Hi.

Last year I invited any and all of you to come to an introduction for the Landmark Forum.

This is the post I wrote. Charmingly, a few of you took me up on my offer.

If you didn’t come, I’d suggest you re-read my post (and its links to The Observer, Time, New York Times etc.) and see what you think.

At the very least, as Dave Trott suggests, you can look at the situation from a position of knowledge and make your own mind up then. All I’d say is that in my experience, and in the experience of all the people I know who have done it, it can clear an enormous amount of shit out of your head in three days, leaving you clear to do pretty much anything you want.

The reason I bring it up again is because they are having a special introduction for people in media on the 28th of February. It runs from 7-10pm at 203 Eversholt Street London NW1 and it’s free, with no obligation to stay any longer than you wish.

If you have any other questions, drop me a line at bwmkay@gmail.com, leave a comment or get in touch with Landmark yourself.

If you follow British football you might be aware of the recent saga between Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez.

If you’re not, I’ll just sum it up quickly: in a football match between Liverpool and Manchester United there was a bit of a niggly war of attrition between one of Liverpool’s strikers (Suarez) and one of Man U’s defenders (Evra). There was a bit of nasty tackling, pinching etc. (yes, I know they’re grown men, but what can you do?) and a few words spoken, which culminated in Suarez calling Evra, in some form, ‘Blackie’.

That elevated the whole thing to a row about racism (Evra is indeed ‘black’) that got quite complicated. Suarez, who is Uruguayan, claimed that this was a common and innocent term of address in his native country (like ‘blondie’ or ‘ginger’), but Evra thought it wasn’t. Then they both gave evidence to a neutral committee who released a 115-page report on their findings, concluding that, although it was the word of one man against another, Suarez’s was the less believable of the two, so they found him guilty of ‘using racist language’ and banned him for eight games, adding a fine of about an hour’s wages.

Since then (around New Year), the issue has been barely out of the press: Liverpool’s players wore T-shirts in support of Suarez but the club didn’t appeal. Man Utd’s players and fans all thought justice had been done. Then on Saturday the two teams played each other again, but at the beginning of the match, when the two teams shake hands with each other, Suarez didn’t shake Evra’s hand. This led to a FUCKING GLOBAL MELTDOWN. Man Utd’s manager said this could have cause a riot; when Man Utd won Evra celebrated right under Suarez’s nose; Liverpool old boys condemned Suarez, saying his behaviour was not befitting Liverpool Football Club; Liverpool’s manager claimed he hadn’t seen the non-shake… Then Liverpool’s owners made player and manager apologise and that might be that.

And that’s the short version.

What I found amazing throughout the whole thing was the wholehearted belief on both sides that they were utterly in the right. My Twitter feed contains fans of both teams plus plenty of neutral sports journalists, all of whom who had hundreds of things to say on the matter. But they were often in direct opposition to each other.

Some wise people on the Guardian’s sports blogs pointed out that if the teams were reversed each set of fans would be taking the opposite position just as strongly, but the idea that the people involved could take such a detached view of the situation, shrug and shake hands is ridiculous (the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said: ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’).

Now, if I were Dave Trott I would explain how this is a quite brilliant allegory for the extent to which clients and creatives take and defend positions that neither can relate to, but I’m not, so I’ll just leave that for you to work that out for yourself.

But what I will say is that in this case F. Scott Fitzgerald trumps Bill Shankley: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.’

Good luck with that, Man U and Liverpool fans.

Lovely shots of massive rock stars and their parents (thanks, G).

TeapartyJesus (thanks, W).

Every Wes Anderson slo-mo, set to Ja Rule (thanks, P):

YouTube pronunciation guide (thanks, R):

Classic nudes, photoshopped (thanks, P).

The modern version of Eric Gill chatting to Charlie Chaplin (thanks, T).

Karate training rap (thanks, J):

Lovely pictures of kids smoking.

Fine video for Jay Z and Kanye’s Niggas In Paris:

Filming the police can be dangerous (thanks, G):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFjQKcwbTdY&sns=fb

Lovely environmental ad (thanks, G):

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Honda ad compared (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgkAUa0X7hk&feature=youtu.be

A young lady named Jane Hoag, a reporter at Life’s Los Angeles bureau who had attended the same school as Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy, had once been invited to a party at Mrs. Sinatra’s California home at which Frank Sinatra, who maintains very cordial relations with his former wife, acted as host. Early in the party Miss Hoag, while leaning against a table, accidentally with her elbow knocked over one of a pair of alabaster birds to the floor, smashing it to pieces. Suddenly, Miss Hoag recalled, Sinatra’s daughter cried, “Oh, that was one of my mother’s favorite…” — but before she could complete the sentence, Sinatra glared at her, cutting her off, and while forty other guests in the room all stared in silence, Sinatra walked over, quickly with his finger flicked the other alabaster bird off the table, smashing it to pieces, and then put an arm gently around Jane Hoag and said, in a way that put her completely at ease, “That’s okay, kid.”

Here is a bunch of very good guerilla ads.

But do you, like me, tend to harbour a degree of doubt for these little confections?

It’s a shame, but a category that was set up in all fairness to reward a funky new(ish) form of advertising has now been abused like a catholic choirboy. I just end up looking for the Photoshopping clues or the myriad reasons why a tiny brand would never fork out hundreds of thousands for an ad that only 300 people would see.

Which is a shame, because there have been some truly excellent examples of the genre (read into this what you will, but many of them happened before you could win a Pencil for ‘Ambient’). But then every category becomes subject to award-blag abuse: two minute director’s cuts of cinema ads that ran once; press ads that appeared in a school concert programme; posters that were flyposted rather than paid for; DM sent to three people…

First, the great idea. Then the awards for the great idea. Then the abuse of the awards for the great idea.

*sigh*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT50eLLxPco&feature=player_embedded

Interesting.

Did it have all the captions then list all the clips? Some of the clips? A wishlist of clips that got whittled down as they were/weren’t granted permission? What missed the cut? Who said no?

Then that track. It’s kind of old and done. I mean it works, but more as wallpaper than something that makes you go ‘Damn, that’s a fucking cool track’.

And what on earth was the budget?

Here’s an article the Guardian printed about the top five regrets of the dying.

It’s basically a simple blueprint to happiness before you pop your clogs, so I’ll just copy and paste it here:

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

The economy is screwed, we’re about to enter another recession and people are shooting each other in the streets for the chance to lick a rotten slice of Kingsmill.

But, like the honeybadger, Adland don’t give a fuck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nVRntpovco

(Fallon, Tom Kuntz etc. Interest declared: made by mates etc.)

(Tom Kuntz again. No idea about anything else. Can’t be arsed to find out.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-EvvfMXEwU

(Also made by mates. Traktor (not actually mates), Saatchis London (several friends there) etc.)

Putting a camera on a hula hoop is surprisingly cool (thanks, P):

I’m not racist, but…

An end to camel toe(thanks, J):

Movie middle fingers (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjnOjICjkZg&feature=youtu.be&fb_source=message

(Interest declared: this was done by my friends Christian and Andy. Non-interest declared: it was directed by Ivan Zacharias, whom I’ve never met).

It’s a proper ad with a… wait for it… an idea. And some thought and care and intelligence. Fine craft too.

UPDATE: this link might have been removed. If so, find the ad here.