- Blog
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Turning Russian riot policemen into HOMOs
Meanwhile, I’m entertained (because I am a very simple man) to note that all you have to do to turn a nasty Russian riot policeman into a HOMO is to reverse his photograph in Photoshop. In fact, think you should DIGG this flickr set – really just because I like the idea of lots of…
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The unwisdom of streets
The bin-men used to come on Thursdays. Simple. Since the council introduced ‘Alternate Week Collections‘ nobody knows when they’re coming. We’re all at sea. One day it’s plastic and tin cans, the next it’s green waste. Newspapers? Household waste? No idea. Everybody’s moaning about the smell (and the rats) but I’m more interested in what…
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The noise in Northants
There are two sounds on this earth that can make me spontaneously cry. There’s the sound of a great operatic soprano mid-aria and there’s the sound of a top fuel dragster mid-quarter mile. The thing is, they’re both big sounds and they both bypass the usual emotional circuitry to make people cry or laugh or…
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Random stuff…
…because the football’s so boring. Isn’t the Skoda ad lovely? The ‘making-of’ video is a reminder of how good and appropriate old-fashioned, above-the-line investment can be. Don’t cancel your TV campaigns yet you big brands! Don’t forget to check how your MP voted on the utterly shameful amendment to the Freedom of Information Act. You’ll…
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How does he do it?
How did Tony Blair turn what ought to have been an ignominious retreat – a defeated backward step from power – into a noble and affecting curtain call? I am, again, in awe. The man is the most remarkable political figure of the post-war era. A fascinating, hypnotising, utterly political animal, somehow managing to exist…
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Looking for freelancers
I’m looking for some freelance help with a couple of tasks. A reasonable day rate is available and the project is likely to be fun and to lead to lots more work if things go well: Site map/visualisation/wireframe jockey. I need a visually cool and useful site map of shave.com. Useful infoporn. Something that’ll look…
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The fate of the innovator
Remember Segway? Always doomed. Always ridiculous. A case study in entrepreneurial hubris. It somehow never occurred to anyone at Segway – not designers, not investors, not breathless celebrity boosters – that looking ridiculous might be a disincentive to buy (look at Jeff ‘Mr Bean’ Bezos
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Brands are our cathedrals
Can you imagine a world without brands? Does social media (social networking, social content, social shopping, social this and that…) threaten the very idea of a brand (as it does, for some, the very idea of authority in media)? We’re divided, as usual, on this matter. Some – the euphorics (the geek ‘ultras’) reckon that…
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Random anthropology
My wife is researching a new haircut. So she finds herself typing the phrase ‘graduated bob‘ (that’s a kind of haircut) into Google Images. The first half a page of results are as you’d expect: photographs of haircuts. After that it gets really funny and strangely poignant. Look at all those Bobs! And every one…
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Shaving for a living
A couple of months ago I blogged a company called King of Shaves, one whose product I had always admired and whose brand I thought was interesting – unconventional, quite funny, a bit knowing. I sort of thought it was American: a bit too much chutzpah for a UK company, I thought. Anyway, it turns…