Thomas Cook vs lowcostholidays.com

Am I the only person on twitter who thinks that it sends out the wrong message? 

So by now, everyone’s heard the story of how poor young ‘Thomas Cook’ was bullied for sharing the same name as the holiday service provider and took to facebook to try and persuade them to give him a free holiday for his plight. Thomas Cook, quite sensibly said no but were then ‘given a lesson in social media’ by lowcostholidays.com who swooped in, like one of the heroic eagles in LOTR, to offer poor Thomas Cook a free holiday instead. And making it a whole week – instead of a weekend. Heavens, aren’t they generous, like a sun-tan-providing fairy Godmother?

It’s not that I don’t like the execution - I don’t like this because I think it promotes the wrong sort of behaviour. 

Some of you may have a similar story a few weeks ago. Where a young man (names Shane Bennett) wrote to Samsung asking for a free Samsung S3 and attached a drawing of a dinosaur. Samsung politely refused with the completely understandable logic of ‘if we gave everyone a Samsung for free we’d soon be out of business’ and craftily attached their own drawing of a kangaroo to ease the poor lad’s pain.

Good for them – they stuck by their morals (and business acumen). They still managed to go viral and people praised them for their understanding reply. Months later, after the many positive responses they received Samsung sent another letter to the young man thanking him for generating them some great PR and as a bonus – a Samsung case cover with his original drawing on it. One off, individual and original, but not likely to make them look like a pushover - a good balance.

I don’t doubt that Thomas Cook could have handled this current situation better and they should have taken full advantage of the opportunity there. I also don't doubt that lowcostholidays.com did a great job in assessing their social media market and have generated a fair amount of publicity.

But for one thing, how do we know that he is actually called Thomas Cook? Perhaps, like the runaway freight train that was the Chris Moyles ‘Toby Lerone’ feature that plagued many a tv/radio presenter, there will now be a spate of people tweeting nestle and claiming to be named ‘Amile Keeway’ or Viagra producers claiming to be named ‘Drew Peacock’ in the vein hope of free merch.

Lowcostholidays.com swooping in just seems a bit desperate - quick offer him a free holiday, love me, LOVE ME! It sends out the wrong message. It reminds me of when I was a waitress at a pub called ‘The George', we frequently got customers saying ‘My name’s George do I get free drink’ to which the answer was also a polite but resounding ‘no’. But hey, it worked for Thomas Cook. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to change my name to Aston Martin…


Added note: lowcostholidays.com had to withdraw an online ad campaign last year that asked viewers if they had even been 'Thomas Crooked' which is mentioned in the above article, they were legally obliged to pull the campaign for being defamatory and breaching ABTA's code of conduct.

Chocolate Brownies: Another Baking Post

I'm deviating from current trend of ranting about advertising campaigns to share with you, a little slice of heaven - if you will. Now I've made these several times and every single time - they've gone down like hotcakes (or hot chocolate brownies).

So here I share my recipe for the best non-shop-bought Chocolate Brownies you've ever tasted. So bake, eat, sit back and watch the love come rolling in.

• 225g Unsalted Butter
• 100g Dark Chocolate
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 3 Large Eggs
• 50g Plain Flour
• 50g Cocoa Powder
• Pinch of Salt
• White Chocolate Drops

To Decorate:

• 20g White Chocolate (melted and drizzled)
• 20g Dark Chocolate (melted and drizzled)
• Icing Sugar (to dust) 

   1. Heat oven to 180c.

   2. Put the butter and chocolate into a pan and heat slowly over a small flame until it's a beautiful chocolatey liquid of goodness. Something likes this;

   

   3. Put the sugar and eggs in a bowl and mix well.

   4. Whisk the above pictures saucepan full of buttery chocolate goodness in with the less-appealing bowl               of sugar and egg mix.

   5. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into the bowl, a bit at a time, and mix thoroughly. Then stir in the white choc drops.

