Blogs
Going Sloley
A blog from the Waterfront's Chris Sloley
"Foot on the Commercial Breaks"
- 04 May 2007 18:00
It's sunny outside, so being naturally anaemic I chose today to really get stuck into my dissertation. Properly stuck in - Wellington boot in mud stuck in - now that is proper stuck in. Then I read about this phenomenon: Word-of-Mouth advertising. Suddenly, disser-what?
Apparently, the latest craze (well, it's being going on for donkeys' days) is to have a seeming stranger accost you in a club/coffee/lavatory/adult book shop and attempt to name drop a certain product. Not happy with blitzing our eyes, ears and other senses with ads on buses, written in the sky, TV and for an eternity in between programmes before we return to the 'sponsored-by' tag of your favourite show they now want to get you when you're off guard. You know having fun. Avoiding adverts.
Advertising author Tom Himpe (which is anagram for 'Me Too Hip' if you ignore and change the letters), claims that kids are well up for it because of some bollocks about the young having a blurred line about selling-out. Try telling that to the army of people willing to shout it about any band that gets on Radio One. But then he did come across as your typical 'down-with-the-kids-probably-rides-a-scooter' sort of twat.
Fear of the costly affects of cynicism and neglected ads has called for this change. Apparently it is all above board, and the 'agents' (its not the fucking Matrix) have to announce what they are before they proceed - sort of like how you have to invite a vampire in before he can bite you. They will then proceed like a normal conversation while name dropping and hope that they leave you with the impression "well I was quite happy having a coffee but I could really use some Toilet Duck now". Or at least that's how I think it will work.
Bollocks, does that mean next time I'm sat minding my own - using a biro to add immature captions to pictures in 'The Sun' - and I think someone is trying to chat me up they'll actually be trying to sell me Daz? Doesn't bare thinking about. Back to the dissertation.
Wash Your Mouth Out
- 27 Feb 2007 09:00
With Lent approaching, the religious - well Christian I guess - amongst us will again take it upon themselves to 'better' themselves with the sacrifice of one of vice or virtue. Now I am not religious and I don't intend on this being an open-letter to attack anyone; quite the contrary, I wish anyone who tries it the best of luck. Because it's bloody hard.
One Saturday morning I switched on my laptop, with its delightfully annoying tune it informed me through an email that I had a problem with one of my lecturers. My response? Like any like minded individual I found my nearest housemate and ripped into said lecturer like a particularly mouthy sailor on shore leave - on National Swearing Day - who'd just stubbed his toe on a doorframe.
After wiping the spit of my venomous tirade from her face, she retorted: "you swear too much". Nothing to take notice of but she then induced a clause that was brilliant fun during the second year of Uni - the 'Five Pound Challenge'. Simply put - think of something stupid, challenge the other one to do it and they win a fiver - got it? Good.
Still reeling from failing to sleep in all of our housemates' beds for one hour, with photographic evidence of the act, and no collusion, she bet me five English pounds I couldn't go 48 hours without swearing. Simple rules anything you could say in front of a friend's grandma allowed; anything else is instant defeat. Now that doesn't sound too hard, does it? I mean 11 AM Saturday to 11 AM Monday. Psst. Easy. Um... well, it wasn't.
This particular weekend incorporated the Powergen Cup Semi Finals featuring the Ospreys and a host of others. Now I am no mathematician but:
Drinking + professional sport + housemates = calling a lot of people 'wanker'
Now I did well, I did damn well. Sweaty palms clenched, lips bitten until slightly bloody, fighting the urge to shout something stupid at the massive screen that adorns the wall of the Bryn, missed pass after missed pass. Having resorted to calling someone a 'Fisherman', realising how stunted my vocabulary is without guttural filth, and shouting 'Shi... Sugar' a few times that gave the table in front of me the impression that I was either delightfully effeminate or from the 1950s. Still the lingering promise of five pounds led me on and I lasted two back-to-back rugby matches, even with the chiding and attempted trappings of housemates and I thought: 'yes, I did it'.
Not quite. The rugby took me only as late as six o'clock and it fell. Seven hours in. Over the simplest thing; reaching for a pan out of a cupboard. Now I blame the beer because I wouldn't normally say 'get the fuck out the way' but it was gone, in an instant I had lost. My fiercely competitive nature dampened by one indiscretion and five pounds out of my pocket for defeat. Now I would love to see someone like Lily Allen have to reciprocate these actions because I challenged another housemate who lasted two and a half minutes, and another even less. In fact the next word was something you shouldn't say with a child present. Anyway the point of this rant is simple, if you're mate is trying to give something up be supportive even if you think it's silly, it is hard and the sense of personal reward is massive - so for God's sake don't be a prick about it.
V For Vienetta
- 08 Feb 2007 22:01
Who invented hangovers? I bet it was one of those kids you see getting hit by their parents in Tescos as a way of getting back at the world. My head feels like its trying to grow a bigger one from the inside; a sort of cerebral Russian doll.
You know what I love? Well you don't, so keep reading and you might learn something. Hypothetical questions; the 'would-you-rather' kind of scenarios are the greatest form of conversation. It's like a sort of mini-text vote but with words and no phones and without Matthew Wright grinning like a shaved chimp when he announces that 75% of 'Wright Stuff' viewers hate immigrants…or something of that effect.
The latest one I have been wheeling out is would you rather be Jimmy Saville or Noel Edmonds? (With Saville giving the bearded Dealer a resounding thumping in 'popular' opinion) It gives you a bizarre insight into the mind of the person you question, especially if they elaborate. Someone chose Saville over Edmonds because 'he wore a shell-suit'. Obviously that person is a very superficial and shallow person who should be shunned by society. However, if they had answered Noel Edmonds I would have called them 'a twat'.
Another favourite is would you rather be one inch high or a hundred foot high? A question that has raised a myriad of confused responses ranging from 'would I be in proportion or just sort of lanky?' which led to a discussion of a man like Peter Crouch to the nth degree. Pictured it? Good I can continue. This is also interesting as it seems to be split down gender lines, most girls respond that they would be an inch high (to make friends being the stupidest and most common retort) and men prefer the possibility of being a colossus (*cough* compensating *cough*).
In reality, what I love about 'hypotheticals' is that what ever response is given you can suggest that the person is wrong and then, if they agree, you open up all possibilities of exploitation. Like getting them to buy you the next round…what did you think I meant? Dirty.
Chris Sloley