I find much of what Paul Graham writes and says simultaneously fascinating and annoying. Which is often a mark of an interesting thinker. You can probably spot for yourselves the parallels between hackers and planners in this talk.
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10,000 songs
I used to have this blog - 10,000 bands - the idea was to list the best single track ever by 10,000 different bands so that one could fill up an ipod with no repeats. Obviously a highly unrealistic goal. I stopped updating it in December 2004 but I remembered on the drive up to Manchester how much I enjoyed some of the debates in the comments. So it's back from the dumper. All comments and suggestions gratefully received.
wood beez
To Scritti Politti with Ben. Very good. Intimate and interesting. And it's nice to be at the younger end of a demographic for a change. He/they encored with Wood Beez which was very spirited and evocative but reminded you how a lot of it being the best record ever was probably down to Arif Mardin.
And it reminded me how much I completely love music, although I never seem to listen to it any more.
I must think about that.
coffee morning news
I'm going to be in Manchester on Thursday and Friday so there'll be no coffee morning in London this week (unless you want to do it without me, which would be great, feel free, like it's up to me to grant you permission to have coffee, how self-important am I getting? very, very self-important). London coffee morning back to normal next week.
But does anyone fancy getting together in Manchester on Thursday morning? Only Gemma's responded so far, will anyone else be around?
And I should emphasise, in response to Matt's question on an ealier post, that everyone is welcome, you don't have to be a tossy planner-type. Come one, come all.
you lot are brilliant
I've been out all day, doing actual paid work (hooray!) (for a big agency that can't decide whether I'm allowed to blog about it yet.) And I got back to discover 35 comments here and 20 comments here. And not all of them are Rob and Ben engaged in 'banter'. What splendid, generous, helpful people you are. See how happy I am. Will try and package and respond tomorrow.
doing my job for me, part two
Having gone freelance (or as Anne prefers to call it 'unemployed') I realised that I'd occasionally need some company and the use of a large agency-type photocopier. So the kind folks at w+k london have offered to lend me the occasional use of a chair etc in return for certain unspecified services.
Well the first of those tithes has been called in and I'm supposed to do a presentation for them on the evening of July 20th entitled 'what's going on on the internet, you know, and all that stuff you're always banging on about'. So I'm just starting to think about what I should include. I've not been part of the w+k furniture for a while so I'm not quite attuned to what they'll know about and what they won't, but they're pretty damn savvy so I suspect just pointing at a few dumb bits of youtube won't cut it.
I was thinking of things which aren't just cool technology but are also symbolic of new ideas and larger trends in the world. Or are just funny or odd. So far I'm thinking We Feel Fine, Jealous Animals, Zootube, Ze Frank, Cyworld and One Thousand Paintings. Most of which I found via crackunit.
Anyone got any other thoughts? Anyone want to come along? I'm sure they wouldn't mind.
doing my job for me, part one
I had a very respectable breakfast the other day, with Scamp, famed copywriter of this parish. And we agreed to do some kind of cross-border blogclash. His original suggestion was that we would trade insults about our respective trades but frankly, I've had enough of that through the years and hoped for something less likely to descend into a sprial of vitriol. I like his current suggestion a lot more; Six Things Creatives Need To Know About Planners, (and he's organising Six Things Planners Need To Know About Creatives.)
It'd be very easy for this to slip into the same old cliches but I'd like to avoid that if possible, I think for every 'we never get any decent briefs' we could respond with 'you never do any original ads'. And that might be funny for a while, but then we'd conceed to preserve their fragile egos (see it's starting already, I take that back) and no-one would actually learn anything original except the correct size for logos. (Oops, I did it again.)
So please contribute to the comments if you'd like to, but try and keep it useful. Northern Planner has already made a fascinating contribution here. Once we're done with some commenting I'll do a sum-up and take out (or add in) the vitriol, just to get the right level of spleen.
sunday
I think this one's dead.
Very nice day today. Went to watch Anne doing the Race For Life. While there managed to tick off some boxes on the Innocent Summer Bingo card. Very pleased with that.
Then it got colder and Arthur felt the need to borrow my hoodie. Which made him look vaguely like a buddhist monk.
Then he tried Anne's top and did a spot of dancing with his Gran. Anne did rather splendidly in the race but prefers not to appear here. Fair enough.
And later I even managed to do updates to eggbaconchipsandbeans and a good place for a cup of tea and a think. And Jonathan sent me an entry for Breakfasts In America which I've bunged up too. Anyone else want to do one?
And now, The Final.