   

   6. Transfer the mixture into a 20.5cm greased square tray (make sure it's relatively deep).

   7. Top Tip - Bang the tray a few times to expel any large air bubbles.

   8.  Bake for 25 mins. You'll know when they're done when you poke a skewer or some-such long pointy device into the middle and it comes out clean. It should however still look squidgy - means they're moist, like all good brownies should be!

     

      

Enjoy and try not to eat them all at once.

The Orabrush Story - The importance of a brilliant brand campaign.

So I first stumbled across Orabrush during my exam period - I was probably waiting to watch a video of a man laughing at a goat climbing a ladder or a poptart cat flying through space when I was made to watch one of Youtube's obligatory 'unskippable for the first ten seconds' ads. Except I liked the ad so much I watched the whole thing, and then rather than watching the video I had originally intended I watched more videos about the Orabrush and I was fascinated.

The video that distracted me so much and pervaded my waking thoughts for the next few days was 'Orabrush: The Movie'. The video dramatised the story of the Orabrush and I found the whole thing so interesting that I felt compelled to research the company. 


Like all great ideas, it began as a small marketing campaign thought up by the 75 year old inventor of the Orabrush, Robert Wagstaff, and a marketing student from a local university. It soon went viral and had 15 million Youtube views, Orabrush then went on to create more Youtube videos and even launched their own channel, which now has over 39 million views. Their campaign was soon picked up by a manager of Walmart in the local area who decided to stock their product. This then expanded from one Walmart store to all the Walmarts in Utah, and then to Walmart headquarters who asked for the Orabrush to be stocked nationally.

This, for me, highlights the impact that effective use of social media can have, Orabrush went from selling no units as a small business in Salt Lake City to selling millions of units worldwide purely through Youtube and other social media channels (they have had over 300,000 downloads of their iphone app, ‘the bad breath detector’). What had started out as a marketing campaign directed at the general public soon became an effective business to business campaign. The Orabrush story demonstrates the importance of an effective marketing campaign along with the growing power of social media and internet media channels.

Not to mention it has a guy dressed up like a giant tongue. What more could you possibly want from an advertising campaign?!

Watch the video that started it all:

Babies, Meerkats, Monkeys and Breasts - Spot the odd one out

Right it's time for a rare serious discussion.

Obviously in the digital age it’s more important than ever for brands to be seen as engaging and interactive, to be ‘down with kids’. With all the social media flying around it’s even easier for brands to engage with their customers as witnessed by facebook’s new brand pages. Social media is undoubtedly important as it allows brands to effectively monitor and respond to their customers, but I can’t help but feel that too many brands are using it unnecessarily. After all, really great brands have been around longer than the internet.

Yes it’s important to be up to date on the latest technology but many brands are using social media just because it’s what everyone else is doing not because it’s effective. For example, one of my biggest peeves is tv ad characters on twitter. I get the idea, but they’re trying to emulate the success of such massive twitter characters as The Queen or Feral Pigeon; but with brand engagement. They’re not funny, they’re not organic and they’re not effective.

 1)   Huggies – Alfie the Baby: 610 Followers

Tries to be entertaining with his cute little ‘baby waves’, however is ultimately creepy. Now it may just be me, but a baby commenting on current affairs is not my idea of hilarity.

-       Desire to have kids = dramatically reduced

-       Desire to buy nappies = none whatsoever

2     2)   Compare the Market – Aleksander Orlov: 52,604 Followers

This is slightly more entertaining with his humorous use of poor English and a little but cuter than Alfie. However this: ‘Today I bring Sergei beetle juice, I squeeze the beetles myself. I hope he enjoy.’ just doesn’t do it for me.

-       Need to correct poor English = Mild

-       Need to change my car insurance = Non-existent.

 3)   Vision Express – Bud the Monkey: 73 Followers

Again I get this what it’s trying to do, but it’s just trying too hard.

