Soda - Keeping Curious

Too busy for Christmas tags? Emotionally crippled and unable to express even the simplest of feelings? No problems, simply slap one of Together’s pre-written gift tags on your present and reap the rewards of a heart warming message.

Don’t say we never give you anything here on the Together blog. Think it, just don’t say it.

Merry Christmas from all your chums at Together.

Lists of things we ’simply must do’. How would we survive without them? Er, probably quite well actually…

10.
100 cheeses you need to try before you die

9.
25 amazing ways to tie your shoes

8.
Top 5 shellfish for throwing through car sunroofs

 ‘Lob a lobster’

7.
101 ways to dig a hole

6.
99 places in Britain to illegally buy a monkey

5.
Britain’s all time top 50 slices of toast

4.
50 diseases you probably don’t want to get (and how you can get them)

3.
30 best places to meet people who won’t like you

2.
10 brilliant new ways to blink

1.
100 more exciting things you could actually be doing with your time other than reading lists about exciting things you could do with your time.

Time to dig out an old bloggy favourite and unleash our powerful creative minds on the famous films buried in the 9 word descriptions we have come to know as the Threebies.

Answer all ten to win praise and hugs*

(*Hugs are accepted at your own personal risk.)

1.
Go back North
Bash some villains
Including Alf Roberts

2.
Mentalist kills sinners
What’s in box?
Oh, Gwyneth’s head

3.
Loser gets chance
Has long jog
‘Yo’ to wife

4.
Some stuff happens
Sinister giant pet
Not sure why

5.
Ted (without Bill)
Fights big computer
Talks much bollocks

6.
Bruce gets shot
Everyone ignores Bruce
Find out why

7.
Nutter kills women
Rookie agent investigates
Other nutter helps

8.
Chap gets killed
Pretend he didn’t
Various corpse shenanigans

9.
Fishermen find nerd
He’s quite confused
And strangely hard

10.
Poor orphan boy
Meets sinister capitalist
Musical midget madness

Here at Together we pride ourselves on our stupendous taste in films. Apart from John, our senior designer, who claims Last Action Hero to be a postmodern cinematic masterpiece. Buffoon.

Anyway, far be it from us to force our recommendations on loyal followers of this blog, but that is precisely what is about to happen.

As we all know the three main ingredients for any classic film are:

a. a big monster

b. another big monster

c. fighting

This is an undisputable scientific fact. ‘Citizen Kane’ and ‘The Godfather’ may be constantly held up as two of the finest films ever made but how much better would it have been if the film would actually have been Citizen Kane VERSUS The Godfather?

No need to answer that. It clearly would have been awesome.

So, with this fundamental principle in mind we are throwing all our critical acclaim behind what will surely prove to be the seminal work for our generation.

Forget nerdy teen wizards struggling to keep their wands in their pants and big robots that can, cunningly, disguise themselves as slightly smaller robots…the only film you need to pay attention to this summer is…

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.

Best of all you don’t even need to traipse all the way to the cinema to enjoy this epic adventure. It’s gone straight to DVD.

We know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking: ‘Yeah, the Together Agency are a big high-flying bunch of digital magicians, creative behemoths and strategic masterminds, but what about the love?’

Well let us tell you, sonny Jim, this office is so full of love we have to fit in all our work around the time we spend cuddling and writing each other poems.

And as if we needed to provide evidence of our soft and tickly underbelly, today we’ve rescued a lost kitten and returned him to his rightful owner.

Spotting the trembling little rascal shivering in our car park, our account management/animal rescue team, sprang into action and reunited the loveable little scamp with his relieved family.

It’s all in a days work for us here at Together – great marketing, kind to animals, what more could you want?

We’ll leave you to ponder that. We’re off to the seaside to rescue a beached whale and help squirrels cross busy roads.

I like books. I like how they smell. I like reading the little notes people have scribbled next to words or phrases that they liked (or hated). And I like the fact that if a book annoys me I can fling it across the room. Or out the window. Or at a cat.

