorrow’.
Now my colleague and I looked at each other and as I though it, my colleague yelled out “Get on your bike and stop driving around in a car”. Green lady yells back “It’s an electric car – vote Green tomorrow”, as they sped off into the distance.
Man oh man – so many things funny yet fundamentally wrong about the whole thing:
- Where does Green lady think that electricity comes from? Let me tell you: the burning of fossil fuels or nuclear power
- A Prius does use a bit of electricity but we do have to remember that they actually use more petrol to get themselves around
- Aural spamming is not a good way of persuading people to do anything you want them to do
- The car was maroon, yes I know, maroon – can a car possibly be sprayed a worse colour? Who buys a maroon car?
This is the problem with single issue organisations – if you are single issue you lose all credibility the second you don’t totally act in line with that single issue.
I think that the environment is hugely important and a difficult thing to balance with our modern lives of, to name just a few things, cars, planes and doing our shopping online (where our little one-off purchases get whizzed from across the globe). It’s a huge quandary.
I don’t want be too disparaging of the Greens. Single issue political parties are important. They keep us on our toes, we need people with extreme issues (as long as they don’t cause genuine harm) – it’s just that shrieking from an ugly coloured, pseudo-environmental credentialed car expecting the recipients to be mobilised into action is, well, just plain moronic.
Loved stuff: BBC Radio 4 – Today
Jun 1st
I love the Today programme on Radio 4. I drive to work most mornings (I HATE the evil Tube) and I secretly like it if the worst stretch on my journey (the Finchley Road) is rammed full of traffic and I end up in a mini jam. It means I get an extra 10 minutes added to my journey and I get to hear more of my favourite radio show.
I love talk radio and the gang on Today are always brilliant – shaping the media agenda but striking the right balance with the random and quirky stories. I love all the presenters but am really loving Evan Davis (also presents Dragon’s Den – TV gold) who is my favourite at the moment. He was a bit shaky when he started on the show a while back but is totally ace now. He did a great interview with Mr Brown this morning.
Mr Davis might be becoming a a new ‘weird crush’ for me – OK he’s just not Rodrigo Santoro – but (along with the rest of the Today crew) he is both funny and professional and above all really smart. I also have a weird crush on Andrew Marr – it’s the intensely smart / witty thing going on again (!!!). Anyway I digress…
As a PR person I have pitched the Today programme a few times – I haven’t managed to get anything proactively on it yet (even huge stories that have gone across all news channel wide including the BBC). Ho hum. Anyway, despite the fact that they have never succumbed to a Crump pitch, I still love them.
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