‘Just cooked the most amazing Sunday lunch. Really looking forward to eating it.’ With a link to a picture of a banana. I just did not see that coming. My sides...

-       Urge to have a banana = abnormally high

-       Urge to buy spectacles = nil

What worries me is that they are actually PAYING someone to do this. Can I be paid to do this? As apparently monkeys, or indeed meerkats can do it.

Now before you accuse me of being a negatron, I’m not. There are some truly great examples of brand social media interaction, my current favourite being Boobstagram.

Boobstagram is a french movement (cunningly) devised by two men to raise awareness for breast cancer. Simply email or hashtag boobstagram with a pic of your bra covered boobs and watch said breasts be uploaded to their website, twitter and facebook, along with MANY others. Based around the strapline ‘Showing your breasts on the internet is good, showing them to your doctor is better’, it’s going to have a certain appeal to women (and more than likely a higher proportion of men) but it’s a truly effective campaign. For one thing it’s organic – it’s not just some guy on twitter pretending to be a monkey – it’s almost completely user-created. It’s also entertaining, memorable and therefore effective.

-       Desire to upload a pictures of my breasts = unlikely.

-       Desire to show my breasts to my doctor = high.

Hobbs' Top 5 Weirdest Advertising Campaigns: March Edition

Number 5
Amour - Fantasies Happen
Agency - Dare

Advertising a pay-per-view adult entertainment channel on public television? Risky. There's nothing explicit here but plenty of amorous suggestion, portraying typical 'adult' situations but with a twist. Nothing happens. Reminding you that real-life is boring and good things only happen when they're scripted. Great.

Number 4
Huggies - Alfie the Baby
Agency - Ogilvy and Mather

In complete juxtaposition to number 5, Alfie the baby and his brother are promoting 'what happens in Huggies, stays in Huggies'. There's something intrinsically creepy about applying a slogan used more commonly on lads' football tours and stag do's to some nappies (The Hangover, anyone?). Although I do get the tenuous connection. This, coupled with the cutesy pie tweetings of Baby Alfie, just kind of freaks me out.

Number 3
Homeless Hotspots
Agency - BBH Labs

Clarence - clearly loving life

Getting a homeless person off the street? Giving them a chance to make money? Giving them a purpose in life? Sound's like a great idea! But wait, at this years SXSW, BBH gave these homeless souls 4G connectivity so that people attending could get better signal for their phones to tweet about what a revolutionary idea BBH had had. However, this caused a lot of controversy. BBH insist they wanted to put a face to the homeless by forcing people to make conversation in order to get a password, code, grail or whatever so they could get flaunt where they were to all their friends on foursquare. But a lot of people didn't see it like that, dehumanising them, reducing them to mere machines, they'll be taking the job of the talking clock soon. I think I'll leave it up to you decide on the ethics of this social experiment, but you can't deny it's a little weird.

Number 2
Cadbury's Creme Egg - Make them Goo!
Agency - MCSquared

Eight giant Creme Eggs in bullet-proof glass containers were moved around Ireland just before Easter. The eggs appeared to be quite content in their containers until people crowds began tweeting at them #tweet2goo. The more tweets the egg got the more agitated it became until eventually in an Alien-like fashion they exploded. Oh and you could win an ipad or something. Sound's pretty cool, right? Well yeah I guess it is, who doesn't want to see a giant egg explode? I just think it's weird because I don't, never have and never will understand why they all commit suicide? It's eggstraordinary... Sorry.

Number 1
Skittles - Touch the Rainbow
Agency - DDB Chicago

There is little I can say to explain the weird to you, so I feel you shall just have to experience the weird first hand. Mostly the monobrow one. Now Skittles never had normal advertising but a bad outbreak of skittlepox and a slightly rapey skittle encounter in the library are hard to be outdone. Especially the monobrow one.


Contract the Rainbow.


Pluck the Rainbow.


Crank the Rainbow.

Can you go Viral by pretending to go Viral?

Have you ever wondered how to make a video go viral?

