What the frig?!

It's not so much the advert that disturbs me, just the man's eyes. They just scream "Give us your gold or I'll creep into your bedroom tonight and kill you!"

Freaky!

Jobbage update

Slightly delayed post here, just a quick entry regarding my attempts at landing a job in advertising. Somewhat out of the blue a fortnight ago, I received an email asking if I was still looking for a junior copywriter role. "Hell yes, I am!" I said (possibly not in quite those words). As a result, Monday morning saw me heading to meet with the account head of a modest little agency in central Manchester. Unfortunately the CD wasn't around at the time, but Jeanette took onboard everything in my book and seemed to make all the right noises about it. I tried to put together my most varied bunch of copy to show what I could do, as well as a couple of other snippets to try and swing it in my favour! At the moment I'm just waiting on feedback from them once the other candidates have been interviewed, and hoping I did enough for them to consider me for the job, as it would be a fantastic opportunity to finally get my career started.

Will keep you all updated as soon as I know more!

I think too much

Pardon my politically incorrect post, but am I the only one who sees that this is not the best choice of web address?


Perhaps it's just me, but I read that as "Beth Ditto ate vans" - might explain a few things then!

Giraffa Cakes

The product of an unusual conversation with my parentals a while ago.

(Forgive my shonky Photoshop skills!)

New Blood 2009

Forgive me for the belated posting, I only returned from London late on Wednesday night. As for why it's taken me until Saturday night to write this, never you mind!


Any excuse to have a day off from the dreaded 9 to 5 rat race that is my life at present, I popped on down to the Big City to check out this year's offerings (or more to the point, to keep my beady eyes on the competition). And I must say, there was the same abundance of talent as is always expected at any D&AD event, noted by what seemed to be a plentitude of Best In Show markers around the event, one of which making it to Claire Gilchrist's work for the National Portrait Gallery from UCLan's Advertising Class of 2009 - big up the Preston massive!

UCLan at New Blood

A little sad to be a mere spectator this year, but was great to head back to it and get lost (literally) amongst the rows of amazing work. Just a couple of examples of what I thought to be the best ads on show - so simple they may have been done before, but still great to see imagery so uncomplicated that you understand it in an instant.

Taste of London

Heinz Hot Ketchup

Until my moment of advertising superstardom descends upon me, I shall continue to work my arse off and hopefully be D&AD worthy some day!

Old skool

Not really one for the sun (being a milk bottle and all), I spent a sizeable chunk of Saturday indoors, going back to my UCLan roots to check out this year's degree show. Brought back quite some memories - some good, some bad, but none that left me having cold sweats thankfully. As surreal as it was to head back there, it left me feeling further inspired to keep at it and helped me to remember why I love the industry so much.

Needless to say, there were a solid few bright sparks amongst the work, of which a couple of my favourites I've included here.

Some of the Advertising Class of 2009

A moving piece for Fathers4Justice

And a humorous POS for Berghaus Opti-Stud

The rest of the show wasn't without promise, with some great work coming from graphic design, animation and textiles in particular. Overall, the whole thing just left me feeling inspired and strangely at home, as well as adding a little extra fuel to the fire of burning advertising desire within me! If you have chance to go along before the show finishes this Saturday, it's well worth a look. As for me, I'm off to write some more of my book. Toodlepip!

Creative projects

As ever, the "I will blog more" resolution has been waning, so I think it's time to pep up this tired ol' thing with some different stuff. Still working the temp scene (though hoping to become permanent if my ever so suave interview skills serve me well next week), so still trying to keep my fingers in the pies that interest me in any spare time I can grab and practically suffocate into submission ("You will be mine, oh precious 5 minute CSI ad break. I will doodle something right n... [the bright lights of the TV set become too distracting] Oooh, purdy adverts!")

For starters, I'll introduce you to Haylee. This is yours truly in mog form. I'm not sure what a mog is, but it's a character I made up whilst I was at college many moons ago, and I still seem to draw them to this day. So here she is - do be nice and say hello to her, she's quite shy.


