Month: November 2011

Nov 30 2011 November 30, 2011 November 30, 2011 11Comments by ben

My book is now out in Russian

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(I had to do a video because WordPress is refusing to let me put pictures up. If anyone can help me with that, please let me know.)

In case any of you are curious about this sort of thing, the Russian publisher has left out the dedication at the front and the acknowledgements at the back. Not sure why, but it does make me wonder what else they might have left out, after all, the book does feel a bit thin (although it has a pleasantly hard cover).

Anyway, I’m putting this up here in the vain hope that any of you are in Russia or read Cyrillic. Is Instinct readily available over there? I understand that Ozon is the Russian Amazon, and it is listed there, but whether or not it’s selling or liked, I have no idea. So if you wouldn’t mind popping down to Waterstoneski (or, more likely, WH Smithovitch) and checking it out I’d be most grateful. Bullshit five-star reviews on Ozon are also most welcome, as are genuine ones.

Meanwhile, here’s a synopsis of the plot to whet your appetite:

От производителя
Если человек заигрывает с природой – не важно, какую он преследует цель: создать эффективное лекарство или новое оружие, – то природа обязательно отвечает на игру. При этом ответ может быть несимметричным. В книге английского писателя Бена Кея ответ природы очень несимметричный. В секретнейшей лаборатории, затерявшейся посреди джунглей Венесуэлы, американские военные и ученые создают невиданное биологическое оружие, предназначенное для борьбы с террористами: гигантских насекомых. Это страшно, но не очень. По-настоящему страшно становится тогда, когда осы размером с крупную птицу, пауки размером с теленка и тараканы размером с человека вырываются на свободу и начинают пожирать своих создателей…

Nov 28 2011 November 28, 2011 December 3, 2011 25Comments by ben

Adweek’s ten best ads of the year.

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In reverse order:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6e0Gsn4khss

Well played. What the yanks do best – well written, well directed humour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j0sCCJFkEbE

Perfectly reasonable but nothing more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h6CcxJQq1x8

I thought it was fine but again, nothing special.

Utterly brilliant.

I don’t think this one has aged that well.

Great craft. The ‘idea’ doesn’t really do it for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R4vkVHijdQk

Boring shite. If you cried at this you have a heart of blancmange.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T3guZ7dMAkc

Really excellent mood film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aMfSGt6rHos

Very nice, but kind of surprised to find it so high up. I do love a Chipotle burrito, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R55e-uHQna0

Good? Yes. Great? No.


Nov 28 2011 November 28, 2011 November 28, 2011 28Comments by ben

This is the best UK ad I’ve seen in a long time

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiJ4T3E-NM8

It’s one of those beautiful bits of film that makes you cross your fingers and pray that the punchline won’t let it down.

And then the punchline doesn’t let it down.

Brilliant direction; brilliantly simple idea.

Thanks, 101.


Nov 27 2011 November 27, 2011 November 28, 2011 14Comments by ben

Nostalgia: it ain’t what it used to be

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I was born in 1973, so by the time I got to the end of the Eighties, the Seventies seemed like a strange, dirty-brown mixture of flares, funk, Floyd and three-day weeks.

I remember having a conversation about that decade in the early Nineties: I thought it was ten years of such unrepeatable coolness that I expressed a wish to have been born in the early fifties; the person I was talking to thought it was a decade of shit clothes and daft haircuts. Chacun a son gout and all that.

Anyway, it recently occurred to me that people born around the time I had that conversation would now be able to regard the Nineties from the same distance that I had then observed the Seventies.

Perhaps it’s a symptom of being older and having life speed along a little faster, but I can’t help thinking that the Nineties don’t seem as remote to us now as the Seventies did to me then. The difference between the two decades in many of their facets – politics, music, film, clothing, advertising – felt far greater than the separation of 2011 to 1991 does now. But is that really the case? I can only tell  by asking someone born in the Nineties (or thereabouts). What does the decade of your birth now feel like to you? And what do the Seventies look like? Do they seem as quaint and distant as the fifties seemed to me? Or did I feel that way because the progression from then to the Nineties included many more substantial societal changes?

To me the early Nineties feel like a riot of tasteless colour and the questionable entry of hip hop into the mainstream. Despite the emergence of rock acts such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the overall impression in my memory is summed up by videos like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ask_sedxu0o

It was all Fresh Prince and Kriss Kross – a cheery mess that took its time getting the hell out of the way so that Seattle and Britpop could take over. Obviously that recollection is particular to me, but it seemed to have a kind of pre-ironic optimism that allowed people to enjoy things without the permanent raised eyebrow of postmodernism that turned up a few years later.

So I’m curious: what are your impressions of the decades gone by? If you’re in your early twenties can you tell us what the Eighties and Nineties look like to you? And if you are a child of the Seventies, how do you look back on the last thirty years?


Nov 25 2011 November 25, 2011 November 25, 2011 3Comments by ben

weeeeeeeeeeeeekend

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Amusing Nandos Ad (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1EX–vdxh4&feature=youtu.be

Pepper-spray pig meme (thanks, P).

Best NFL commentary EVER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U0GXdQdDLKM#!

How to treat a lady, the Gordon Ramsay way (thanks, M).

Excellent MGMT video (thanks, P):

Rappers doing normal shit (thanks, J).