It's something I think about maybe a little bit more than I should. What is it about a boy being bitten by his baby brother that makes the internet go crazy? Or how a looped video of a poptart cat flying through space and pooping rainbows can be so mesmerising?

Obviously there are a number of factors, Kevin Alloca (Youtube's trend manager) identified many of them in his most recent TED talk. The three most important being:

• Trendsetters
• Communities of Participation
• Unexpectedness

With over 48 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute, what is it that makes one cat video stand out from another?

Well American rapper Yung Jake tries his best to both explain how videos go viral and go viral himself with his most recent rap song 'e.m-bed.de/d'. Described by the Fast Company as a 'meta-commentary on the act of going viral' it's a truly amazing watch.

He's clearly put a lot of thought and effort into it. I would embed the video on here but it's definitely better to experience the full effect on the specially made website, designed to look like a Youtube page, that hosts it. 

As the video plays, various webpages relating to the song pop up at appropriate moments in the narrative. You can watch the Youtube views go up whilst you watch the video, view Justin Bieber's twitter mention of the vid and see 'The Daily What' announce the 'Yung Jake of the day' next to the video. 

Ironically enough I was unable to find the video on Youtube. I suppose having only been uploaded a few days ago it's unlikely to have gone viral yet, but with a mention from the Fast Company hopefully it's only a matter of time for Yung Jake to experience the real viral treatment. 

If not, the maybe virals are harder to understand than is possible for a cleverly put together video and rap song to convey. 

Yung Jake - e.m-bed.de/d/ http://e.m-bed.de/d/vid.html

Keep Calm and Carry On Blogging

I'm definitely really fascinated by the way that memes and other social concepts spread across society and rise to the peak of their popularity and then suddenly drop out of public favour. For me, the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' slogan is one of the most fascinating, as it is undoubtedly an integral part of modern British Society.

Over the past decade the infamous slogan has appeared everywhere, led to massive ranges of merchandise and spawned thousands of copies and parodies. Whether you love it or hate it, it has become an iconic symbol of quintessential Britishness.

This video is just the perfect way to show the history of the slogan; with picturesque images of English railway stations, Penguin books, model trains and a lovely English accent voiceover.      It really helps us to understand the patriotic but also silently frightening origins of the poster and the real resonance that phrase original held.

I believe it still holds that resonance today, because if you ignore all the parodies it's a piece of advice relevant to any time period and any situation. Which may help to explain its staying power.

Baked Expectations: Banoffee Cupcakes

Amidst my recent delusions of owning some sort of bakery-cum-bookshop, I've been on a bit of a mad baking spree the past couple of weeks. Which is really helpful for my half marathon training...

But that's really not the point.

I got challenged to make some Banoffee flavoured cupcakes and, dear reader, I accepted that challenge. The outcome was wonderful, as you can see from the beautiful (and artistically taken) picture above. So I thought I'd share with you my recipe for banoffee cupcakes.

• 250g Caster Sugar
• 250g Chopped Banana
• 1 tbsp Unsalted butter
• Couple of drops of Vanilla Extract
• 150ml Sunflower Oil
• 2 Large eggs
• 225g Plain Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
• 1 tsp Mixed Spice
• 100ml Plain Yogurt

For the topping;

• Double Cream
• Icing Sugar
• Crushed Biscuits (preferably Hobnobs)
• Fresh Banana (only if you're going to eat it immediately, otherwise they go brown)