My mogs will be making more of an appearance shortly, just as soon as I have time to upload some more of them when I'm not working on the book. The book being an actual book, not the portfolio. I've finally started the painstaking process of forming the plot for the lovely little piece of fiction I'm hoping to write. I won't say too much at this point except that the heroine will be (very loosely) based on me, and will no doubt arrive at a happy ending much sooner than myself!

Anyway, that's me for now, so do tune into the show again, whenever it next decides to air! My old partner in crime, a certain Ms Sparkinson, has recently set up her own blog to showcase her creative talents, of which they are vast and varied. So if you're around her neck of the woods, do be sure to pop in for a look-see at: http://sparkidoodle.blogspot.com/.
You can also find the link in my sidebar - be there or be square!

Sarah in all her mog-shaped glory

Move over, George!

Flo Rida CD single: £1.99
Reeboks with the stripes: £39.99
Simon Cowell's face: Priceless!

The end of a mini-era

A slightly sombre Monday evening as me and Sarah have decided to part ways. Various reasons leading to it, but mainly just in light of our current personal situations and the different directions we're being taken in right now. Sarah's currently trying to get work as an artworker whilst I'm on the 9-5 scene until finances allow otherwise. I don't think either of us would say it's a definite permanent move, but it's what's best for us both at this stage.

Has been a great 9 months and such a learning curve for us both, experiencing our first placements together and having our first ads produced, something I don't think we imagined would be possible just from our short time at the agencies we've resided at. Glad to have shared the experience with Sarah, and we'll no doubt continue to wreak havoc on the streets of Manchester!




Long live Team Sparkley!

In the spirit of forgiveness

Marks and Spencer have also been making up for their boo-boos (or boob-boobs) this past week after the negative press surrounding their "bigger prices for bigger bosoms" bra scandal. I've never been a fan of M&S as such, and the more expensive DD-cup and upwards bras did not impact on me in the slightest (as much as I wish they did), but I think there's something endearing about a brand that can hold their hands up to their mistakes. Fair enough, they needed to before even more people fled to Asda or Primark for cheap underwear, but to admit that they "boobed" (yes yes, puns are bad but this one is acceptable) and offer a new price AND discounts for a fortnight could well result in the biggest turnaround achieved in such a short space of time.

Unfortunately for them, their wily advertising charms will not have me crossing their threshhold. Power to the Primarni!

Learning lessons the hard way

This week brought about our first proper ads which was very good. Unfortunately, my week is ending on a bit of a low.

A year ago I was a student struggling towards the finish line of the degree under quite a lot of pressure and stress. Around this time I found myself on Facebook rather a lot (nothing new there!) and happened to post a couple of derogatory comments about a brand on a group that I joined, purely to let off some steam. Fast forward to today, and those actions have come back to bite me in the ass. The agency dealing with the brand's advertising has suddenly found this group and my comments, and politely informed me that I can rule out any chance of placement or long-term employment with them for the forseeable future as a result of this.

Let this be a word of warning to any current or ex-student who has ever thought that any negative comments they've made online would never be discovered, be it on Facebook or any other public forum - even blogs. During any placements I have had, I've always remained professional and abided by the terms of contract as well as asking permission before blogging about any aspect of work to avoid repercussions such as this. I understand and respect that the agency in question are simply protecting themselves and their client in such precarious times, but I am disappointed that something I wrote on one day a year ago as a disgruntled student under no contractual obligations, has now backfired so spectacularly.

If you're a member of any anti-brand/product groups, remove any comments and your membership now! I had removed my membership from the group some time ago, thinking the comments would disappear too - unfortunately not! As a mark of respect towards the brand and agency, I have now removed these. In future, unless you choose to be part of a pro-brand/product group, I'd advise anyone interested in this industry to learn from my naive example and stay away from these groups entirely.

As with everything I publish on this blog, this is just another stumbling block on the path to advertising superstardom, but the one I've learned the most from so far. I only wonder where it all ends - what of my criticism of the new Orange Wednesdays ad below? Does that assure me no chance of ever working for Fallon because I think their ad could've been better? If that's the case, then I think all of us bloggers are screwed! In an industry that tries to alter public opinion of brands and products, I find it a tad saddening that the creatives producing the work may only speak positively of brands and products, regardless of whether they are linked to them or not. But I guess you take the rough with the smooth and hope to hell you don't make the same mistake again!

