I found my namesake hero Mike O'Brien

Those were the days. My Foster's drinking Australian namesake and distant relative, Mike O'Brien, gets a helping 'hand' from a copper and his helmet to make headlines. Incidentaly, the Policeman's helmet was auctioned off for charity in 2000. In the meantime, having tried to follow in Mike's naked footsteps (at a party in Brixton - sadly no photograpgs exist), I have gone on to become creative director, lecturer and artist, Mike has put his clothes back on and become a successful stockbroker.

At the IDM

Running a 3 day course as Lead Tutor on the IDM Certificate in Digital Marketing.

New Portrait Commission

The film director, Jasmin Tempest, has commissioned a portrait for her new country house. Work starts today with a research session to create a context for the final work. Jasmin's latest project was Macbeth's Disciple, http://www.spearean.co.uk/ a film she shot with a cast of the great, the good and the next big thing from RADA

Can't get Venice out of my head

Next in the landscape department is this painting of the Academy in Venice. The outline is done and I can't wait to get painting. To get me in the mood, I will be thinking about my visit last year. It is the most amazing city I have ever visited. I hope I can do it justice.

Work in Progress

This haunting picture of Laura is next on the list of paintings I will be working on this Summer. The outlines is up on the canvas and I will soon be getting into the job of painting. The idea is that I am going to work on it in Black and White in the style of the old masters who worked figures up in gray before getting into skin tones. Fingers crossed.

Bridge

Just a little bridge in the middle of nowhere connecting two sides of a gently flowing river busy doing nothing but reflecting the sun and capturing my imagination with regards to all those before me and after me who will take a moment to admire the love someone put into making something that offers form way beyond function.

Ron

He may be in his 80s but he still acts, sings, wines, dines, reads in French and English, loves business, physics and walking for hours on end in good company. A lesson to us all. A work in progress.

Harbour

At first glance, these deep see fishing trawlers were sitting at rest, but when you watched them for a while you notice they never, ever stop moving on the restless tide.

Sunflower 2

The Sun makes everything possible. