05 Sep 11 Footbollocks!
Throw that shit away, it’s got to look good with a pair of jeans in a bar in Torremolinos
3-0 to the pricks from the marketing department
I ran a design seminar on functional design at the University of Gloucester the other day. I first did this sort of thing when I was doing my MA in Design some years ago and when I get the opportunity I always take it.
So following the England v Bulgaria match, one of the undergraduates asked me what about the design considerations of the new England football kit.
Well it’s a joke really, isn’t it? A bit of a ‘lust child’ begotten when design is raped by marketing. So I got into a rant about it. Fortunately, these days, no one takes seminar notes, they just record them on their iPhones. So deniability goes right out of the window, but the student was good enough to send me a transcript of my rant…
Generally speaking when making sports apparel, the designer starts by thinking about how to make the team stand out. Players need to see each other across a green pitch with a muddy and multi-coloured crowd as a back-drop. The design process will then go on to consider things like: will the cut allow good movement without providing too much material for the opposition to grab hold of; how will the shape and drape allow air to flow through the garment; How will the fabric aid breathability; will it wick and disperse moisture and keep the wearer cool and dry; etc.
Then the marketing guy will stick his head round the door and in fluent bollocks, say “Throw that shit away, it’s got to look good with a pair of jeans in a bar in Torremolinos”.
Well you might as well give them the truth. If he’s going to be a designer, he’s going to find his ideas prostituted in a marketing brothel fairly frequently.
27 Jul 11 Gordon Ramsay’s Fucking Formula
Gordon, tonight we watched your Kitchen Nightmares USA. Actually, Gordon, we seem to watch it every week. No Gordon, calm yourself. I must confess, I am not really a fan. In truth, we’ve lost the remote control. But Gordon, we do watch and I am dismayed. Dismayed Gordon. Gordon you may be working on the premise that once seen, no one would bother to watch the programme again. But for us Gordon, it is different. We have seen it more than four times. And Gordon, once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it once too fucking often.
Gordon, to be fucking brutal (which I know you’ll appreciate) there are no fresh ingredients. It’s mechanised, mass produced, rehashed and reheated before being served to several dozen people on a distant digital channel. You’ll probably appreciate that metaphor Gordon, but will you find your own formulaic recipe a little tedious?:
- Gordon shows up at a restaurant and says “Fuck off”
- Gordon eats some food and says “Fuck off”
- Gordon tells everyone to “Fuck off”
- Gordon shows up the next day and tells everyone what’s wrong with them before telling them to “Fuck off”
- Gordon watches them all make a mess of serving for an evening and says ”Fuck off”
- Gordon sends in the interior decorators then tells them (restaurant owners not decorators) to swap their Duck a l’Orange menu for fish fingers then forces the waiters to tell the sou chef to ”Fuck off”
- They all think Gordon is a genius and so he tells them to ”Fuck off”
- They make a complete arse of themselves so Gordon shouts “Fuck off” and this makes them do it right just in time
- Gordon walks off down the street and says ”Fuck off”
Every fucking week, Gordon, every fucking week. Maybe once you could sing some Fats Waller or interview Frank Lampard. Perhaps you could tell us something we don’t know, like why your face is too big for your skull, but no Gordon. You try to shock us all by saying ”Fuck off” even though it’s the stylistic equivalent of tinned custard.
Anyway. We had soup and crisps for tea. We made it ourselves (not the crisps, they came in a bag from the supermarket) but we made the soup and it’s not difficult. The thing is Gordon, what separates me from you, is that while I too can rehash, reheat and reproduce a given style, I can also make soup without saying ”Fuck off”
02 Jul 11 Your Horoscopes for this month
- Aries You will develop bed sores and a deep admiration for Dundee Cake
- Taurus You are planning a dream holiday at the moment but you will be falsely imprisoned for war crimes (and incidentally the holiday company will not let you have your deposit back)
- Gemini Sadly, it turns out that of all the people you’ve ever known, the only one who has your best interests at heart is the dead singer Roger Whittaker.
