Fish and geeks, Robert and the missus

It’s an intriguing title right so what on earth is this posting all about? Well it’s all to do with new sources of entertainment that quite frankly I find amazing. When I was a senior marketing guy, media meant print (news press and specialist), tv and radio. Social was nowhere and online was in its infancy. Now they’re almost everything and increasingly I’m searching out stuff almost exclusively on my devices. And I’ve come across two sources which, unless I’m the last person in the world to find them, I think you’ll go wow; they’re very different and completely nuts.

Random thoughts

Well dear readers for the first time in a very long time I thought I’d do a posting not linked to a single theme but just a series of random thoughts zapping around in my mind at the moment. Each of these could be the subject of a separate posting but I thought I’d just shorthand it for fun.

Tidy

I think I’m beginning to be accepted as a local. I pop into my local shop every morning (bar Sundays) to get my copy of the i newspaper. For the first month or so I was dibbing into our loose change jar to pay for it as I thought this would help the shopkeeper. When I got down to the shrapnel I started paying for it on my card. Two or three weeks ago the owner said to me, look if you pay for the paper with cash, it costs me an admin fee to hand it into the bank. And because I pay a commission on every card transaction, I actually lose money when you pay each day with your flexible friend.  I pondered for a second if he was about to ask me to take my business elsewhere. But he quickly noticed a look of disappointment creeping across my face and said, so why don’t you just come in and take your paper each morning and settle up on a Saturday for the week. That way I make a small profit  and you don’t have to queue. I said you must trust me. And he said of course you’re one of my best regulars now. Well I could not have felt more welcomed.  

Modern marketing

I’m having a problem with my blogsite platform at the moment. Run by WordPress it’s hardly ever given me any issues since I started writing Pasta Paulie in 2007. Now, and over 1000 posts later, it’s suddenly started playing up and it’s driving me mad.

Remembering Murray

Sad to hear the news that F1’s foremost commentator Murray Walker has died. They’ll be lots of great tributes so I won’t try and compete. But I thought I’d share a memory.

Brand frivolity

Now I spent 20 years as a marketeer in the telecoms industry heading up numerous activities in sponsorship, PR, dealer and channel management, promotions, literature and PoS, digital activity, website development, corporate hospitality, events and exhibitions, and, not least, advertising. I say not least because advertising usually attracted the largest share of a company’s marketing budget and yet it happened to be the least likeable element of the marketing mix for me. Probably because my personal control was somewhat subjugated by the influence of the expensive advertising agency we usually employed. And they worked hard to keep the whole subject of advertising a dark art only capable of being understood by their extensive team of creatives, media planners, media buyers, client liaison people (bag men and mostly sassy women), talent negotiators, and senior exec’s who only surfaced when it was contract renewal time or when you were being critical of the agency’s work. And then they had a secret hotline to your MD.

Scratching away layers

Well the last posting got a bit reflective; it started out as one of my many diatribes on the foibles and flaws in the people featured on tv. I love to study anyone who is self-absorbed (and tv is choc full of them) and to then scratch away at their veneer of gloss till I find the shallowness underneath. It sounds cruel but, hey, they set themselves up for some criticism and I mostly try and do it without being unfairly hurtful. And in the last posting I thought I was straying into aiming appearance barbs at people who were just being filmed doing their very caring volunteer work and not seeking celebrity. And I hope we’re better than that. Even if I did feel one person did deserve to have his look at me-ness pricked a tad. Yes SC, I mean you. 

Early morning scheduling

So as regular readers may know I’m a bit of a creature of habit. And one of the regular features in my life is the early morning routine. Carol and I are early risers and usually downstairs by 6.30am or so. It’s usually a cuppa for Carol then at one minute to 7am it’s Converse sneakers on and I pop out and over to the little Co-op store in the market square to be first through the door to go and pick up my morning paper, the i. And occasionally some milk.