1. Start by making the caramel, which is what gives the cupcake it's slight toffee flavour, by putting 150g of the caster sugar into a pan on a medium heat. The important thing is to leave it alone, just let it turn a lovely dark brown around the edge and then, and only then, can you give it a little stir. Once it's all a lovely golden brown add a tiny drop of water. BUT don't do what I did and go in unprotected because it WILL spit at you. And it WILL hurt. Now that it's all bubbly, add the chopped banana and stir gently until the banana's gone a bit mushy.
2. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature. Whilst that is happening pop the oil, eggs and remaining sugar into a bowl and give it a bit of a stir, until you have a well mixed, unappetising gloopy substance. It'll look a bit like wallpaper paste.
3. Add the cooled caramel/banana substance with the yogurt to the eggy/wallpapery gloop and mix well.
4. Sift all the dry ingredients into the caramel-y/banana-y/eggy/oily gloop and fold. Don't stir frantically, fold gently instead.
5. Now it'll still bit quite thick and gloopy but it'll come good in the end. Spoon the mix into little cupcakes cases. I made about 16 from this recipe and they were huge! 
6. Pop in a preheated oven (180c) for about 20-25 mins.
7. To make the topping, literally just whip up however much double cream you think is appropriate to top 16 cupcakes. You're an adult, you can judge this for yourself or do I have to tell you everything? Pop a bit of icing sugar in their for added calories/taste and pipe nicely on top of your cupcakes. Sprinkle with crushed biscuits and love for added texture. 
8. Enjoy and share with your loved ones, who shall now love you all the more. 

P.S I'm completely willing to accept cake requests for birthdays, christenings, weddings, tuesdays etc. 

Private Library of the Future

Jeffrey Koterba 

God I'd love to have my own library, with a step ladder that slides around the many, many shelves of literature. I could be like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, or that woman from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Disney, you have instilled so many unattainable aspirations in my life.

Book a Month Mission; A Study in Scarlet

Well after the dismal failure of last months Book a Month Mission, I thought it was time to go for something with a bit more promise. Now if you haven't been hidden under a gigantic cultural rock then you would know that Sherlock Holmes has had a bit of a revivification, mostly due to the dashing talents of Robert Downey Jnr and the BBC/Moffat modern day, i-phone using version.

Now here is not the place to discuss the unrivalled AWESOMENESS that was the BBC's Sherlock as this is ground that I feel we have already covered. But due to my absolute obsession with it, it seemed only fitting that I gave the actual, undiluted Doyle a go.

Before the Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes I have to admit that whenever I thought of the ol' dear stalker and pipe it just seemed a bit stuffy. A bit dull. But nevertheless I have high hopes for this book now, you never know I might want to read more.

Book a Month Mission; The Verdict

A Week in December;

Well I've finally finished it. Notice the word 'finally' there because it feels like i've been reading it for a solid eternity. I am genuinely so disappointed in this book, not a great start to the year then.

I get what Faulks is trying to do, he's trying to encapsulate modern day London life, through a series of interlinking characters of various classes and lifestyles. But it just doesn't work for me. I think he's cast his net a little too big, he's chosen to focus on too many characters and so most of them seem a little flat.

Faulks has clearly put a lot of research into his novel in order to make it seem more realistic, but I think perhaps it's a little too realistic, to the point it's actually dull. There are long descriptive passages about complicated financial transactions, which frankly, speaking as someone who's idea of finance is not spending my whole wage in Topshop, is really rather tedious. Faulks seems to spend most of his time describing John Veals the hedge fund manager, than anybody else... but maybe that's because I find it so boring that I tend to notice it more. Whilst we're talking about time spent on characters you don't even meet one of the seven main characters until 170 pages into the book. That's like halfway through.

Also everyone seems to be so unhappy and so alone, I mean I know life isn't a bed of roses but there is a single character who seems satisfied with their lot in life. There's the emotionally isolated wife of John Veals, the desperately competitive book critic, the socially inept tube driver and the sexual bully Radley Scott. I just don't believe that everyone in life is that unhappy all the time.

No I'm sorry I tried to love it but I just couldn't. He's trying to achieve so much and rather than giving me a Dickensian feel of Christmas in London, it left me feeling bleak (and not in the Christmassy mid-winter way), depressed and a little bit scared of humanity.

Overall then I have to say that despite my love of his other work, this is just not worth the hassle.