- Cancer For some reason, all your plans for life are left in tatters. But console yourself; the person you love is saved from the pain because they are on a plane, with your life savings in a suitcase, to meet their lover on a Pacific island
- Leo Love is in the air for Leo this month. Watch out for an old man with halitosis wearing a grubby raincoat and a Nike baseball cap. he will avoid direct eye contact and fiddle around in his trouser pockets a lot. This is your new soul mate for eternity.
- Virgo On the 28th of the month you will fall into a threshing machine
- Libra Your plans to set up a single-cell organism farm in Patagonia hit a set-back when the amoeba stampede.
- Scorpio You’ll be ruled unfit for trial, but they seem to think you’re just fine for sentencing and execution.
- Sagittarius Your plans for retirement are severely tested having spent the last twenty years unemployed, you worry that the change in lifestyle won’t suit you.
- Capricorn You have to stop worrying about what everyone else says, especially nonsense like “You should dress better,” “Nice people don’t do that,” and “Put down the gun and release the hostages.”
- Aquarius You’ve always thought of yourself as the ultimate cat person, but you’ll change your mind this week after you are caught and prosecuted.
- Pisces You will soon make a comfortable living exploiting other people’s deep-seated anxieties and crippling fears.
29 Jun 11 Creative and Jobless
…and I’m going to start this half way through a sentence, because that’s the way it happened. I was half way through a day, halfway through my lunch and half way through an email marketing campaign that was going quite well. Then I found myself halfway out of the door as, half way through the same sentence I was just talking about, we were all told the company was closing, there wasn’t enough money to pay us. Could we all go home and fill out some forms.
So I started looking for another job. I don’t really mind which job. I am a sort of a General Practitioner of marketing and design. I can identify the issues, come up with the right plan, do most of what is needed until you get to hand coding web fronted software (the web equivalent of a triple heart bypass) and then, like a GP, I know which consultant to call. I am experienced and qualified in, web design, graphics and marketing and creatively disposed to the application of these skills.
“…you are creative aren’t you?” which means “I’m ignoring everything you say. I also think ‘creative’ means ‘stupid’, so I can patronise you and you won’t realise it. Now go away and colour something in…”
I do well in most places that I work. I win awards and people give me that special respect that creative people get, you know the damned by feint praise respect where they say “…you are creative aren’t you?” which means “I’m ignoring everything you say. I also think ‘creative’ means ‘stupid’ so I can patronise you and you won’t realise it. Now go away and colour something in”.
Clearly there is an acceptance, at some level, that creativity is attached to personality. It is not a process per ce and therefore is not a machine that gets switched on only when necessary or super-powered by anything other than coffee. But when you search for jobs you find ads saying things like “Are you a Creative Genius?” they go on to say “…Must be able to manage budgets, pray to deadlines, run Prince 2 Project Management software, commit to best-practice business processes …and while creative, must have no trace of independent thought. This role involves agreeing with everyone else.” I had an MD once who used to say to me “We’ve got the sausage – you give it the sizzle”. I used to think “Sausage – it’s supposed to be software! Anyway it’s not a sausage, it’s not made it past the pig stage of the process and I can daub lip-stick all over this pig, but it’s still going to be a pig – it needs redesigning, not repainting”.
It makes you wonder why anyone wants a creative genius. The phrase ‘If you keep doing what you do, you’ll keep getting what you get’ springs to mind as the subtext of these ads is ‘we’re going to keep doing what we do, and so are you. But you’re responsible for making sure that we start to get drastically different results. Don’t argue just go and colour something in – and make sure you do it in a corporately compliant way’.
…it’s difficult to maintain a respectable level of mendacity because, having asked for a creative genius, they have sat you in front of a creative retard
But you need a job and so you go to the interview prepared to say ‘well you’re the boss’ to the inteviewer when you mean ‘you’re a fucking imbecile’. But it’s difficult to maintain a respectable level of mendacity because, having asked for a creative genius, they have sat you in front of a creative retard. Through some quirk of natural injustice, this is the prick who will mark you out of ten for your creative genius-ness. It’s like the pot calling the kettle-drum ‘fish’; there is no way you can communicate with this person in a meaningful way. So you just say what they want to hear: Q. Can you sprout wings and fly? A. Easy peasy.