So, with this fondness for the printed page, I was always going to be cynical about the benefits of Twitter.

And while I’m still deeply dubious about the social and mental health of anyone who feels compelled to share the news that they’re eating toast or that their left sock has drooped a little and they’re planning to pull it back up; I have been pointed in the direction of a rather brilliant use for Twitter.

Rather than using their 140 characters to tell the world about the state of their toenails, several clever people have been putting them to far better use and coming up with ultra-short stories, or micro fiction.

It’s a genre of writing that harks back to a challenge set to Ernest Hemingway to create an entire story in just 6 words. What he produced was not only crushingly poignant, it’s also the piece of writing Hemingway regarded as his finest ever work. It simply read:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

So although I remain sceptical, and a little frightened, by some of the uses Twitter is being put to I am a fan of this growing online community of nibble-size novelists.

So much so that I’ve taken a break from my screenplay for ‘Hollyoaks: The Movie’ to have a bash at my own 140 character story.

And, as ever, I’ve exposed myself to the savage criticism of my colleagues by posting my effort here. Be gentle everyone, I’m a terribly sensitive chap…

Meltdown of an Office Tea Boy
Tea: milk, 1 sugar. Tea: milky, sweetener. Earl Grey: stirred clockwise. Boiling resentment. Sweet revenge. Now the nurses make tea for me.

p.s.

Anyone interested in seeing more of this micro fiction should take a look at some of the mini-storytellers on Twitter, and this chap - http://twitter.com/arjunbasu - is a great place to start.

Although we usually live in a glorious ‘Tea-mocracy’ here at Together every now and again one poor mug seems to be lumbered with the role of making tea after tea after tea…

Sadly, for one reason and another, today that said mug appears to be me.

But as I stood stirring endless steamy cups and quietly grumbling I decided to put a positive spin on my demotion to the role of office tea monkey. Frankly it was either that or spike everyone’s tea with some kind of powerful cleaning product.

So, having put my new found appreciation for the art of the beautiful brew into practice I’ve come up with…

The Tea Commandments
(There are 14 of these. Moses was more concise than me)

Thou shall not dunk in another’s brew

Scalded shall be the fingers that try to retrieve fallen biscuit from hot tea

Thou shall dunk quickly the biscuits that crumble easily

Blessed are those who serve chocolate biscuits with their tea

Those who dunk baked goods other than biscuits are heretics and should be shunned

Thou shall honour thy duty on the tea rota or be cast out into the lonely wilderness

Thou shall not leave brown stains in the sugar bowl

A biscuit loosely gripped is a biscuit quickly lost

Bovril is a sin

Those who stir tea with a biscuit should be made to eat a teaspoon

Thou shall not covet another man’s Jammie Dodger

Those who do not blow on hot tea will suffer a tongue of a thousand burns

Beware the bubbles in the tea – they herald grave danger

Thou shall sniff the milk before pouring

I’m also fully aware that tea-making is a highly personal affair and many of you may now be seething like a freshly boiled kettle at the omission of your ultimate commandment.

So in the spirit of making the tea-drinking word a better place for all who brew there, please feel free to comment with your own commandments.

Hey everyone, it’s Lex!

Well, Andy has decided to take a break and let me in on this whole blogging malarkey which, I have to say, is a fairly new concept to me. I realise this is a rather shameful confession to make, as I’m only 21 and the rest of my generation is busy typing away on P.C’s and laptops, but can I help it if I prefer the traditional notepad and pen?

Anyway, I have been working for the Together Agency for the past week now and, although getting up at 7am every morning has nearly killed me, it’s been worth it. As an aspiring junior copywriter with limited experience, I’ve found a lot of agencies often don’t give you the time of day, but everyone working at Together has been so helpful and friendly and I really mean that. If I’m being honest, when I was first offered some work experience I thought “Here we go, I’m going to be spending a week making endless cups of tea and coffee,” but it just hasn’t been like that at all. I’ve been working on different accounts all week and even had the chance to work with Poor John (hereafter known as P.J.) and Stuart, 2 designers at the agency, which was brilliant. I should be leaving the agency with two mailers and one print ad to include in my portfolio, which I couldn’t be more pleased with.