Thus endeth the lesson!

What was that offer again?

The new Orange Wednesdays ads have come under some less than friendly fire since their first airing, the main criticisms being that they're just not as funny as the old ones, and that using the "I am who I am" line to send themselves up makes it less amusing still. Personally I don't have any problem with them, they're likeable enough, though it would be nice to see send ups of other well-known characters soon.

There is one flaw with the latest ad though - the flying monkey. Hell, nobody likes them, but that's not the point I'm making. Orange Wednesdays is a 2-for-1 offer. Witch + Vicki + monkey = 3. Is it just me, or did they need to give the flying monkey a flying monkey companion in order for the ad to sell what's it's meant to be selling?

WOOT!!

The time has come where we can finally reveal our ads for Warrington Borough Transport! Just to refresh while it's been so long, these were formed from a concept me and Sarah had during our time at AND Partners last October which the client gladly accepted. Still only small fry compared to your drumming gorillas and the like, but other than a leaflet we did for VivaLaDiva at Pravda, these are our first proper advertising babies seeing the cold, harsh light of day.


Our original scamps


The finished articles

4-page leaflet using artwork from our ad

The leaflet is something Lee and Sam formed after we left placement, but it uses the image from our ad so I'm shamelessly plugging it on here! For the moment our ads are appearing on WBT buses in the region to promote the U19 Savercard (which was originally U18, it's not a typo on our scamps!), but there's talk of them being rolled out into adshels and bus backs at some point. Whatever happens we're just happy to have work out there being seen, and the canny thought that the teens seeing it will never once think "I wonder who came up with these ads?" is actually kind of cool. Sure, someday we want to do something as big as Gorilla or Balls (possibly a gorilla's balls, you never know!), but for now it's a good feeling that Joe Public are seeing our work.

Though we sadly didn't get to see the project through from start to finish, we're glad we got to head to the shoot for it in February, and we've been enlightened as to just how long even the simplest of ideas can take to come to fruition (6 months!). Cue Oscars-style speech! Thanks to the AND Crew for giving us the opportunity to have our work produced, to Lee for letting us mock him as always at the shoot, and to Ste for keeping us in the loop about everything that was going on. Cheers guys!

Easter update

Just a quickie! Unfortunately me and Sarah received an unfavourable response from Finch yesterday - turns out they opted to go for a more experienced team which is understandable based on their standing at the moment. A tad disappointed, but knockbacks are always to be expected, more so now than ever. And at the end of the day it's another contact we've gained, plus Kerry said she'd put us in touch with some of their contacts closer to home in Manchester, so there's always that silver lining somewhere.

Right back to the chocolate eating. Not as a form of consolation, just because I love scoffing!

Long time, no type!

Seems like the resolution to update the blog more has fallen by the wayside a little! Been pretty busy over the last month with normal work stuff (i.e. the 9-5 job) so little to report from Team Sparkley. However, today we did have a jaunt over to Liverpool to an agency called Finch for an interview (yes, an actual interview, not just a random book crit!)


Unfortunately the CD was busy, but we got to see the lovely account director, Kerry Dennison. Admittedly it was pretty much like all the book crits we've had, but with a little more emphasis on what experience we've had since uni and also a lot more background and current info on Finch itself. Kerry liked much of our book and seemed to like us, and it turned out we were the last candidates for their job opening to be interviewed, so we should be hearing something from them sometime in the next week or so.

Still a lot of ups and downs for Team Sparkley at the moment as we've both been looking for any work we can get our hands on, whether it be together or separately. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say! Sarah had an interview for an artworker job yesterday, and for the time being I'm staying on at my temp job to keep the cash coming in and considering writing a book to pass my free time more creatively and hone my copywriting skills as much as possible. Whatever happens, we're just looking for any way to help us onwards and upwards, regardless of when that elusive "big break" finally happens.

On a lighter note away from all the doom, gloom and economic depression, we had a rather nice wander down to the Albert Docks, stopping in at the Tate along the way - hooray for a bit of culture (there's little of it in Wigan and Stockport, you see). True to our roots, our favourite part was the souvenir shop - me with my gigantic pencils, and Sarah with her pornographic art books. Very classy.


