Soda - Keeping Curious

Christmas 1975. My dad presents my mum with her gift. It’s a new iron.

Fast forward 33 years and not a single day has passed without my mum holding this misguided, but far from malicious, choice of Christmas present against him (not literally, although that would explain all those burns…).

In fact, if an asteroid was hurtling towards earth and was seconds away from wiping out all of humanity I’m sure my mum’s final act on this planet would be to shame my dad one last time for the ‘Christmas of the Iron’.

But this blog isn’t just about exposing my dad’s blundering youthful naivety when it comes to buying acceptable gifts for one’s wife. Nor is it about the incredible endurance of my mum’s simmering resentment.

What it’s really about is how the simple, thoughtful act of giving someone a Christmas gift can easily turn into a display of ineptitude that will define you as a human being for the rest of your life.

Make the wrong move in Argos this Christmas and your girlfriend will be telling your grandchildren in 40 years time about how thoughtless/clueless granddad is. In fact, it’s probably best if you get out of Argos altogether.

Now, this is probably where you’re expecting me to offer my own wisdom about how to choose the perfect Christmas gift. Oh dear. The simple truth is I have none (I am the offspring of the ‘Iron-man’ remember?)

I do know there are certain things that it’s probably a good idea not to buy for a lady friend. Snooker tables; Incredible Hulk boxing gloves; remote control helicopters; robotic dinosaurs, robotic monkeys (pretty much anything robotic really); the Steven Segal dvd boxset; tickets to an evening of cage fighting; anything that, when wrapped up, appears to be a ring but actually isn’t; the list goes on…

My only advice would be that, when you’re shopping for that special someone, try to think more like a girl.

Imagine you can’t open jars, you don’t laugh openly when people fall over and you can sit through an entire episode of MTV Cribs without wanting to plunge your face into a bowl of piping hot soup. Then ask yourself, what would you want for Christmas?

Girls like to look good. That means nice clothes. Which in turn means clothes that are free from creases. Maybe my dad had the right idea all along…

On the plus side, it’s nice to see everyone getting involved with the 3 x 3 challenge and having a crack at this surprisingly addictive game.

On the minus, it seems that everyone has taken the chance to prove just how easy copywriting is. I’ll get my coat…

Before I go though, here’s my professional (that’s right everyone, PROFESSIONAL) stab at some of the trickier 3 x 3 challenges I’ve been set over the past few days. Enjoy…

Muppet Christmas Carol
Sir Michael Caine.
Will literally do.
Anything for money.

School of Rock
Gurning tubby rocker.
Befriends posh children.
Nothing sinister happens.

Alien
Man swallows alien.
Alien pops out.
Alien swallows everyone.

Back to the Future
Cool 80s kid.
Travels through time.
Snogs his mum.

The Sixth Sense
Lonely, creepy dweeb.
Sees dead people.
Nobody notices Bruce?

Brokeback Mountain
Manly cowboys meet.
Become less manly.
Steady on lads.

The Crying Game
Man meets girl.
Man fancies girl.
Man gets shock.

Love Actually
Take rusty nail.
Plunge into eyeball.
Have more fun.

Gladiator
Beardy shouty Roman.
Gets ticked off.
Has his vengeance.

The Usual Suspects
Mystery criminal mastermind.
Plots big heist.
Spacey did it.

In my time as a copywriter, two courses I’ve been on have left a particular impression on me.

The first was when I was taught that if I hid walnuts beneath the keyboard it would make my typewriting monkey bash the keys even more vigorously and lead to greater output of quality headlines. (Now I think about it I’m not sure this course was recognised by the British Copywriting Society).

The second, however, taught me an invaluable secret technique that now, like a disgruntled magician, I’ve decided to share with you all.

One of the most important jobs any copywriter has to fulfil is saying things as concisely as possible. This means absolutely, unequivocally removing all extraneous and unnecessary words and phrases from your copy.

And a great way to practice this is the ‘3 x 3’ Movie Pitch.

The rules are simple. All you have to do is take a popular film and reduce its entire plot and purpose to three lines each made up of just three words.

For example:

Man wearing vest.
Blows up building.
Vesty man wins.

Midget flies well.
Goes to school.
Flies even better.

Attenborough plays God.
Dinosaurs go mental.
Cute children survive.

Crazy white cop.
Nervy black cop.
Comedy banter ensues.

Shark eats people.
Eats some more.
People explode shark.

Unless you’ve wrapped your television in tin foil to stop the government stealing your thoughts then you probably should have got those.

But as regular readers of this blog know, I often like to flex my alphabetical muscles in a display of wordy prowess. Partly because I’m a terrible show off and partly because my television is wrapped in foil so I now have a lot of spare time on my hands.

