Russell Davies

"petrol starting, diesel running"

Most handsome vehicle I've seen in a long time.

fourteen pages

This is from a review in the New Yorker of a couple of books about Borges:

"Borges never wrote a work of fiction longer than fourteen pages. “It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one,” he wrote in 1941, “the madness of composing vast books—setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes."

It's true about so much contemporary media. Flabby, flabby, flabby. I spent quite a long time a few months ago editing an episode of Horizon down to only the bits where someone was saying something, shrank it by about half, made it much more watchable, lost nothing. And I think it was a reasonably packed episode, I bet you could make a really good 10 minutes out of most of them.

publishing news

Using nothing but Phil's simple and comprehensive instructions I made a Little Printer publication last night. It's called Clip Art of the Week and it does exactly what it says in the product description field.

It's an unrivalled opportunity to have the best in contemporary clip art delivered straight to your home or work. All descriptions are taken verbatim from the online clip gallery offered by your local popular presentation software provider, so, should inspiration stike all the images will be easily deployable to make the point you want.

Clip Art of the Week is published every Thursday, until the end of time.

no logos

I have a few back-up Campaign column topics, things I have in reserve for when I'm really, really desperate. One of these is 'never launch a logo'. I guess I'll have to leave that for a while, or it'll just look like I'm having a go at Yahoo!

acrostic

I love it when a plan comes together.

I've heard this story for years - a copywriter was deprived of a credit in D&AD or something and so, in the next ad he thought might win something he inserted his name as the initial letters of each sentence. I never managed to track it down though, so I mentioned it in a Campaign column and Andy from Sell! Sell! sent me this ad from their blog.

The story's all on the blog post, it says RICHARD COOK WROTE THIS. Brilliant. And big thanks to Andy, this is what blogs are for.

progress

Saw this picture in the Belper News. If I ever have a cafe, this is what it'll be called.

 

whatever you collect, listen to what it's telling you

From the blog Douglas Coupland is writing before his new exhibition:

"Lego’s kit number 345, “Modern House,” (1970) was the last Lego kit I bought I’m guessing in …1972 or 1973. I bought the house I now live in precisely because its clerestory windows reminded me of a now out-of-production red Lego window used in this kit. This confirms my theory that the things you collect in life tell you things about yourself you might never have known otherwise. For me the classic example of this was growing up in a house with walls covered in rifles, dead animals, shooting trophies and pictures of fighter jets. Three decades later I thought I had somehow overcome my upbringing and ‘escaped’ the house of my youth. Instead I just collected death and destruction reinterpreted in new ways… James Rosenquist’s 1973 Gemini print of F 111, soldier figures I did in 2000, Star Wars jet fighter prints done in 2004, as well as countless smaller pieces on the subject. And the thing is, once I figured this out, I started collecting ONLY things about death and destruction. So whatever you collect, listen to what it’s telling you."

now and in the past

The other day James and Kio start discussing what an "internet tense" would be and I get reminded of 'footballers' tense' - the way footballers and commentators often talk on TV.

This forum gives the cliche example as "...then Buckham's taken the ball up the left wing, he's crossed it over to Shoals who's headed it in" (lots of sic)

This is normally dismissed as typical footballer ignorance but it's better understood when you think of a footballer standing infront of a monitor talking you through the goal they've just scored. They're describing something in the past, which also seems to be happening now, which they've never seen before. The past and the present are all mushed up - it's bound to create an odd tense.

What's the internet equivalent of that?

There's something in who the you is. The web can't decide whether to your you or my you. I always want to write you. (You always want to write you). That's all I've got.

not panicking but choking

I think I refer people to this piece more than any other single bit of writing. Fascinating and illuminating.

on not writing

This is just really good. Clever, thougtful, original, warm. Stay for the Q&A too. Some gems in there.