Then, should you get the gig, you’ll spend 51 weeks each year kowtowing to a self-important wanker. But if you are lucky, for one week of the year, when they are away or busy or otherwise distracted, you will get to be spontaneous, creative, unfettered by corporo-bollox and make an important difference. They will then say things like, “Ahh if only you’d do this all the time” or “That was my idea”.
So as a truthful answer to the question Are you a creative Genius?…
Creative? ? ???? /// ??? (aren’t question marks interesting to look at) – As a kid, I was naturally drawn to playing musical instruments, drawing and writing – although I was lazy so a lot of the writing wasn’t written down. I was into the fusion of these things with the day-to-day mediocrity of life – As a teenager I would compose Dylanesque balads about e.g. going for a shit and then perform these for my rather straight-laced grandparents.
…digging and planting a petunia flower-bed in the centre circle of the school’s football (soccer) pitch for a photo idea I had – that one didn’t go down well…
I liked off-beat comedy such as Spike Milligan. No one else I knew could stand him. Like Milligan, I tended to be naturally lateral in my approach to life. And for most of my childhood, it was a pain in the neck for those around me. Digging and planting a petunia flower-bed in the centre circle of the school’s football (soccer) pitch for a photo idea I had – that one didn’t go down well (Sorry mum and dad, I didn’t tell you about that and in fairness, I never got found out – but I can tell you it didn’t go down well).
I spent two weeks painting the church spire to look like Thuderbird One – the vicar ruined it, he wouldn’t dress up as Mr Tracey.
I worked in Tywyn in Snowdonia as a climbing instructor for a while. I would take to the streets at night in a Banksy-esque way (although this predates Banksy by some years) and create Andy Goldsworthy style sculptures on people’s window sills and car bonnets. And people just knew it was me. Okay Goldsworthy is coffee-table and Banksy is subversive, but I did at least have my own movement – the Subversive Coffee Table movement; for a week or two some kids around Tywyn were copying me. Because of this, I was once asked by the town vicar if I could think of a way to attract young people to the local church. So I went for a fusion of climbing and creativity and spent two weeks painting the church spire to look like Thuderbird One. The vicar ruined it, he wouldn’t dress up as Mr Tracey. I suggested he dressed as Brains instead, but he was just looking at his church spire and whimpering.
I knew that eventually I would have to make a living out of this creativity, simply because I couldn’t have existed in something like accountancy for more than a few days without doing something creatively spontaneous, but commercially ruinous. And while I have mellowed since and qualified in pushing buttons on computers and trying to break the web, I essentially still do the same thing. I get things noticed. People apparently appreciate what I do. I get awards for it from time to time and people say they wished they could ‘think’ like me.
‘Creative genius’ is a silly phrase. But if such a thing exists, it is the sort of thing that happens half way through whatever you’re doing at the time, rather than at the far end of a prescriptive best practice business process.
11 Jan 11 moneysupermarket.com attempt to bribe and blackmail me
moneysupermarket.com sent me an email recently asking me to publish an article featuring their new TV advert. They went further and hinted at an editorial line besmirching the character of Lord Prescott.
So I published the article. READ IT HERE
But they didn’t like what I wrote.
So they asked me to remove it …and then tried to bribe and blackmail me…. they really don’t want people to read the article
So here follows the correspondence below, which I publish in full because I think this is now a public interest matter. That means it is subject to a greater responsibility to the public than confidentiality footnotes on emails. Under the Freedom of Information Act, it allows publication of such information in order to make people aware that in this case there are dubious practices being used to stifle my right of free speech. Why? All because I have called the bluff of a famous and national company who are not only paying a distinguished former Deputy Prime Minister to be in a national TV advertisement, but at the same time they launching an underground campaign to damage his reputation.