So, using the ‘comments’ thingy at the bottom of the blog please send me the films you’d like me to give the ‘3 x 3’ treatment to and I’ll attack them like an angry badger.

Or I might just chuck some nuts in the typewriter and let the monkey do it. Either way, watch this space for the results.

Having been near paralysed with a devastating bout of Man-Flu this week, and receiving precisely no sympathy from any of my female colleagues, I’ve decided it’s time to dispel the myths about this terrible affliction that smug women everywhere seem all too eager to believe.

1. Man-Flu is more painful than childbirth. This is an irrefutable scientific fact*.
*(Based on a survey of over 100,000 men.)

2. Man-Flu is not ‘just a cold’. It is a condition so severe that the germs from a single Man-Flu sneeze could wipe out entire tribes of people living in the rainforest. And probably loads of monkeys too.

3. Women do not contract Man-Flu. At worst they suffer from what is medically recognised as a ‘Mild Girly Sniffle’ – which, if a man caught, he would still be able to run, throw a ball, tear the phone book in half and compete in all other kinds of manly activities.

4. Men do not ‘moan’ when they have Man-Flu. They emit involuntary groans of agony that are entirely in proportion to the unbearable pain they are in.

5. Full recovery from Man-Flu will take place much quicker if their simple requests for care, sympathy and regular cups of tea are met. Is that really so much to ask? Florence Nightingale would have done it.

6. More men die each year from MFN (Man-Flu Neglect) than lots and lots of other things. (Like rabbit attacks or choking on toast).

7. Men suffering from Man-Flu want nothing more than to get out of bed and come to work, but they are too selfless to risk spreading this awful condition amongst their friends and colleagues. In this sense, they are the greatest heroes this country has ever known.

8. In 1982 scientists managed to simulate the agonising symptoms of full blown Man-Flu in a female chimp. She became so ill that her head literally fell off.

9. Man-Flu germs are more powerful than He-Man, The Thundercats and The A-Team combined. They are too strong for weak, nasty tasting ‘lady medicines’ like Lemsip, so don’t bother trying to force them on a victim of Man-Flu.

10. While it may seem like a Man-Flu sufferer is just lying around enjoying ‘Diagnosis Murder’ it is a commonly recognised medical fact that the exact pitch and frequency of Dick Van Dyke’s voice has remarkable soothing powers.

Every minute in this country one man is struck down by Man-Flu. Women, all we ask is that each of you offers them a cup of tea, some kind words and your undivided attention and care. Then maybe, just maybe, we’ll beat this monstrous disease together.

There’s a lot of speculation over the new Guinness viral doing the rounds at the moment. Although professionally produced, the company have denied any connection to it and demanded the removal of it off you tube. Suspicious though considering this has coincided with the release of their new official ad. Anyway, whoever is responsible, the viral, in my opinion, is fantastic (and hilarious). As Rutger Hauer would say, pure genius!

I had to mention this ad on our blog for a number of reasons. It’s clever and fairly brave I’d say, oh, and of course intuitive (every woman in the world would agree with the end line!!). So check it out.

Quick, lock the door and flush your lazy spoken English down the toilet…it’s a bust by the Word Police.

Before the rant begins I feel there is something I should make clear. I am neither a grammatical fascist nor a punctuation fanatic. Far from it. I like writing, I like words. These other people are just nutters who enjoy arranging shapes and would be more offended by a misplaced apostrophe than if you were to sell their children to a gang of pirates.

But one phrase which I am determined to yank out of modern speech is ‘know what I mean?’ – a saying so awful it makes the fluid drain from my eyeballs with rage and despair. Quite simply, it’s the most irritating expression to come out of people’s mouths since ‘Wassup?’ and at least that started out as being pretty funny.

What annoys me most of all about is this expression is the sinus-popping pointlessness of it. If someone had just finished explaining to me the principles of gravitational time dilation then I’m sure I’d appreciate someone asking if I knew what they meant. The answer would be a resounding ‘er, no’, but nevertheless this is the appropriate time to ask such a question.

An inappropriate time for it to be asked would be at the end of any of the following sentences:

1. I think that David Beckham’s new felt-tip pen advert is well wicked.
2. This year’s Big Brother is so the best series ever.
3. It’s not my fault if my kids set fire to the milkman.

I’m sure you’ll agree that as insightful as these statements might be, none of them are complex enough to warrant the suffix of ‘know what I mean?’ We do know what you mean. ‘You were both eloquent and succinct and we thank you for it.’

It seems to me that the only way to combat this in-growing toenail on the delicate foot that is the English language is to play these blighters at their own game.