Hopefully we'll be hearing some good news soon, be it as a result of today or our many other endeavours/fingers in pieholes. The snippet of information we learned today that we never knew before is that Liverpool has an underground service. And it smells better than London's.

For the One I Love

Here's a little shout out to my lovely work wife, Sarah. For all the times you say "Nom nom nom!" to me, this is for you!

Stupid Sheilas

What the hell? I read possibly the stupidest article in the paper this morning. Word has it that having attempted to sign up for Swiftcover insurance, musicians are being told they're ineligible for it due to Iggy Pop being their frontman. WHA?!?! How on earth does being a musician make you a liability to an insurance firm?

Also revealed was that Esure (you know the ones - "Calm down dear, I'm just punching Michael Winner in the face!") does not insure film directors, and Sheilas' Wheels refuse to insure people who drive pink cadillacs.

Australian? Own a garishly pink dress? You're out!

Whatever next? MoreThan not covering anyone who owns a dog named Lucky (yes yes, old ads I know, but it appears insurers are crazy!), Norwich Union/Aviva not insuring anyone who has ever changed their name?

Perhaps I'm well behind the times and this has been going on with all manner of products and services for years, but I just don't understand why the ASA have allowed these instances to occur, discrimination being the buzzword these days.


On a brief note whilst I continue to fathom this out, me and Sarah received the first visuals of our ads for Warrington Borough Transport today and they're looking pretty good! No matter how big or small this achievement seems to anyone else, we can't wait to see our first printed ads out there and be able to say "We made that!"

Feel free to make sick noises!

Ze book

A new link has been added to the sidebar now, which is an online showcase of mine & Sarah's book. Feel free to take a look and leave comments or contact us via email (also in the sidebar).

Ta!

Back to the day job

That's your lot folks, our fortnight at TBWA is up! Never the best feeling leaving placements behind, but having been given a chance to prove ourselves at the church, we're more certain than ever that we want to work there. Two weeks ago it was just an idealistic view that it'd be pretty freakin' cool to be part of such a team, but having seen it from the inside, it's become a goal for us.

We had a great end to our stint there with some more good feedback from Paul, and he sent us on our way with another brief for us to tackle and some certificates of our time there which was pretty funny. I personally have had the best time there, and feel like I'm learning more and more as I go along my little copywriting journey, particularly with Paul's encouragement with has helped my confidence no end. Needless to say, that man is set for a whole load of pestering from us in the months to come, and we hope to be taken back into the church some time in the near future.

My record of achievement!

For the time being it's back to the grind for me come Monday when I'll be returning to my "day job", though only for a few more weeks before heading to the life of limbo once more! We're just going to take things as they come, keep working on the book and pushing to get it out there, and we shall see what the next few months bring for us. We've left a little mark or two behind at TBWA, so we'll see whether they're discovered (though Fergus did catch us in our suspicious act - d'oh!). Thanks for having us, and hopefully we'll see you soon for more Cheese Pub action!

Our Bex flying the UCLan flag for us at TBWA!

I'm a PC

Sarah showed me this little Mac piss-take yesterday which I nearly peed myself over (true story). As a blatant Mac-basher, I loved it!

"I'll buy almost anything if it's shiny and made by Apple" - genius!

Trott on

No word of a lie, I saw Dave Trott this morning! Striding purposefully towards me, I was in no doubt that it was the silver-haired Trotter.


Except I'm not quite sure why he was getting off a Magic Bus in East Didsbury. Sarah thinks I'm crazy. Or that it could possibly have been Dave's long-lost twin, Fox.

Discuss.

KISS

So, Sarah has now returned to the land of the living (well, the land of advertising anyway) - turns out it was the dreaded Norovirus that struck her down last week, the dodgy pizza was purely coincidental! We've been cracking on with GHD again and have just seen Paul for his input on our ideas. Some more good feedback from him, with a solid route for us to progress with until he sees us again on Friday.

