Feb 2008
Anal retention
22 February 2008 @ 07:53 in Life
After no fewer than four visits from an 'engineer',
we finally have a working fridge again, and I thought
I'd share with you this line from the wife's email
bringing the joyous news.
“Man said it would take 24 hours to cool down/freeze up properly and gave the helpful advice of ‘put some ice cubes in it to help it along’. Oh yes. Let me just get this tray of ice cubes I've been keeping up my arse.”
“Man said it would take 24 hours to cool down/freeze up properly and gave the helpful advice of ‘put some ice cubes in it to help it along’. Oh yes. Let me just get this tray of ice cubes I've been keeping up my arse.”
A topper of a weekend
Our eighties-themed Philm Club was all kinds
of fun, but Jenny gets the prize for best party
idea by getting us to make top hats
– chocolate, marshmallow, Smartie
– which I then supplemented with the
chocolate/corn flakes concoctions much beloved
of nursery schools. Add to that lunch at the
Marlborough Tavern, cream teas and my nouvelle
cuisine extravaganza on Saturday, and the three
of us were required to waddle slightly when we
visited the actual baths.
Remember – the next Philm Club is Sideways on March 1. It will, of course, be wine-themed, but we won't be drinking any fucking Merlot. Wanna come? Let us know!
Remember – the next Philm Club is Sideways on March 1. It will, of course, be wine-themed, but we won't be drinking any fucking Merlot. Wanna come? Let us know!
An open letter to the PR industry
07 February 2008 @ 16:55 in Work
Dear everyone in PR
I am writing to you today just to say hi and to explain a few things about how a journalist does his job and about how you can help me, MacFormat’s readers, yourself and your client.
Y’see, it’s all really, really simple. I know you have all sorts of other things to do – campaigns to formulate, ROI to track, lunches to have; those paradigms won’t shift themselves – but me, the journo-hack, basically just wants three things.
First and foremost – PR 101 – I want you to know about the product you’re representing. I don’t expect you to know every technical detail and be able to answer any arcane question I might have the temerity to put to you, but I think it’s fair to assume that you will at least be familiar with the broad brushstroke stuff. And for pity’s sake don’t confuse ‘marketing tag line’ with product knowledge; that’s just tiresome and I’ll get curiously polite on the phone.
Second, if I request a product for review, please send it in. Soon. I might be on the borderline of deciding whether I think it’s worth our readers’ time anyway, so I’m not going to chase it unless it’s a major release or some product I suspect is crap but that folks are in danger of buying. Failing that, let me know when I should expect it. Magazines are usually pretty tightly planned, so if I know your thing won’t arrive for another three weeks, that’s fine; I’ll just plan around it. And don’t dare try to pull the ‘I’m putting you at the top of the list’ line unless you actually are.
Third; press releases. This is kinda related to my first point. I really want to hear about your products, so make sure you have my email address for press releases. But only if they’re relevant. We’re a consumer Mac magazine; what possible relevance do you think your blanket, all-points email about a new PC laptop, enterprise SAN system or mobile industry awards has for us? Ah, yes, you didn’t think, did you?
All the fun stuff that you do – lunches, briefings in exotic locations, Christmas parties – is great, but all the corporate special-edition cocktails in the world won’t make up for any deficiencies in these three basic tenets, nor will it make me ignore all the utterly cretinous dribble we have to wade through on a daily basis.
Don’t be hurt. I love working with you guys and most of you do a great job, especially with some of the tat you’re given to market.
Hugs and kisses
I am writing to you today just to say hi and to explain a few things about how a journalist does his job and about how you can help me, MacFormat’s readers, yourself and your client.
Y’see, it’s all really, really simple. I know you have all sorts of other things to do – campaigns to formulate, ROI to track, lunches to have; those paradigms won’t shift themselves – but me, the journo-hack, basically just wants three things.
First and foremost – PR 101 – I want you to know about the product you’re representing. I don’t expect you to know every technical detail and be able to answer any arcane question I might have the temerity to put to you, but I think it’s fair to assume that you will at least be familiar with the broad brushstroke stuff. And for pity’s sake don’t confuse ‘marketing tag line’ with product knowledge; that’s just tiresome and I’ll get curiously polite on the phone.
Second, if I request a product for review, please send it in. Soon. I might be on the borderline of deciding whether I think it’s worth our readers’ time anyway, so I’m not going to chase it unless it’s a major release or some product I suspect is crap but that folks are in danger of buying. Failing that, let me know when I should expect it. Magazines are usually pretty tightly planned, so if I know your thing won’t arrive for another three weeks, that’s fine; I’ll just plan around it. And don’t dare try to pull the ‘I’m putting you at the top of the list’ line unless you actually are.
Third; press releases. This is kinda related to my first point. I really want to hear about your products, so make sure you have my email address for press releases. But only if they’re relevant. We’re a consumer Mac magazine; what possible relevance do you think your blanket, all-points email about a new PC laptop, enterprise SAN system or mobile industry awards has for us? Ah, yes, you didn’t think, did you?
All the fun stuff that you do – lunches, briefings in exotic locations, Christmas parties – is great, but all the corporate special-edition cocktails in the world won’t make up for any deficiencies in these three basic tenets, nor will it make me ignore all the utterly cretinous dribble we have to wade through on a daily basis.
Don’t be hurt. I love working with you guys and most of you do a great job, especially with some of the tat you’re given to market.
Hugs and kisses
Why Apple rulez
You know that thing? Like, when the Jehovah's
witnesses turn up at your door and you screw your
best polite smile into place? I'm quite familiar with
that look now, as I've been seeing it quite a lot on
people as I eulogise about the iPhone. Here's the
sort of thing that gets me quite so evangelical:
If you bring up the keypad on the phone and punch in a number that happens to exist in your phone book, it will display the name of the person on whose card it appears. So what? Dozens of other mobiles do this. But as you'll see above, if I tap in my home phone number – which is listed for me and for Mrs P – it will elegantly display that it's the home number for 'Christopher or Jennifer Phin'; if anyone else had done this, I can guarantee that at best you'd have got 'Christopher Phin/Jennifer Phin'.
Utterly beautiful UI design, and a perfect example of why, as someone who is happy enough in Windows or Linux, I'm still a Mac user. Or to put it another way, Apple FTW.
If you bring up the keypad on the phone and punch in a number that happens to exist in your phone book, it will display the name of the person on whose card it appears. So what? Dozens of other mobiles do this. But as you'll see above, if I tap in my home phone number – which is listed for me and for Mrs P – it will elegantly display that it's the home number for 'Christopher or Jennifer Phin'; if anyone else had done this, I can guarantee that at best you'd have got 'Christopher Phin/Jennifer Phin'.
Utterly beautiful UI design, and a perfect example of why, as someone who is happy enough in Windows or Linux, I'm still a Mac user. Or to put it another way, Apple FTW.