Sorry Faulks: 3/10

Tropicana Sun

Last Monday Tropicana created a 'giant' man made sun which they suspended from a crane in the middle of Trafalgar Square at about 6am. The purpose was to show that 'brighter mornings made for brighter days'. It's a nice idea, helping to brighten people's mornings with a giant ball of artificial sunlight. But I just can't help but feel it missed the mark a little.

It could have been so wonderfully glorious, illuminating London on a dreary Monday morning for all those groggy-eyed commuters. But instead it just looks like an oversized streetlight. And it's suspended from a crane, magical. Really magical. I wonder how they did it? Probably with a lot of expense.

And despite its size, I highly doubt this actually happened;

Image lovingly borrowed from the Daily Mail.

I mean, come on, it's still 6am on a British January morning.

It truly is a good idea and Tropicana clearly had their heart in the right place, but it just lacks the oomph it needs to make this a great campaign. So I did a bit of research that helped explain my disappoint. They'd done it before. They'd already used this idea and it was perfect the way it was. Tropicana Canada has set up a similar but a much better executed 'giant sun' in the Arctic. And we all know that the Arctic sees a hell of a lot less sunlight than  we do.

So why bother remaking it? Why bother making it into a version that, in comparison, seems half-hearted? Probably because the Marketing/PR department thought that it would be better to interact with the target market through a uniquely British art installation? And it is uniquely British, for all the wrong reasons.

So now I'm just going to leave you with the beauty of the original, so you can see how it should be done and why it should have been left as it was.

The U Code

Well the video explains it, but I genuinely think this is an amazing idea. Would be really useful for the dating industry, just walk around with a pre-programmed message to attract people. Like super, super speed dating.

However, this definitely scares the hell out of me. I mean this idea has untold possibilities for the marketing industry. But I can just see that 10 years from now, we'll all have personal QR code tattoos, that you can update as and when you like, with your favourite things and interests. Maybe it's linked to your facebook? So that all someone would have to do would be to scan your elbow and you'd be a just a giant walking target for personalised advertising.

But I expect people thought this with the creation of barcodes as well.

The Final Problem

Right well I don't want to go all fan girl on you, which I shall try my best to resist doing, but Sherlock.

Oh God.

It's just that it can't be escaped. There's no denying that Sherlock Holmes has had a lot of cultural impact over the past year, what with the release of the Hollywood Movie and the BBC's Sherlock. But after the release of the sequel and the second series of Sherlock the popularity for this canon has flourished. If you flick through the freeview channels there are now even repeats of the previous series such as 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' and book sales have seen an almost 50% resurgence since the beginning of the films/series.

Isn't it amazing the effect that a few well written episodes will have on our consumer behaviour. Not to mention my friends and my own behaviour. Because I can't help but escape the discussion of how he supposedly faked his own death. The internet is just teeming with theories as to how it was done. I have had many conversations about it with my own mother and people I work with and to be honest I just don't think I can wait a year.

But I really love the effort that Moffat and Gatiss have put into creating the Sherlockverse.

Watson's Blog

Molly's Blog

Sherlock's Website

and crucially Richard Brook - Red Herring or real?

So if anyone would just like to work it out for me, that would be greatly appreciated.

The Joy of Books

I'm carrying on with my awesome book finds.

Have you ever wondered what happened in a bookshop after it was closed? Well this is footage from a small bookstore in Toronto, they placed cameras around the shop at night and some freaky stuff started happening... just kidding! This is a stop motion animation made by the bookstore after they rearranged their shelves. Apparently it took them many, many sleepless nights and you can see why.

Their main aim was to show the joy that you get from a real paper copy of the book rather than an e-version. Now I'm quite open to change in the field of books but give me a physical book over an e-book any day. I just couldn't live without the smell!

I wish this was what actually happened though.

Book Landscapes

Just a little bit more book art for you, this time from an artist called Kyle Kirkpatrick.