Received via the contact form on daveyates.co.uk
***********
From X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
Email *************@moneysupermarket.com
Website http://www.moneysupermarket.com
Message
Hi,
My name is X and I work for Moneysupermarket.com. We have recently done a video together with former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and I was wondering if you would like to feature it on your website. I decided to contact you due to the nature of your website which I think features some very informative articles on a wide variety of topics. Having previously mentioned him in the past I I felt that you would be interested in featuring this video which hows Prescott in out latest car insurance advertisement and is rather amusing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWpW_5X2EYE). However, it has proved to be an opinion splitter with some people thinking it shows him in a good light and others thinking that he is cashing in on attacking a voter. If you are interested in featuring this video on your website, please let me know. All we would ask in return is a link back to us to acknowledge that we created the advertisement.
Thanks X
****************
From: Dave Yates
To: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
X
I have included the link and a small article on my site. If you would like to discuss any of this further, please contact me by email or on the number below.
Kind regards
David
*******************
From: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
To: Dave Yates
Hi David,
I apologise for the fact the email was unwelcome and the point has been taken. You will not be contacted again.
Can I please request that the whole blog mention be removed along with our video?
Thanks
X
*********************
From: Dave Yates
To: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
X
The approach is very welcome. I just think that since you have a commercial objective, you should be prepared to attach a commercial incentive to the request. I do not make a living out of my online activities, yet I still have to pay for the services you wish to market via my website. There is an equitable arrangement just shouting out here and I think you should consider it.
Please reconsider my counter offer.
Thanks
David
**********************
From: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
To: Dave Yates
Hi David,
We would be prepared to pay for any such request and if you had asked about the prospect I would have gladly complied. This is something which still isn’t out of the question if the blog mention is removed.
I must advise that the mention of email grammar errors would not be viewed favourably by wordpress due to the potential it has to offend people with dyslexia.
If you could let me know once your post is removed I think we can move on from the matter.
Thanks
X
******************
From: Dave Yates
To: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
X
I’m a little surprised at your response.
I assume that what you are saying is that you are prepared to bribe me with some form of discount vouchers if I pull down the article. On the other hand, you are also prepared to blackmail me since, if I do not, you will try to get WordPress to jump all over me for being insensitive to dyslexic people.
On a point of order, WordPress do not host this Blog, I do. I use the WordPress platform, but as far as publishing standards are concerned, it is none of their business. Additionally, I would go as far as to say that you are incorrect on two levels:
1. As one of few accredited WordPress consultants in the UK, I can tell you that it is not part of the WordPress remit to police publishing standards. It is their objective to provide a publishing platform for others to use. What gets written is not really of any concern to them.
2. The standards of grammar, spelling and so on in an email, even if you are dyslexic, are easily managed via grammar and spelling checks through standard software. You are in a job that involves distributing PR to people who write, either for a living, or as a pastime. It makes you fair game for this sort of criticism.
In the meantime, please let me know what sort of thing you have in mind as far as the discounts are involved.
Many thanks
David
********************
From: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
To: David Yates
Hi David,
I did not attempt to bribe anyone I was merely pointing out a legal opinion I have that it was quite dangerous to say such things in this day and age more for the protection of your website than anything. Of course I can not be certain of this as I haven’t consulted our legal department on the matter.
Additionally, as I understand it you are attempting to bribe us by saying that you will only take this down if we met your demands which again, in my opinion, is legally dubious. This is proven once again by your reference at the bottom of the email to discounts.
Can I suggest that you remove the blog post straight away and we can move on from the matter otherwise I will be forced to consult my manager and/or legal department.
Thanks
X
***********************
From: Dave Yates
To: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
X
Let’s recap…
You asked me to publish this.
I did.
I publicly made the point that as a commercial organisation, with a commercial objective, you should be prepared to offer a commercial incentive – which I believe you should.
You didn’t like it and asked me to remove the blog post, suggesting that you might reward me somehow were I to do so. At that point it became a bribe to my mind. You concurrently implied that you would seek to have WordPress sanction me were I not to comply and remove the article. At that stage it became blackmail to my way of thinking.
I asked what sort of an inducement you had in mind.
You are now accusing me of seeking a bribe! Let me remind you, you offered me a bribe, not the other way around and at the same time you made a suggestion of blackmail. For your information, I am interested in how much because, I’ve never been offered a bribe before – it is a perfectly natural question.