I also took the opportunity to show him the copy I was working on for Nissan last Friday to see if it was as crap as I thought! Turns out it wasn't, but he gave me some useful writer-to-writer tips that have been duly noted and will be implemented the next time pen meets paper! Basically, I have to KISS more - Keep It Simple, Stupid! Another of those great little gems to take with you and pass around to others, just like our ex-tutor's epic advice to JFDI - Just F**cking Do It! Maybe there's a gap in the market to write a book of advertising abbreviations. I'll let you know if I decide to write it.

Right, back to the pad now, people!

A week of firsts

This week has seen us experiencing quite a few things for the first time - working in a church (never thought I'd say that!), attending our first photoshoot, and yesterday we were invited up into the Ark to sit in on an all-agency meeting. Of course we're not at liberty to divulge anything that went on in there (ruddy privacy agreements spoiling everyone's fun!), but it was lovely to see all of the creative teams in one room, a tight squeeze though it was! Even for those coming over from Parklands, there's clearly a good unity between everyone despite working from different locations, and it just served to strengthen our opinion that TBWA is a great big happy family to work for.

Today is another first for me as I'm working alone because Sarah ate some dodgy pizza last night (hope you get well soon dude!), so I'm working on some copy for our Nissan concepts from earlier in the week (and clearly having a bit of a mental break from it!) Better crack on I guess, but I'm sure there'll be more updates to come next week.

*Buries head in thesaurus*

Busy day!

A little bit of agency two-timing went on today, but in the nice, dirty, smutty "I like it!" kind of way.

Around early December we'd caught up with Stephen at AND Partners who was handling their account with Warrington Borough Transport, as we'd been told before we left our placement there in October that the client was putting through some of the work we'd done, so we checked in to see how it was going. We were assured it was all still going ahead and that more would be happening come the New Year. So, like the persistent rottweilers we are, we continued to pester Ste every so often to see where it was all up to, and were very happy when last month he suggested we join them for the shoot once it'd been arranged. As you can imagine, the weather somewhat hampered the plans for a good few weeks, but around lunchtime yesterday, Ste emailed us to ask if we'd be free at very short notice to join them on the shoot today. Cue excitement! We checked with Paul at TBWA first, and gave Ste our big "Yay!" verdict.

So this morning we headed to Warrington to meet with Ste and Lee from AND Partners, as well as the photographer and his assistant, and set out in our very own bus (designated driver and all!)

The bus in question

We won't say too much right now, as the shots are currently with the photographer for retouching before AND Partners can set about their ad-producing magic, but we were really pleased to find that in the 4 months since we last set eyes on our concepts, not one thing had been altered. Of course we won't be at AND Partners to oversee the final stage, but it's been great to go on our first shoot and to see how the photographer had to set about interpretating and accomodating the idea as much as possible into the images he took, not to mention finding the perfect setting for the shots in the first place! Admittedly it's not as flashy and showbiz as you imagine it to be before you ever go on a shoot, but we certainly had a laugh and just plain enjoyed being able to see another stage of the whole process. No doubt the ads will be appearing on here just as soon as is possible!

Lee taking in the view

A change of location

Sarah getting her hands dirty

After randomly ending up as models for some additional shots being taken (yes, me and Sarah may even be FEATURING in an ad too, albeit rather out of focus!), we went to feed ourselves up at Pizza Hut, after which me and Sarah hopped in the car and headed back to TBWA as we were due to see Paul with some of our ideas for Nissan at 4pm. With an hour or so to spare, we went back over everything we rushed out yesterday (as we had to get our ads drawn up pronto once the photoshoot was arranged) and added a few more scamps to the mix before heading over to Parklands to see the man himself. We'd been a little worried that we were perhaps sacrificing vital time on the brief in favour of the photoshoot, but as I'm sure anyone could understand, we didn't want to pass up the opportunity to go along this morning. As it turned out, our worrying had been in vain as a nice amount of our work was well received. Having had something of a love/hate relationship with headlines ever since I decided to embark on the life of an aspiring copywriter, it was really good to hear that I'd done something right this time around as Paul really liked some of the lines. We came away with ideas to work on as well as a new fictional GHD brief which me and Sarah can't wait to get stuck into.