Happy Thanksgiving (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY-BUUvrr30&feature=youtu.be

And for those of you who have seven minutes to kill, here’s some insane Indian talent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S2SUaoVy_iU


Nov 22 2011 November 22, 2011 November 22, 2011 NoComment by ben

midweekend

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Arnie gives the greatest DVD commentary ever (thanks, J).

Trailer for the new Charlie Brooker thing on Channel 4 (Thanks, P. By the way, I worked on the brief for this at 4 Creative then left before it happened. I think they’ve done an excellent job):

The N*****head comedy festival:

Werner Herzog interview (thanks, P):

Shall we watch MTV The Show?

Every Life cover (thanks, P).

Movie trailer from Ghana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GXtOnRbNcmc#!

Jesus Christ on a dog’s arse (thanks, P).

Great Screenwriters’ Roundtable.


Nov 21 2011 November 21, 2011 November 21, 2011 4Comments by ben

Wonderful Comment piece

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Nov 20 2011 November 20, 2011 November 20, 2011 46Comments by ben

Occupy Wall street. What’s it all about?

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I’ve had a few chats about the Occupy The World movement lately. Although it seems like a broadly positive campaign, most people I’ve spoken to seem to have the same problem with it: they have no idea what it’s trying to achieve.

Well, I might be a little wide of the mark, but having read a few articles about it recently (particularly this excellent one by the ever-brilliant Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone) I think that I now understand it well enough to appreciate it.

Occupy Wall Street’s Wikipedia ‘Goals’ section says:

While the Demands Working Group favored a fairly concrete set of national policy proposals, others within the movement prefer a looser, more localized set of goals and they have put together a competing document, the Liberty Square Blueprint,[58] a wiki page edited by some 250 occupiers and still undergoing changes. The introduction to the draft document read: “Demands cannot reflect inevitable success. Demands imply condition, and we will never stop. Demands cannot reflect the time scale that we are working with.”[50]

Which to me seems as clear as mud, but the idea that demands imply condition is what appears to be most relevant here.

If its intention is to bring the overprivileged to their knees, OWS is obviously failing (so far), but what if it’s only there to show us, peacefully, in the heart of Mamon, another way to live? Rather than suckle on the ‘inevitable’ teat of corporate Western Democracy, maybe we can live in a society where there is free healthcare and education (as is provided at many of the Occupy sites). People who can afford to give money do so and services are provided. No giant banks create unworkable schemes where they sell mortgages to people who can’t afford them, then bet against those mortgages, then coin in hundreds of billions of ‘quantative easing’ (some of which, in a stunning display of irony, comes from those whose homes have been repossessed in the aforementioned mortgage fuckaround) so they can do the same thing in a few years time. No governments see to the comfort of the super-wealthy before the education of the poor (Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% come to $690bn; special education, student aid and assistance to poor schools comes to $650bn) .No pharmaceutical companies are using billions to lobby the government, creating an unworkable healthcare system requiring insurance which 50m Americans can’t afford.

If you were to strip away all the useless crap that exists only to make very, very rich people a bit richer (see this other excellent Rolling Stone article on the subject; by the way, I don’t get all my current affairs from Rolling Stone, but they do have a lovely turn of phrase) then we might have a more workable society, one which doesn’t exist purely for the expansion of wealth for the wealthy.

I’m also fully aware that a worldwide extension of the OWS site is not exactly what is being proposed here, but as an illustration of alternative principles it’s doing a pretty good job.

As Matt says:

That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don’t know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.

The thing I love about writing this blog is the ongoing conversation I might be able to have with people on subjects like this.

Do comment/correct/cajole/clarify.


Nov 18 2011 November 18, 2011 November 18, 2011 NoComment by ben

Weekend

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Errol Morris interviews Stephen King.

What news anchors get up to in the commercial break (thanks, J):

Saul Bass title archive.

The incredible National Geographic Photography contest (thanks, J).

Bookshelf porn.

Aerochrome shots of The Congo (thanks, K).

24 hours of Flickr photos (thanks, J).

A-Z Herbs (thanks, J).

Shit club promotion (thanks, C).

Amazing views of Earth from space (thanks, G):

Rappers’ catchphrases as handy buttons (thanks, M).

Rate everything out of 10 (thanks, J).


Nov 17 2011 November 17, 2011 November 17, 2011 8Comments by ben

Tarsem: where does brilliance end and misguided optimism begin?

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When I was getting into advertising one of the biggest directors in the world was an Indian man, enigmatically named Tarsem.

He shot classics like this:

Then he seemed to disappear, occasionally popping up to make less good ads and visually stunning but narratively flawed movies like The Cell:

But he’s still got something. Check out these tiles for his 2009 movie, The Fall:

Beautiful, but do they just prove that his limit is the two-minute stunner?

His latest project is the illegitimate child of 300, Immortals.

It’s been a massive hit that Roger Ebert has called ‘The best looking awful movie you will ever see’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VdONYkKFmQ

So should Tarsem stick to what he does best or continue to try to spread his wings?

Should any of us?

Is it better to accept your limitations and be the best at what you’re best at, or always strive for greater, further, better in areas where you might never go beyond mediocre?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. I say hats all the way off to Tarsem for making great ads, great title sequences and movies that Roger Eberts isn’t too keen on. So he can’t string a coherent narrative together? He still contributes far more to people’s happiness than 99.9999865% of the planet does.

And I secretly wouldn’t mind watching Immortals (on a plane).