Life in the middle

One for my old readers, sorry I mean - one for my old reader.

I've got a bit of a meeting to today, which requires a shirt and some proper shoes. To complete the look I pulled out the red socks.

Feels good.

Tough weekend.

Blimey, it was a long weekend, trying to crack one of those things that had to be done by today, and done well.

There were some meetings.

Some sitting in an empty(ish) office.

Some staring out the window.

Some moments of thought.

Some moments of doubt.

In the end I think we got there. And it was a relief. Clients seemed happy. And we seemed tired.

I celebrated with a particularly large patch of green ink on my hand.

Advertising's a little bit like the whole green ink situation - relentless.

It's spreading.

Stupidly I thought I might have this whole stain thing licked. But I've really taken my eye off the ball, and it's now moved to the palm of my hand.

It's not easy being me, but this, I suppose, is life in the middle. Too many spelling mistakes. Too little time. The odd nice cup of tea. The once in a while chat that places the world in a straighter line, if only for a bit. And a blog with a mad gang of readers who just swear at each other, and sometimes say 'good morning'.

And, of course, a stain on my hand.

No one said it was going to be easy.

Mysterious finger stain.

I've got a stained finger.

I think it's blue ink, from a pen that leaked into my bag. It leaked into a section where I keep essential items, like my wallet and my house keys. Every time I get it clean I then dip into the bag and once again soil the bloody thing.

I've got no real strategy to alleviate the situation. I'm just hoping that in time all the ink will be transferred onto my finger, and then scrubbed off.

It's sure to be a long road ahead.

The tankard lives.

Time for a Tankard update.

Big news! (Well, news.) She has slowly been making her way East, something she'd always dreamed of. She started by visiting Sophie in the W+K Shanghai office.

At first the office seemed pleased by the Tankard's arrival in their land, and showed it some famous Chinese hospitality.

But before long their enthusiasm seemed to turn to confusion.

And later disdain.

But Sophie put these harsh judgments aside and took the Tankard for lunch, and showed her the city.

Finally the Tankard was embraced by the office, with the famous 'sorry, have I got something on my head' pose.

And then it was time to say goodbye. Sophie seemed to pack her carefully, and I think, from the picture, I can detect a tear in Sophie's eye and maybe a little sadness in her heart as she sent the Tankard on her way.

With that she was off to Lauren in Oz.

Lauren did a sterling job, you can read all about their adventures here.

The question that now presents itself is: where next?

Any offers?

Da.

Recently I've been making a real effort to learn Romanian. Which, being a Latin language, is not the easiest for a British person to master. But I've been trying. There's been some ups and downs, but I finally feel like I'm making real progress.

I've been learning with Doug E. Fresh, which has made it a little bit more fun. Although he does have an unfair advantage in that he's Romanian (sort of, kind of, well not really).

Anyway, we went to Romania and spoke to their Money Channel to see if we could convince them of our Romanian credentials. I think you'll agree that I got away with, while Doug wasn't quite so convincing.

Physical delicious.

While in a meeting yesterday we started talking about some old work another agency had done in the same category. Instead of using the internet to get a copy of the ad he wanted to show us, Kim, one of our Executive Creative Directors, pulled out a lovely old book in which he'd mounted work he thought worthy of keeping. And there was the ad we wanted. All lovely and special, kept safe.

Old skool, in the best way.

Romanian mutterings.

I got back from Romania yesterday. I was planning to blog while I was over there but I was either too busy, or too tired. So here's a little review of what we got up to (I was joined by Doug E. Fresh).

We were picked up by our host, and Romanian planning guru, Costin - lovely guy, terrible driver.

Following the white knuckle ride from the airport, we were installed in a mammoth hotel, which felt more like an airport. Apparently it's one of the biggest in the world, and possibly one of the emptiest.

 

I was in room 811,999 - just a mile down the hallway from the elevator.

 

After staying up late furiously trying to think of something to present, we slept, and then prepared to speak at the conference on 'sales promotion' that Costin was organizing. Not knowing a lot about sales promotion lent a certain nervous quality to the mood in the morning. I coped the only way I could, which was to focus, while quietly muttering to myself "everybody loves you, nobody doubts you".

 

Moments before we went on Doug was so riddled with fear that he faked the worst smile you're ever likely to see. No one was fooled, but it didn't seem worth saying anything, time was running out.

 

So on we went. I talked a bit about crack cocaine.

 

Then Doug accused the audience of being on drugs, while I stood as still as possible, staring at the conference lights, quietly muttering "everybody loves you, nobody hates you".

 

Following our talk it was time for a panel session where we took questions from the audience. I spent most of the time drinking fizzy water and muttering to myself, while Doug talked about econometrics.

 

As soon it was over we immediately returned to our rooms and set about avoiding the preparation that was required for the next day, which was a workshop we were supposed to be running, on a subject that had so far not been explained to us.

For inspiration I stared out of the window, at the bog just outside, and muttered to myself "this is what you've been waiting for, don't mess this up".

 

Come the morning, following another late night, we were pleased to see that the workshop seemed to have been billed as something we actually knew a little about. Doug was so pleased that I think I heard him muttering to himself.

 

Buoyed by the sign, we felt confident that our list of notes that we'd spent hours preparing would now lead to a sure success - they were extensive, inspirational, and bulletproof.

Unfortunately 'Colman's gags' did not prove to be that funny. Tearing up the agenda was just seen as a pointless stunt that merely sent the group into a state of confused reflection. And everyone was happy with exactly where their seats already were.

We moved on to the section entitled 'get to know each other'.

 

I'm not totally sure we gave them what they wanted, but questions were asked (good ones), and answers were given (possibly not so good). Then we ran out of time.

It was nice that we managed to fill the session, and even better than we got meet some of the really cool people who make up the backbone of the fledgling industry in Romania. We even got to meet the supposedly 'most important woman in Romanian advertising' (according to Ben), Bogdana.

 

Then the local media turned up, demanding some answers to a number of difficult questions, like 'what is Twitter for?', I avoided the question.

 

After this the only thing we could think to do was go to the gym and cycle as hard as possible for as short a time as possible while muttering "this is the one, this is the time, it's my time, work it!" It cleared the cobwebs.

Our work done, we went out to drink beer with a small, but select, crowd of Romania's finest. I don't have pictures of most of them (hopefully Doug has), but they looked after us wonderfully. We ate terrible food, got a tour of where Costin's dog likes to pee, and then got taken to a party on the terrace of the People's Palace - the world's second biggest building, which was pretty amazing.

It was a great night. Doug went a bit rock and roll at the end, but I let it go - we all need to unwind sometimes.

We then slept a little and got an early flight, which almost crashed, but it didn't, and that's what matters I guess.

Good people, Romanians, good people.

Romania.

It won't stop raining here, so I'm off to Romania - it never rains there.

Whilst there I shall be talking at a conference about something I know very little about, which should be interesting. If worse comes to worse I plan to do some readings from 'Life in the middle', that always goes down well.

Of course I shall be blogging at all times, so please don't panic.

See you in the sun.

Good morning.

Right, I'm going to try and post something to this blog every day. Even if it's just a pointless picture of me slightly sweaty, drinking milk, and living strong following an early morning trip to the gym.

(Nice ironing board cover isn't it?)