So overall it was a busy day for us, and a great one at that. Really enjoying the experience at TBWA so far, and dreading next Friday coming around too quickly (or at all!) but we're just going to get our heads down and bash out some stonking work and make the best impression we can whilst we're there!

Audio abuse

Why? Why would you subject anybody to this, lovely Kelloggs people? Why did you think that Snap's "I've Got The Power" and the Coco Pops jingle went together? And who on earth cast that dude for the voiceover? WHY?

...blast off?

Well the start to today didn't quite go as planned, with me slip sliding away this morning on the ice, which was presumably the reason behind my tres early start being thwarted when I reached Piccadilly. Plenty of time, I thought, to leisurely catch a train to East Didsbury. And so it seemed when I got to Piccadilly, with the departure boards all flashing brightly and gloriously at me that the trains were running on time. So I headed to my platform and settled down to finish reading my Metro. I finished my Metro. And my train was already 5 minutes late. Battling back "the fear" (something I experience a lot whilst waiting for trains, particularly when they fail to arrive on time), I headed back to the boards, only to discover that the two imminent trains to East Didsbury had disappeared. Cue panic. Eventually discovered that the next one would be arriving at 8:58 (bearing in mind I'd already been waiting half an hour), and hurried along to greet it with open arms, only to find it was delayed. Cue uber panic. Finally it arrived at 9:07, at which I hastily boarded and drummed my fingers in an irritated fashion until it began to move, my sigh of relief as it departed at 9:09 quickly turning to a gasp of horror as it stopped again just 500 yards out of the station at 9:10. After an agonising 2 minute wait (yes, agonising indeed) it continued on with its journey, stopping only once more on the way, but not stopping quite long enough for me to express my rage in a physical manner. At 9:25 it pulled into the station, and I hurtled off it straight to Sarah's car, at which point we sped like bats out of hell round the corner to TBWA, even making aggravated hand gestures and cursing old women crossing in our path, such was our urgency to be on time. Gathering our composure, our road rage abated, in we walked through the sturdy oak door of the church...

And here our TBWA story starts! We were instantly given the grand tour by Paul Burns before settling down to be briefed. We then headed off to our home for the next two weeks, a neat little cubby hole within the church walls, and set ourselves down to get cracking. We've just been given a simple Nissan brief to begin with, but we're looking forward to the other briefs we'll be thrown during our two weeks there, and hopefully working on some GHD just like the good old uni days. Today we were more getting our bearings than anything, as being at TBWA is a whole different ball game to our previous placements, particularly in terms of the size of the workforce. Unfortunately we haven't had much chance to get acquainted with everybody yet (and I'm sure we still won't have by the time we leave!), but luckily there was already a familiar face there - our Bex from UCLan. It's been really nice catching up with her and getting to see some of what her and her partner Adam have been working on since they settled there last July, their most recent success having been to grace the pages of Campaign with their new Tiger Balm idents just this week, so a big congratulations to them for that!

Our cubby hole

Hard at work of course

Can't wait to head in tomorrow (regardless of any train trouble!) and I'm sure there'll be more blogging to come over the next fortnight, so stay tuned folks!

T minus 1 day and...

This last week has gone oddly fast in the run-up to TBWA - no sooner had I thought "Ooh, only one week to go!" than it was Saturday and I was heading to Manchester for a pre-placement teamtalk with Sarah. Admittedly I was a little worried we'd have lost something of our sparkle since our stint at AND Partners was such a long time ago, but we set down to think on some new ways to make ourselves memorable and to get our branding out there, and I think it's safe to say that Team Sparkley is back with a vengeance!

Be afraid, be very afraid!

As it's a new year, we have a whole new gameplan, with plans to give the book an overhaul (our work is sacred no longer!) and to set up a site to showcase our work, as well as getting our name out to all and sundry in an attempt to kick the recession's ass!

Whilst discussing our plans for global advertising domination, we headed to our favourite place in Manchester - the Urbis. Lucky for us, the D&AD Annuals showcase was on, with every annual on display from 45 years ago when it all began. Was great to see how it had all progressed from 1963 to present day, managing to maintain the same degree of effortless savvy and coolness each and every year. Yes, we are advertising geeks and we love it!

