News finally reaches me (I’m 5500 miles away) that D&AD is introducing Pencils for the In-Book and Nomination levels of award.

That’s nice.

But what about the poor sods who entered their work and didn’t get an award at all? What about a pink pencil for them? One that’s been slightly chewed. And then there’s the people that didn’t even make any ads, what about them and their empty shelves? I’m stunned D&AD has yet to launch a compensatory red pencil with a little monster gonk on the end.

I remember when I first arrived at AMV in 1998. Walking around the creative department, stuffed as it was with Yellow Pencils, and even the odd Black, I had something to aspire to. There were only a few awards in the industry back then and these creatives had won the lot, many times over. That was a big achievement because these baubles were rare, very hard to win and judged by the best creatives in the country.

Now there are so many Lions, Pencils and assorted golden figures reaching up towards something or other that they’re worth less (or worthless, depending on your point of view). I can see a good reason for the proliferation of Lions: they are a great money-making exercise that grows ever greater with each additional category. But why the extra Pencils? They can only cost D&AD cash, and it won’t be long before certain creatives have shelves so heaving with wood that they’ll be declared a fire hazard. If your work is lauded in many different categories you could easily get fifteen pencils in one year. Whoopee…

Sorry, D&AD, I can see absolutely no merit in doing something like this. It’s simply a physical manifestation of this sentiment:

Commenter Greg dropped that truthbomb on last week’s do-gooder ‘experiment’ from Ikea.

I think that he makes a great point. This new genre of ‘we’re so nice, and we can make you nicer’ advertising leaves an excremental taste in my mouth for a number of reasons, all of which I’m going to blather on about right now:

1. The arrogance, the fucking, fucking, massive, revolting fucking arrogance of these giant corporations and their high-handed de haut en bas didacticism, as if it’s their place to correct the public’s erroneous behaviour in the name of furniture, or soap, or ‘feminine hygeine’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

2. None of them means it. They’re only doing it for money. If you doubt that in any way please bear in mind my oft-mentioned observation that Unilever makes Dove (all women are amazing and beautiful) and Lynx (all women are nowt but holes). Of course many corporations are now doing the CSR shiz that they ought to, but let’s not forget that Nike and The Gap happily used sweat shops to make most of their stuff before someone pointed that out to the rest of us and they changed their ways. I’m sure some companies are run in such a way that they always do the right thing, no matter what the cost, but most will just do whatever makes them the most money, so if they think they’ll lose sales because we hate them then they will try to make us like them.

3. The way these ads fool people into thinking they’re a new, nicer company (even though they really aren’t) is another nail in the coffin for truthful, believable, trustworthy advertising, and that coffin has so many nails it might as well be made of iron.

And it’s the disguises don’t just come in the form of those delightful experiments; they also sneak in by making a straight ad that enshrouds the collective of shitbags in a cloak of niceness. But when a company does all this shitty stuff (and this) then hits you with this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V-20Qe4M8Y

…You have to do a little sick in your mouth. I mean, if they were really the kind of lovely folks who ‘sponsored mums’ with that plinky music in the background they probably wouldn’t pollute the planet or treat their workers like poo.

*Sigh, vomit, etc.*

Our office is full of dogs. Generally of the small-to-medium size, but there are often at least 20 around here and they’re all well behaved and welcome.

While distracted by one of them the other day it occurred to me that a dog breed has many of the same properties as a brand: we like some more than others, but we’re often not sure why and there’s unlikely to be a rational reason; we neither know nor care about most of them; a new one can really make you stop and take notice, as can one that simply stands out by virtue of its difference; you rarely think about them unless something prompts you to do so; people can be fiercely loyal to some, while others can hate those same ones; when it comes to that moment of acquiring one you will often make your choice based on what you perceive to be no more than a gut feeling (although some will do plenty of research beforehand);

As far as I’m aware, there aren’t many dog breed advocates that could equate to ad agencies, so the choices are probably made mostly on experience or word of mouth. And if that seems arbitrary, so are the choices made in the newsagent or Selfridges.

You could apply the same arbitrariness to music, movies, books, food, wallpaper, furniture, exercise, property… in fact, pretty much anything you have to choose to acquire.

The point I’m making? Well, I think it’s interesting that we spend ages trying to figure out something that seems to tap into a fundamental human process of arbitrariness. No one really knows with any great accuracy why we do anything, but we’d love to find out, so we spend millions on trying to do just that.