Next time someone ends a sentence with ‘know what I mean?’ assume an expression of pure bewilderment and earnestly reply that ‘no’, you do in fact not ‘know what they mean’. Could they be more specific about the exact ways in which they feel that ‘Nige’ from Hollyoaks is a better actor than Sir Michael Gambon? Could they provide evidence to support their assertion that Wine Gums constitute one of the recommended five daily portions of fruit?

These vocal villains will soon realise that ending every dreary sentence they utter with ‘know what I mean?’ will result in them having to think about what they’ve said and actually, heaven forbid, make themselves clear.

Hopefully then, we’ll soon find this accursed turn of phrase banished from our ears and confined to the home for once popular speech along with shouting ‘not’ after a sentence to ever-so-subtly imply that you were being ironic (wasn’t it great when everyone used to do that? Not.)

I think we all know how this blog is going to end. Know what I mean?

PS

For anyone who thinks that I’m precious about my copy then I suggest you take a look a Giles Coren’s heroically livid email to a poor Times sub-editor who had the audacity to juggle with his words. Read this rather colourful outburst and you’ll all appreciate how restrained my own policy of gritted-teeth and grumbling really is…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/25/pressandpublishing.thetimes

On 25th June 2008, a scruffy, monkey-faced young copywriter from the Together Agency posted a blog on this site, and then there was silence…

No one knows what happens to the missing Soda bloggers. Some say they were eaten by hungry otters. Others say they built a raft out of stale Rich Tea fingers and set sail for South America.

But after a month of eerie emptiness, the team investigating their disappearance thought they’d better post something to reassure any loyal Soda readers that the search for the missing bloggers goes on…

Anyone with any information, such as a trail of biscuit crumbs leading out to sea or a sighting of a particularly well nourished otter, should post their comments here. With your help we can restore the bubbling of the Soda blogsters back to these very pages.

I’ll be honest. When England bumbled their way to non-qualification for Euro 2008 I would have rather spent the summer living in an underground network of caves than ‘enjoying’ the tournament.

But as my sulkiness is only outweighed by my laziness, I decided to moodily slump in my chair and watch the stupid football with the stupid 16 teams who are marginally less rubbish than stupid England.

To my surprise I’ve absolutely loved it.

Firstly, I’ve discovered that watching football is actually good fun. As a Newcastle and England fan I’ve literally met more monkeys in the last few years than I’ve experienced memorably happy football moments.

But as soon as you become a disinterested spectator, you discover that, without the miserable spectre of inevitable defeat and the crushing reality of your own team’s sheer awfulness, watching football is just a great bit of banter.

And if the team you side with at the start of the game looks like it’s in for a beating there’s no need to worry. You just switch your allegiance mid-match. Russians, Spaniards, Swedes - it makes no difference to the ‘floating fan’. If they’re buying the victory cocktails (and if they’re Russians they invariably are) then I’m happy to nail my colours to that mast. Well, stick them on with blu-tak at least.

It’s the same with Wimbledon. Now that the painful spectacle of the entire English middle-class pinning their sporting hopes on a hapless man-chimp simply because of his good manners and sensible hair cut has ended, I can actually enjoy the tournament. Let’s face it, no one really wants stroppy Scot Andy Murray to win so why not just be a floater and jump on the party bandwagon with anyone who looks in with a chance of winning?

Trust me, it’s the only way to enjoy sport – no tears, no disappointment, no swearing at professional athletes who earn 5,000 times my yearly salary but are still unable to kick a ball into a goal from 12 little yards. Just game after game of fickle, unburdened glory basking.

And if you think there’s more to enjoying sport than just being on the winning side, then you might as well jog on back to Henman Hill. Better hurry though, you might miss Cliff Richard.

Returning to work after a holiday is always an unusual experience. Mainly because it’s one of those rare moments in life when you get to see how much impact you actually make on the people around you.

From what I could tell the only thing that had been affected in any way since my two weeks of drinking cheap Spanish gin and turning increasingly pink and sore on the beach was that the quality of biscuits in the office had dropped sharply.

At the very least I’d hoped to find things in some minor state of crisis, with clients threatening to burn down the building unless my immediate return to action could be arranged.

But no, a dearth of Jammie Dodgers in favour of some stale, misshapen Pound Shop biscuits was the only sign that my absence had even taken place, let alone been the source of misery, desperation and catastrophe I’d been not-so-secretly hoping for.

So now I’m left to absorb the sad revelation that a better class of crumbly tea time snack is my only significant contribution to my colleagues.

Maybe I should just stay away longer next time. I reckon a few more weeks without proper Hob-Nobs and I’d soon be getting the hero’s welcome I’d been dreaming of during my cocktail-fuelled, sunstroke-ridden hallucinations.

Either that or next time I go away I should bring some sweets back.