Perhaps you should consult your manager and your legal department, I think bribery and blackmail are probably not good corporate strategies.
All the best
David
********************
From: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
To: Dave Yates
Hi David,
1) I never attempted to bribe anyone. I agree that a commercial incentive is a good idea in these cases and attempted to seek a commercial arrangement where we could feature the video and short text with the link back which would benefit us and also put a piece of material which could be of interest to your website readers
2) I made the suggestion that making jokes out of people’s writing could be viewed badly but never once mentioned contacting wordpress, was more a comment on how it could be viewed by others.
3) I requested you remove the post because it is obviously harmful to how we are seen. I don’t question that. I said that we could still continue under my initial intentions if the post was removed as I would ignore that the situation had occurred and realise we inconvenienced you with the email.
I am sorry how this situation has ended up after a harmless approach at a commercial agreement. Had you not published the blog entry you did and had instead approach me by email about the prospect of gaining a commercial incentive for publishing the company video I would have complied without question. I apologise if I have mistakenly read this as bribery but surely you can see why I see it this way just as I can see why you see it your way.
***************
From: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
To: Dave Yates
Hi David,
I would hate for all this to end in conflict so welcome any suggestions you have to rectify the situation?
Thanks
X
*****************
From: Dave Yates
To: X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
X
1) I never attempted to bribe anyone. I agree that a commercial incentive is a good idea in these cases and attempted to seek a commercial arrangement where we could feature the video and short text with the link back which would benefit us and also put a piece of material which could be of interest to your website readers
Bribe: Call it what you want. But it looks that way to me.
“benefit us and also put a piece of material which could be of interest to your website readers”: You presented this with the words “some people thinking it shows him in a good light and others thinking that he is cashing in on attacking a voter.” That is an invitation to scandalise the man. As someone with more than a bit of experience marketing brands via social media, I know an attempt at viral whispering when I see it.
2) I made the suggestion that making jokes out of people’s writing could be viewed badly but never once mentioned contacting wordpress, was more a comment on how it could be viewed by others.
That’s not how it came across to me.
3) I requested you remove the post because it is obviously harmful to how we are seen. I don’t question that. I said that we could still continue under my initial intentions if the post was removed as I would ignore that the situation had occurred and realise we inconvenienced you with the email.
You have not inconvenienced me with the email. It is exactly the sort of content that I like to feature. I rather think you wanted me to put the video up there with a backlink and some comment like “Look! bloody Prescott coining off the back of his assault and battery on that poor member of the public”
I am sorry how this situation has ended up after a harmless approach at a commercial agreement.
What was the commercial agreement?
Had you not published the blog entry you did and had instead approach me by email about the prospect of gaining a commercial incentive for publishing the company video I would have complied without question.
Don’t blame me for not being psychic. You asked me to publish it and I did. If there was an incentive, you should have approached me with that. The invitation was to put a copy of the vid on my blog with a backlink. Nothing else was mentioned.
I apologise if I have mistakenly read this as bribery but surely you can see why I see it this way just as I can see why you see it your way.
Well at least you can see my point of view and I thank you for that.
Kind regards
David
*****************
…then nothing. Do you think I’ve upset them?
10 Jan 11 MoneySupermarket v John Prescott – who’s taking the piss out of who? – I rather think you’re taking the piss out of me
I got this email this morning from Moneysupermarket.com
X (Name removed to protect the individual involved)
Email ************@moneysupermarket.comHi,
My name is X and I work for Moneysupermarket.com. We have recently done a video together with former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and I was wondering if you would like to feature it on your website. I decided to contact you due to the nature of your website which I think features some very informative articles on a wide variety of topics. Having previously mentioned him in the past I I felt that you would be interested in featuring this video which hows Prescott in out latest car insurance advertisement and is rather amusing. However, it has proved to be an opinion splitter with some people thinking it shows him in a good light and others thinking that he is cashing in on attacking a voter. If you are interested in featuring this video on your website, please let me know. All we would ask in return is a link back to us to acknowledge that we created the advertisement.