I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll never, ever know.

And I kind of like it that way.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when you check out the jury for an upcoming award show you inevitably despair at the number of no-mark fuckwits from Micronesia who have been allowed to run the rule over your lovingly-crafted works of genius.

So thank you Creative Circle, who have noticed, pointed out and wittily skewered this bane of the modern era (interest declared: they’re the work of my mate Adam Tucker):

Louis CK quotes as motivational posters.

And Louis CK back in 1991 being kinda shit:

The best infographics of 2014 (thanks, J).

Smiths x Peanuts (thanks, W).

The stupidest idea of all time (thanks, J).

A thorough explanation of Mulholland Drive.

Excellent flight attendant announcement:

Photos of NY storefronts ten years apart.

Rodriguez interviews Tarantino:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGOZSmWDlAs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ3ePGr8Q7k

1. Did all the kids write the second letter about their parents’ absence? And did they all choose to send the other letter over the first one? If so, they are unlike many, many kids that I have met; if not this is disgusting manipulation from Ikea. To suggest that all kids feel that way is a horribly guilt-inducing move from a giant corporation. Being a parent is hard enough without some Swedish furniture store telling you you’re even worse at it than you thought.

2. What the fuck has this got to do with Ikea?

This strikes me as a particularly witless and poorly acted bag o’ shite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DassdizThkk

I think it’s been beautifully, wonderfully shot (by Dougal Wilson).

I don’t quite get the metaphor, though.

Are birds messy things that need to be tidied up? Do they get in the way of stuff? Are T-shirts like birds in any possible way?

‘A home for all the things you love. That’s the joy of storage.’

So are the birds like homeless birds? They weren’t happy being all over the world, but now they’ve found their way home? Is that what happens to birds when they fly south for the winter or whatever is being portrayed in this ad?

Maybe you love birds like you love T-shirts…?

No, hang on, that doesn’t make sense…

Ummmmm…

No idea.

Could someone please enlighten me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAwDWe7OIF8#t=505

After several hundred articles and word-of-mouth recommendations, I finally got round to taking a class in Transcendental Meditation between Christmas and New Year.

At this point I assume you now fall into one of three camps:

1) Already doing it.

2) Not yet, but have given it some thought.

3) Not in a million years. Tree-hugging hippie bollocks.

To the first group: I’m sorry, but I’m going to go through the early-days basics for the people in group 2. As for the people in group 3: read on; you might find there’s more to it than you thought.

So I did this in about as wanky a manner as you could imagine: for four days in a row I got up early and drove my electric car to the Beverly Hills TM centre, where a soft-spoken man called Denny Goodman took me through the basics and gave me my mantra.

Denny Goodman, somewhere that isn’t Beverly Hills.

You can read more about how it works here, but it comes down to the idea that your mind is a kind of lawn sprinkler that gets little kinks and knots in the hose because of the general stresses of daily life. 15-20 minutes of TM unkinks the hose (so to speak) and leaves you clear and deeply rested. You are also able to access interesting areas of your mind that you may not yet have visited.

It’s hard to explain what that actually feels like until you do it, but it’s a piece of piss: you shot your eyes for a minute or so, then you start saying your mantra over and over in your mind. As you do this you kind of forget your mantra because thoughts pop into your head, the kind of thoughts that you think about all day. Then they kind of disappear and you remember to repeat your mantra again (only this time you might well do it slower as you’ll be a bit more relaxed). You repeat the process until you end up reaching this strange stage where your mind pops off somewhere quite cool and unusual (again, difficult to explain, partly because I imagine it differs for different people).

15-20 minutes later you stop thinking about your mantra for a few minutes then carry on with what you were doing before you were meditating, but completely refreshed.

Does it work? Apparently it does, to a enormous extent for millions of people, including school children and soldiers.

Does anyone who is incredibly successful do it? Well, from the link above you can see that David Lynch does it, but Clint Eastwood’s been doing it for forty years, as has Jerry Seinfeld:

So I’ve enjoyed the last week immensely, but I’d love to know what you think of it. Do you do it? Have you tried it and let it slip? Do you think it’s a load of bollocks?

Let me know. In the meantime I’ll leave you with my favourite Beatles song, which, coincidentally, is all about TM: