I posted this to flickr from my cameraphone this morning and within minutes Euan had e-mailed to see if I was OK. Seems those eyes look a bit starey. And actually the colour balance doesn’t do me any favours – they look a bit red too. And of course I haven’t shaved and I hadn’t had time to caption it.
When I’d stopped giggling, I was actually very touched that a hand could be outstretched so quickly thanks to O2, flickr, rss feeds and aggregators… oh, and that nice chap in Buckinghamshire.
She’s back and has just posted a write-up and it just sounds a beautiful cross between idyllic, serene and crazy ape bonkers.
“Next was Gary Numan, who was awesome. Can’t get Are Friends Electric out of my head. And he was having such a good time on stage he couldn’t help grinning. Mooched around a bit including partaking of some flavoured oxygen. Then headed over to see the Super Furry Animals who I’m sure played a great set, but I just don’t know any of their songs so it all kind of passed my by. Sarah and I discovered Tilly and The Wall who have a tap dancer instead of a drummer. Kinda curious but kinda worked I think. Then I managed a bit of Belle and Sebastian (which was surprisingly rammed) and then I headed off to Sparks who were utterly brilliant. Quickly followed by New Order (where they announced Kelly Osbourne’s wedding in the Inflatable Church), grabbed some food and then listened to Groove Armada from the comfort of our own tent.”
A bunch of us sat around in a loosely self-organised way in a tinder-dry corner of Hyde Park to start talking about what might happen in London (and the rest of Britain) in 2012 from a cultural perspective other than sport.
I had to leave just as the conversation was really warming up but what I am interested in is what intangible things would we like to be left after the games are over (as opposed to the tangible stuff of stadiums, improved travel etc.) and the way I suggested going into that was to think about what we would do today if it were 2011 and we’d just had an “oh shit!” moment that we’d forgotten to do anything in preparation.
We’d started talking about how we were going to welcome all these guests into our country – which was an interesting tack in itself, what do you do to get ready when you have guests coming? Friendly jolly internationalist stuff.
But then as I walked across to Marble Arch I couldn’t help thinking that the park was already full of guests from all over the world today – how welcome do they feel? What do we do to help them out? Do we talk to them? Do we even recognise that they’re there? And I started to feel a little more uneasy about the preparedness we have to share our culture with visitors. I think it’s going to be fun trying to turn that around.
OK, so something weird happened the other day. I cut my hair myself – I know that you know this… after all it’s obvious that I’m a self-cut man. Oh god, I don’t like the way this one’s going.
Ahem.
So I had my clippers out and was using a recent copy of FT magazine to keep the shavings off my lovely carpet. Of course I was thinking about other stuff at the time – the price of lychees, how many beans make pi, when to book my next windsurfing lesson…etc.
LOOK what happened! All the tiny hairs just automagically jumped into a pattern around Senator Clinton’s mouth, that if you look at it with your eyes all scrunchy makes it look like she has a moustache and a little goatee! Weird.
And then the headline is “I know something you don’t know” – how’s that for a spooky double-entendre?
I got an invite to this from Alison. Very hush hush and exclusive – secret location in W1 – cross my heart and hope to die if I tell you anything about it at all other than that about twenty effortlessly stylish (ok, one or two, not so effortless) young things from London’s fashion world squished into a private members club with some icy bottles of Ty Nant to meet, mingle and chat about their worlds, their businesses and the marketing thereof. No pictures from me, but Terry was snapping away all the way through – if pictures emerge for public consumption, I’ll let you know.
Overall learning point for me is the similarities between marketing all of these lifestyle brands and products – fashion, music, alcohol, theatre etc and the need to have talking points to get the conversation started. I’ll get on and make some ooze then.
Why does the bloglines audioplayer work for everyone else but not me? When I listen to my own podcast I sound like Perky. That’s not a good thing, I don’t mean I sound, like, perky I sound like Perky. Perky the Pig. You know, Pinky’s mate.
Am I encoding my mp3’s wrong – does it work for you?
Following on from the marketing 2.0 content 2.0 debate earlier I was struck by this advertising on the side of a van which I spotted at Embankment on my way here. Not for the obvious reason but because I’d also just seen on Breakfast TV Charles Dunstone from Carphone Warehouse being grilled by Declan on why he hadn’t achieved perfection and complete enligtenment and got a bit of planning wrong (which he’s admitted to on his blog where he’s now also explaining what they’re doing about it.) Now Mr Dunstone’s blog might not be the shiniest and most blogworthy in the world. But I like a man who does this much better than someone who slaps a half-naked girl on the side of a van to sell me more cheese – which I don’t eat by the way, no matter how many naked girls they show me.
I'm the founder of the Tuttle Club and fascinated by organisation. I enjoy making social art and building communities.
Perfect Path 