1986 - Year of the Sarah

1987 - Year of the Hayley

Heggers, we love you!

As the earlier noted candyfloss suggests, we were rather excited yesterday! Bring on the advertising!

T minus 1 week and counting...

In a week's time me and Sarah will already have completed our first day of placement at TBWA and have only 9 more to go *sob* but the excitement starts now! Our friends Carly and Niomi from good ol' UCLan are currently there on placement and loving every minute of it, and we can't wait to get stuck in there come next Monday, having been waiting for an opportunity like this since we first set foot in the church last year at uni. This week I'm just an office girl, but next week I shall magically transform into an advertising extravaganza (hopefully)! And then back to office girl for me. It's like being Clark Kent by day and Superman... well, whenever anyone's in trouble really! Hopefully someday soon me and Sarah will be well and truly unleashed from the oppression of the advertising closet once and for all, to wreak creative chaos on all MWAHAHAHA!! *cough*

In other news - freak snowstorms hit us today, leaving much of London's public transport services crippled. As a commuter, one often questions the existence of God, particularly when forced to ride in the filth of others, or surrounded only by gibbering businessmen and chavs galore, or when your train home is cancelled 2 minutes before it's due into the station. Thousands of commuters forced to walk to work upon discovering that all bus services had been suspended in central London were no doubt cursing "the man upstairs" this morning. Which makes me think that after all the furore surrounding the athiest bus ads, they couldn't possibly have picked a better medium! Genius!

Teeny weeny update

So me and Sarah went to see Simon at Pravda this afternoon to show him our book. Busy as ever, we didn't spend all that much time there, and though all's much quieter on the Western front for many agencies at the moment, he did say we'd be more than welcome to return for another couple of weeks placement if we so wished. But we figure there's not a whole lot of expendable cash hanging around at the moment to bring in any new blood permanently.

For now we'll be honouring our placement arrangement with TBWA, but more than likely heading back to the world of paid (but not quite so interesting) work after that, and attempting to crack this crazy biz when we're a little more settled financially. Though if the right offer came up, you never know how that might change!

Musing aside, we discovered today that our good friends Neale & Parisa are no longer at Pravda, but will also be treading the church grounds at TBWA come April. We think a long overdue catch-up with them is well in order... : )

A Glass and a Half Full of...

...I'm not quite sure yet. Admittedly I've yet to see Cadbury's latest installment on TV and have unashamedly ripped it from everyone else who currently features it on their blog, but having watched it many times in reasonably quick succession, I still don't know what I make of it. Besides wanting to keep watching it for a reason which I can't fathom at this precise moment in time.

It kinda gives me the same feeling that too much Cadbury chocolate does - you know that "Oh my tummy feels pretty freakin' weird, maybe I shouldn't have eaten the other half of that 500g bar". The feeling that kind of rises up from your gut like you're gonna vom a bit. Except that when I open my mouth, I find that I'm laughing out loud instead. There's something about this ad that will no doubt grow on me the more I see it (probably after the 20-something times I'll more than likely view it in the next hour or so), but there's definitely something "gorilla" about it. Let's face it, Trucks was pretty shite in comparison, but this feels like it's heading back to Gorilla territory in that it makes you feel good for reasons that you can't quite explain.

The funky 80's tune. These freakish kids' freaky eyebrows (particularly how freaky the little girl's solo is!) The strain in the girl's face as she tries to eyebrow dance and balloon squeak at the same time. And that the boy looks like he's sucking a lemon as she does this. I'm not saying it's perfect in the slightest, but it sure as hell is funny! As the kids these days would say: LOL!



PS- Does anyone else think the tune sounds like the Beverley Hills Cop theme tune (the one that Crazy Frog killed)? A little reminder for you all (and because I just love this tune!) Turn the sound down on the ad and set this to play just before the boy presses the button on his watch. Some remixes will be hitting YouTube very soon I bet...

Flashback

Onto more serious matters now!

Today me and Sarah finally sent out notification of our new joint email account (see sidebar) to our contacts in Adland. At the moment we're not really sure what this year holds in store for us after our time at TBWA in February, but we'll hopefully still be getting our ugly mugs out there and meeting some new people as well as catching up with some of our old favourites, of which we will be doing tomorrow when we return to Pravda for the first time since September to see Simon Sinclair again.

