Life in the middle

"Sometimes what I think is really obvious, obviously isn't obvious."

Just do it.

Great ad that I'd like to say I played a small part in, but in fact I was merely in some of the meetings during my first couple of days at W+K (but I like to think it helped having me there).

Drive on England!

(By the way, the blog is shut for the next week or so for essential maintenance - there is a smell of gas. Comments are off to avoid the spam people. Good evening.)

Good to see.

I like to think that my impact at Wieden's has been dramatic. Challenging their very ways of doing business.

That's what I like to think.

On the wall of the changing room at training.

Europe is ill.

The whole of Europe is sick, all of it, even Switzerland. We are under the weather, evey damn one of us.

Thankfully a website has been set up to raise awareness of the issue, and to offer some radical solutions. They are indeed radical, but I think that's what we need.

So, visit the website, and let's all club together, get our goggle on, and make Europe well again.

www.oneilleurope.com

One down.

I managed to get rid of one of my copies of the new Pinker book this morning. I gave one of the UK versions to Russell.

He seemed delighted.

I wonder what Kenny Rodgers, the popular country music artist, thinks about the rugby?

Oh right, cheers Kenny, and good evening.

Work / life...

...it's important to strike a balance.

Graze.

I had a small spill on my bike today, and lost a slither of skin and some flesh off my knee.

It was one of those slightly humiliating crashes. The traffic had stopped and I was making my way down the side of the cars when I got my front tyre stuck in a groove between the pavement and the road. I didn't see it because the road was so waterlogged. Once in the groove my wheel refused to come out when I turned slightly towards the road my wheel stayed pointing straight, but my body went to the right, and because my shoes were clipped into the pedals I fell into the middle of the road, and scuffed my knee.

Obviously I stood up immediately and got back on my bike (that's not just a metaphor). I then moved the traffic onwards with one of those embarrassing 'yes I'm fine, really I am' waves.

And I am, though it still stings a little.

Gin's fork.

When I was growing up we had a cat called Gin. She was the sister of Tonic (see what we did there), and the stepsister of Max. She was black, very thin, slept most of the day (normally on the boiler), and sometimes drank from the downstairs toilet. She was also very highly strung - giving a nervous meow at the merest hint of a drop of a hat (not to mention the dropping of something really noisy).

Anyway, what has this got to do with the price of fish I hear you ask? Well before she died, Gin set about a complete evaluation of the market structure of the cod market, taking account of current stocks and making some of the most accurate predictions about the future economic stability of over-fishing Atlantic stocks.

As well as this, Gin also had her food served to her via a strikingly thin and slender fork. I think it was because of this unusual dynamic between its length and width that it was particularly suited to chopping up her Whiskas. I don't think it was an inherently ugly fork, but it certainly became so by dint of being used for Gin's supper. Because of this we kept it in a separate drawer, away from our cutlery.

Now Gin died, I can't remember when, but it was about 10 years ago. So imagine my surprise when the old girl's fork turned up during my birthday lunch. I immediately noted its sleek lines and cat food chopping potential and complained to my mother. She replaced it, but not before I had a chance to remember a nervous black cat, who drank from the toilet, and sullied a fork.