I think one of the best things about working at Together is how you’re made to feel like part of the team. In my time here, I feel I’ve been treated as an equal rather than just some silly student here for work experience. Jen, Andy and Nat in particular have trusted me to work on various accounts, where P.J and I came up with some ideas for a four page mailer. Although we mocked up the finished leaflet, they decided to go with a tried and tested idea instead, but I still have the original leaflet to put in my portfolio. The team have even trusted my judgement when reporting back on proof reading which made me feel like a valued member of Together.

Hey, and I even entered a competition to win a pimped out caravan! If I win it will be truly immense (although I confess I won’t have a bloody clue what to do with it).

Just to round things off, here’s a little poem for you guys at Together…

Jellyfish are decent
But upon consideration
I rather think that dinosaurs
Should be favourites of the nation

In a fight they’d surely win
Though jellyfish can hurt
Coz I believe the victor
Can’t be named after dessert

THE END.

Four entries. In a week. Shocking.

All I can assume is that, despite all the big talk, the actual challenge of writing a limerick caused my critics to crumble like badly made biscuits.

For the few who managed to cobble together (and that it undoubtedly the only appropriate description of their efforts) a rhyme, I salute your best efforts.

For the rest of you, shame. Shame, I say.

Here are the submissions. See if you can spot the professional poet amongst the monkeys with typewriters and rhyming dictionaries.
 

Stu, shrew, you

There once was a chap name of Stu
Whose beard gave warm-home to a shrew
The shrew’s name was John
He was the copywriting number one
His only line being, ‘Now it’s up to you’

Stu, flu, loo

There once was a chap name of Stu
And one day he came down with the flu
He stayed in bed
Put a damp cloth on his head
And used his mattress as the loo

Stu, grew, brew

There once was a chap name Stu
With a beard that he grew and he grew
He lived with Paul Ross
Who often got cross
When he kept finding hair in his brew

Stu, flu, crew

There once was a chap name of Stu
Who laid up in bed with the flu
Wondering how it could be
He was chain drinking tea
Creating sites for Shaun’s sheepy little crew

There was a young man who wrote copy
Whose hair was dishevelled and floppy
His poems were mocked
By his colleagues who flocked
To point out that his rhyming was sloppy

Not wishing to blow one’s own trumpet, but usually when I chuck some wordy bread into my copywriting toaster, the hot lyrical toast that pops out is met with universal praise.

(The whole bread/toast metaphor, for example, is a work of literary genius that F Scott Fitzgerald would have been pretty bloody chuffed to have thought of himself.)

But to my horror (and fury) my recent efforts at writing a simple limerick were greeted with a flurry of scorn and derision from my colleagues.

Worse still, the critics attacking my rhymes and rhythms were all from that bawdy group of barely-literate ‘shape and colour’ monkeys – the designers.

Stung by their hurtful remarks I have decided to throw down the poetic gauntlet to these fiends (and anyone else who thinks they can ‘rhyme the rhyme’) and challenge them to a ‘Limerick-Off’.

Over the next few days they’ll all be putting down their clubs and spears and picking up a pencil to try and come up with a limerick starting with this line…

There once was a chap name of Stu*

Then we’ll see just how difficult the art of copywriting really is. Either that or I will have quite spectacularly engineered myself out of a job.

So watch this space. Not constantly though, that’d be pretty unhealthy. Just pop back every now and again.

* ‘Stu’ is an entirely fictional character and any resemblance to person/s living or dead is purely coincidental. He is most definitely not based on a 31-year old, bearded online designer who enjoys watching Hollyoaks and shopping at Poundland.