At the moment we're just heading in to show our book once more and to see what's been happening with Pravda since we were there, but we'll have to wait and see what our other meetings over the coming weeks and months may become. And having been quite some time since we last saw each other, me and Sarah have some catching up to do too before we set about a whole new batch of work. New year, new book!

Nasal abuse

Why do people fart on crowded commuter trains? Never do you smell a whiff of trump during off-peak journeys (unless you're sat near kids, and I suppose they can't help it). But OH they all come crawling out the woodwork when you're on the train to or from work, no doubt scrunched into a tiny ball against the wall or with your face in someone else's armpit, feeling utterly fed-up as it is. So why must these flatulent people choose to travel on these trains every single day? And try to squirm away or wrap your face firmly in your scarf, and they look at you as though you're the dirty heathen! Well pardon me for not wanting to ingest your faeces molecules! Have a good dump before you set off for work, or better still, bloody well drive instead of subjecting us all to the inescapable pong!


...Phew, that's today's rant over [exhales].

A new kind of ready meal

Eat in-store today!

Design Faux Pas #2

"Hmm, this braille feels a bit wet.... URGHHHHHHHH!!"

Sanitary bin + braille = wrongness!

Design Faux Pas #1

The answer to the crippling pain of RSI in your hands and wrists - cause it in your feet instead! D'oh!

Smile, it might never happen!

People say this to me. A lot. I sometimes wonder if I should be concerned that said people tend to be ageing males, usually spouting this nonsense at me when I'm walking in the pitch black to or from my house. Perhaps it's a come-on (though none have been holding bags of sweets), or perhaps I'm just a grumpy looking cow when I'm haring down the street. Whatever the answer to any of these questions, I've decided that this phrase should be my mantra from now on.

My hair looks shit. The train's been cancelled. Everything's so expensive I may need to sell my liver on the black market. Does it really bloody matter? Hell, I'm the biggest whinging woman you'll probably ever meet. I love a good venting session, generally scheduled for once every, oooh, 10 minutes? But besides making me feel less like exploding, it just makes me feel blah about everything I see, do, feel, etc.

Today for example, I received an email from another placement possibility me & Sarah had lined up for the new year. Unfortunately I discovered that having been hit by the recession, we will not just be walking into that agency and merrily going about our creative work, but will have to wait until there's money available for us to be brought in. This could have made me very sad, but the point is that we're still wanted at the agency when the future is a little bit brighter, so what's not to be happy about?

So it may be a tad late, but my New Year's resolution is to think positive. Namby-pamby, wishy-washy, whatever you want to call it - it might not save the world but it might help me & Sarah to be in the right place at the right time for something to happen. And it might stop strange men from talking to me in the street.

Happy New Year!!

A tad belated though it may be! Sorry to have been away for so long - me and Sarah spent the run up to Christmas working our little temp asses off to have enough money to drink ourselves silly on the 31st, which I know I most certainly achieved!

(I blame the skates, not the alcohol. No siree!)

Just a little visual delight to warm up there! Anywho, as I say, me and Sarah have been busy in our "day jobs", of which I'm currently still in mine and haven't had much time on my hands to blog inbetween the commuting and festive jovialities. But fear not, for we have returned! Today we received word from Paul Burns at TBWA\Manchester regarding the placement he offered us way back in October, and we now have a start date for the 9th of February - tres excited!

More than anything we're looking forward to getting back into agency life and being hands-on again, especially heading to a much larger agency like TBWA after our first two placements - will be great to see how they operate and how much different (or possibly not) it is to life at the smaller agencies. All-in-all we just can't wait to get back on it and see what else we learn along the way and what odd characters we're sure to meet (besides Bex, who we already know!)

So tomorrow it's time to sort out when I'll be finishing my temp job, and whether there's time to possibly fit a little something else in before TBWA... but we'll keep quiet on that one for now : ) And hopefully I'll now be finding some time to update the blog more often. In fact, I make it my New Year's Resolution to do so!