Inspiration from Emptiness; Red Bull Canimation

Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a slight addiction to Red Bull, my car is littered with at least 3 empty cans at any one time. So it seemed only natural that I would be very interested in their most recent interactive marketing campaign; Red Bull Canimation.

They basically asked the public to create a 2 minute video using the red bull can as inspiration in either stop-motion, drawing or CGI format. This was both a way to find talented and budding would be animators/advertisers and to obviously promote the brand. Very clever using a brand 'that gives you wings' to inspire creativeness.

The winners were judged by a board of leading and award winning designers, creatives and animators including Merlin Crossingham from Bristol's own Aardman Animations. The winners in the 6 different categories were then offered great opportunities in design and animation companies that gelled with their particular talents. Red Bull, giving them wings into their new career.

This is by far my favourite; the winner of the stop-motion category Chris Butcher's 'Inspiration from Emptiness' . And you can sure see why he won. By mixing the Red Bull can with their other great achievement; formula one, Butcher really got the tone of the brief and perfectly represented their brand. Butcher's Red Bull canimation will surely take him on to better things.


Inspiration From Emptiness from Chris Butcher on Vimeo.

Rules for pedestrians

I've discovered a new pet peeve. People who walk on the wrong side of the road.

On my commute to work which is only a mile; along a pot-holed country lane, I come across many walkers, power-walkers, dog-walkers, pony-walkers, ramblers, amblers, joggers, runners, goats and cyclists. And out of all the people/animals I see on my drive to work only 20% have any common sense (obviously I haven't included the animals in my statistics as they lack basic highway safety skills anyway).

They all walk on the left hand side of the road with their backs to oncoming traffic, surely that's a recipe for disaster? If you can't see what's coming toward you, you cannot take the appropriate steps to make a hasty dash closer to the edge of the road. It's just selfish. These people just walk along, completely oblivious (and often with children!) and just expect you to move around them.

Now as there's such a large percentage of people who apparently have no idea how to walk correctly, I thought that maybe I had simply made it all up. Maybe I'm the one who's crazy and doesn't know how to walk. Maybe I've just been cursing these people under my breath for all this time, for no good reason. So I googled.

And I really hate to say I told you so, but it's coming... I told you so.

2. If there is no pavement keep to the right-hand side of the road so that you can see oncoming traffic. (The Highway Code, direct.gov.uk)


That's right it's a part of the highway code. Now I know posting about it on here isn't going to help, it's just a way to vent my annoyance. But hey, if even one person learns something from this or can at least now share in my peevishness, then I'll have achieved my goal. 


Maybe I should contact directgov and suggest they make an advert about this to raise awareness, possibly with some cute animated hedgehogs...?

Believe in a Better World Advert

I'm a bit behind the times on this one, but you have to admit that Coca Cola sure know how to make some uplifting adverts.

The Book a Month Mission: A Week in December

As promised I am starting phase one of the 'actually keeping new years resolutions this year' mission. To read at least one book a month and I'm beginning with this, A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. 

Why did I choose it? Well although we've all been thrust into the cold, harsh, moody month of January with all it's post-christmas-indulgence misery I felt it was important to try and keep the festive spirit. We shall have to see if this logic pans out. Promising a satirical, dickensian scope of modern life; following the inter-weaving stories of seven individuals in the run up to christmas, I feel my hopes should not be misplaced.

The only problem is that I first bought this book about a year ago based upon my love of Faulks' other works; Birdsong and The Girl at the Lion D'or  which are two of my favourite novels. A Week in December though, I found strangely hard to get into despite my best efforts. Possibly because my tastes natural gravitate to the mythical, epic and fantastic; I found it quite hard to keep my focus when faced with a world of teachers, islamist students and hedge fund managers. Nevertheless I shall persevere only because I have such great respect for Faulks.

Whether the quotation 'it's richly entertaining and highly rewarding', on the jacket is true  only time shall tell.

PS. Any suggestions for future months are greatly appreciated.