Wife is on a photography job at the moment, so the not inconsiderable task of delivering the three children to school fell to me. My ambition was to get them there on time, and without having sworn (which may seem like a lowly ambition, but believe me, herding cats looks like a doddle compared to [...]
Archive for September, 2008
Back to School
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Family, School, Wife, World's Greatest P.A. on September 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Why I Love Jeremy Bullmore
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Advertising, Jeremy Bullmore on September 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In a letter to Jeremy Bullmore, published in Campaign Magazine of September 12th 2008 , a 16 year-old boy asked Mr. Bullmore for his advice on getting into an advertising agency. This is Mr. Bullmore’s answer, as published. Dear Francis, thank you for your letter. What I suggest is this. First you should write to me [...]
The Choice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Advertising Planning, Meetings, Planningning on September 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A previous incumbent in my professional role had this to say: “You can either do the meetings, or you can do the work – not both.” The cult of the meeting is one of the most deceptive, destructive and irritating to have pushed its way into modern business practice. Second only to “the workshop” with [...]
Brideshead Revised
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged "Brideshead Revisited", Andrew Davies, Ben Whishawe, Emma Thompson, Family, Oxford on September 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Up to Oxford yesterday for Father in Law’s exhibition at Oriel. I wish we could have stayed there longer, and gone round the Ashmolean (wondering around the colleges wouldn’t really have been on, as it was University Open Day, so the whole city was full of 17 year-olds (often with their parents) trying to decide [...]
Titifalaka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Etiquette, Goodbye, Ludicrously Chic Creative Director, Old Friend at Work on September 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am pretty good on global etiquette. I’m strong on the whole”two-handed business card”, the “Mein Herr and the Herr Doktor” thing and all that that entails – but there is one thing that stills confounds me: saying goodbye to Latin American men. We’re way past handshakes, but that doesn’t mean that one goes straight [...]
Bill Bryson’s “Shakespeare”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1599, Alan Bennett, Bill Bryson, Proust, Shakespeare on September 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I remember an occasion from my University-besmirched past, talking to Me As A Protestant about Alan Bennett’s recently televised “102 Boulevard Haussmann”, his television play about Proust, he said: “Oh God, what a combination: Alan Bennett and Proust.” Now I am a fan of both those people, subscribing to the (not exactly revolutionary) idea that [...]
Smallness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Advertising, Advertising Planning, German Creative Director with Ludicrous Jewellery, Laid Back Latin Creative, Ludicrously Chic Creative Director, Travesty of All Things Gay, Vicious Planning Director With Current But Unflattering on September 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Travesty of All Things Gay led an attack on Hamburg this week: a tightly cinched hurricane of Kenzo awfulness, nail polished fingernails and belts with buckles the size of his head, he arrived displaying all the sensitivity of a gorilla on a sunbed, and tore through the native politeness of the German agency and all [...]
Indifference As An Art Form
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Advertising Planner, Fearless Leader, Workshop on September 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The day I had on Tuesday beggars belief. There is a brand (that I don’t work on) that needed a little extra help, and so I had been conscripted (entirely against my very busy will) to get involved in trying to sort that out by the redoubtable Fearless Leader. So I ended up agreeing to [...]
Thirteen Months – And Counting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Good Friend in PR, London, Wife on September 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have decided that Good Friend in PR is going to re-locate to London. It is where his best friends are, near to his family and where he is (emotionally) “from”. I’m not going to be pretend that there aren’t some barriers. He lives in New York, and he’s just signed a lease on an [...]