Thanks X
For the moment I will skirt over the lousy grammar and spelling, and the rather slap-dash nature of the email. Next of all, I bet you haven’t read my blog. It does cover a wide range of topics, but none of it is interesting or informative, it’s largely shit. But you’re not after traffic are you – you want the backlink, the bit that only Google sees.
Here’s your backlink – But since this is a commercial request, it occurs to me that the only one not making money out of this is me. No discount voucher for my car insurance, no High Street retail vouchers …nothing. I might as well buy from confused.com. It’s a bit of an insult really. Still so long as I’m not getting anything out of this, neither are you because I have placed a “nofollow” attribute on your link, so bizarrely confused.com get more out of this than you do
Of greater concern to me X, indeed the real reason I am quite angered by your approach is the attempt to smear John Prescott. Like him or hate him, you have paid him to embarrass himself to advertise your company and now you are seeking to start a social media smear of him.Your email snidely drops the hint: “However, it has proved to be an opinion splitter with some people thinking it shows him in a good light and others thinking that he is cashing in on attacking a voter”
So, since this is my blog, not your free advert, here’s my opinion. I think John Prescott is someone who, with little education, starting out labouring on merchant ships for a living, took the cause on to promote the the welfare of his fellow workers. Having done so, he became one of the most effective and respected union leaders of his generation. Entering mainstream politics, he saw the rise and fall of the loony left and New Labour and in spite of his ill-fitting image, he rose to become Deputy Prime Minister of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and now serves in the House of Lords.
He was never one to insult the electorate with twisted words, double talk and political expediency. If you hit him, he hit you back, verbally and physically. He came to the fore in a tough blue collar world and rose above most in the duplicitous white collar world.
I think it is shameful that having come to an arrangement to use him in a national TV campaign, you are now seeking to scandalise his motives in an underground PR campaign through blogs.
Nevertheless, had he written an email to me, I would bet that he would have had it proof read for typos, spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.
As for the point you raise, I think he is taking the piss out of himself; punch bag, Yale sweat shirt, etc. I think he knew what he was doing when it was filmed. I just think he doesn’t know what you are doing now in trying to denigrate him through a whispering campaign driven by bloggers on the social media scene.
Nevertheless, in the meantime, you need to stop taking the piss out of me. You may want to treat the former Deputy Prime Minister like crap, but don’t assume you can treat me the same. You want to promote your multimillion pound company through my blog, to help you make even more money. But you want to do it for free and smear someone who helped you promote your company in a TV advert. Well here’s your article, I hope you enjoyed it.
27 Jun 10 The bond of trust between Football team and football fan
England’s team traipsed out of the world cup having offered up a series woeful performances throughout the competition. They were made to look ordinary, if not outclassed, by minnows of world football from Algeria, USA and Slovenia. Then, as soon as they came up against a real team in Germany, they were dispatched, with the ease of a sledgehammer on jelly.
The national sense of shock has been amplified because we have had months of speculation about this being the golden generation. And the golden generation’s golden boy was Wayne Rooney. 2010 was pencilled in as the year the world would see his magnificence. For all the talk of Messi and Ronaldo and other ‘world class’ players, England had Rooney. The Henry V of our times going forth to to the breach with the blast of war blowing in our ears, to imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood and so on.
But instead of Henry V, closing the wall up with our English dead, we got Horrid Henry going missing when he should have been doing football with the rest of the world. In fact the whole sorry bunch of individuals shuffled together into matching shirts and pushed out of the tunnel, conspired to insult the memories of men like Bobby Moore and Stanley Matthews. Men who were knighted for services – outstanding services – to football. The entire team looked like overpaid show ponies who probably thought other teams would wither and fade in front of the power of their celebrity. Instead they came up against teams ready to play football in the spirit of like Moore and Matthews while Rooney and co thought they were in a TV episode of ‘Celebrity Posing on Grass’.
And what of the saviour of English football? No one could really answer that. The most remarkable contribution Rooney made to the competition was his impetuous complaint that the crowd were booing him. Perhaps he expected the producers to have briefed the crowd to clap wildly – just like in the script. But a fan earns less in a two years than Rooney earns in a week. The crowd have given up their holidays to come to South Africa and watch. The crowd, spent money on their credit cards that they will still be paying off when the next world cup starts in four years time. The crowd did it because they were doing their bit. They were there to add decibels to their debt and would have come away accepting a quarter final place, happy with a semi-final place and believing that we could, given a bit of luck, made the final and even won it.
There is a bond of trust between players and fans. We send them out in our name. The best of the best of what our nation can offer. We see our own identity and character in their performances. Because in our name they give of their all, fight, bleed, suffer injury and pain. These are our hailed heroes and representatives on the pitch. We give them celebrity status, they are gods of sorts. They are rewarded with riches beyond our wildest dreams and that is acceptable because they carry the dreams of a nation.
We do our bit as well. We kick every ball, feel every injustice celebrate every goal for and feel pain at every goal conceded. We know the misery of defeat. And deep down we know we can win the world cup. We bitch, debate, complain, argue and passionately display out support in every manifestation.
What happened to the England supporters in South Africa and at home was disgusting. The most expensive collection of footballers in history, with the best manager, the best preparation the best of everything contrived to fail. It was meticulously bungled through a mix of arrogance and inertia. The crowd will turn on these players. They will hound them out of South Africa, boo them back into Heathrow and boo them at every game they show up at next season. They will do this, not because the team lost, but because they did not try, they were inept, woeful, pathetic and in doing and being so, they have abused our trust.
Rooney World Class? Don’t make me laugh.
19 Feb 10 What’s the #BUZZ about Google Buzz? Oh look, the Emperor has got no clothes on
You have come across Google Buzz or maybe you haven’t. Anyway it is Google’s answer to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, although, I wonder what the question was if Buzz is the answer.
It launched recently to a bit of a viral fanfare and all of us social media maniacs and Twitter pimps toddled on over to check it out. It seems that lots of people are going absolutely unnecessary about it. It will apparently kill off Twitter, Facebook and change the world as we know it. I say ‘apparently’ for a reason.
The problem is that I am still trying to work how Buzz accommodates any need I have. I keep coming back looking at it and thinking, ‘I must be missing something’.
I understand Blogs, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter and they have somehow seamlessly slotted into the way I do things personally and professionally. I can write once on any of them and publish everywhere. I can use things like TweetDeck to get multiple views of Twitter based on friends, interest topics or back-chat. Others use aggregators like FriendFeed or Posterous but they all do variations on a theme – they collect all this etherlution (© Dave Yates, meaning rubbish deposited all over the web) and collates in into a single, manageable distribution and collection point for all you want to cherry pick from these platforms.
So while I detest e.g. FB, I do understand why it is there and I can interact with my contacts on it without having to go on it very often. Similarly with LinkedIn. I quite like it, but I don’t feel compelled to ‘live’ on it. I use it from time to time, but can update it remotely with a range of tools, mainly my Blog and Twitter account.
But again today, I returned to Buzz, looking at it this way and that and concluding that I must be missing something, because lots of people are saying it is great and everything else will now become obsolete. I repeat, I really must be missing something because, for the life of me, I don’t get it, I don’t know what to do with it and I don’t know why everyone else is raving about it.
Oh Look – the emperor’s just gone by without any clothes on.
10 Feb 10 Dictionary of Online Abbreviations
Image shamelessly adapted from toothpastefordinner.com
I know there are pre-existing glossaries out there, but at least with this one I know where it is for reference. Also I can keep adding to it.
Please feel free to suggest any more via the comments box and I will add them to the list
- AFK – away from keyboard (I am gone for a few minutes)
- AFAIK – as far as I know
- ASL – age / sex / location?
- BFF – best friends, forever
- BFN – bye for now
- BIO – going for bio break (washroom break)
- BRB – be right back
- BTW – by the way
- CSAK – Chucking Silently At Keyboard
- CUL8R – see you later
- CYA – see ya (or it could also be: cover your a*s)
- DH – darling husband
- DD – darling daughter
- DS – darling son
- FMV – fair market value (for selling items online)
- FTW – for the win (basically a big thumbs up)
- GG – good game
- IBTL – in before the lock (for when you post a message prior to the administrator locking the heated discussion thread)
- IMHO – in my humble opinion
- IMNSHO – in my not so humble opinion
- IRL – in real life
- KK – OK (commonly used by online gamers to acknowledge that a message has been received)
- LOL – laughing out loud
- MT – mispell (commonly used by online gamers to say that they made a mistake and mistyped their last message)
- NP – no problem/you’re welcome
- NWOT – new without tags (for selling items online)
- NWT – new with tags (for selling items online)
- BNWT – brand new with tags (for selling items online)
- OOAK – one of a kind (for selling items online)
- PICNIC – problem in chair not in computer (apparently favoured by IT support techs when dealing with low ability users)
- PLZ – please
- PLIBT – please let it be true
- PMSL – P*ssing myself laughing (a common UK expression)
- POS – Parents [watching] Over Shoulder
- QFT – quoted for truth (a compliment to another person on the forum)
- RL – real life
- ROFL – rolling on floor laughing
- ROFLMAO – rolling on floor laughing my a*s off
- RTFM – read the f***ing manual (to show frustration at someone’s ignorance of basic knowledge)
- RTM – read the manual
- SCAOMM – Spat Coffee All Over My Monitor (when something is very amusing)
- TBH – to be honest
- THX – thanks
- TTFN – ta-ta for now
- TTYL – talk to you later
- TX – thanks
- TY – thank you
- VFF – very f***ing funny
- W/E – whatever
- WTF – what the f*** [is that all about]
08 Feb 10 iPhone …or perhaps I don’t any more
iPhone Apps - Want them more than need them?
I found myself not using the iPhone recently while doing a load of Mountain Biking. I put it away safe in a drawer while doing rufty tufty phone threatening activities. Instead, I dragged one of the collection of old phones out of a drawerr, I got a free Orange PAYG card, filled it up with £20 and it has lasted months. I stick it in my pocket and use it if I get lost, when I fall off and need someone to put me or my bike back together.
But it has had a sobering effect. I have started asking myself what the hell I need an iPhone for at all. It’s a shame as well. I have an App called Map My Ride which is great for Mountain Biking. But I don’t use it because it s not so good if you smash your phone while taking a tumble. To give you an idea, I fall off at least once every time I go out on my MTB and usually a lot more. I started thinking that if I were to break, lose, or get my iPhone stolen etc. then I would suffer a load of cost and the sickening feeling you get when you break something nice. If I break the old Nokia, I rip out the sim card, bin the bits and get another cheapie out of the drawer, or on Ebay
iPhone meets mountain biking - not a good combo
Mountain Biking is good for the soul in many respects. All that exercise and fresh air combine with the pain and repeated falling off and landing on your head. It knocks some sense into you. With regard to the iPhone, my MTB epiphany on the off road trail to my metaphoric Damascus led me to suspect that I want it more than need it (note to self: Design iPhone App based on lyrics, such as Glenn Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’). I make myself use apps because they are there and handy, but in some respects they add extra chores to my day rather than save time. I like the idea of iXpenseIt, but it takes loads of time to use and the pics of the receipts are rubbish because the iPhone camera is poor indoors and poor at close-up – exactly the setting where you take pics of the receipts. I actually create more work for myself!
Then I have to wonder again. My old friend Ravi Damani and his cousin Chetan over at Imano are developing brilliant augmented reality apps. But do I really want to augment reality – I might find that I am superfluous rather than my phone. I could then send my iPhone to work and sooner or later it would realise that as much fun as I was, I was just expensive, stupid and unnecessary. It would dispose of me!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I think everyone should try putting their iPhone / Blackberry away for a week and instead go back to a basic handset. You’ll be surprised at how superfluous a lot of its functions are. Funnily enough, I got used to using a phone based camera when I got an iPhone. But the iPhone camera is not particularly good. I wonder whether I should get a decent pocket camera and a basic phone instead of paying £30 / month for the pleasure of keeping a beautiful design icon in my pocket.
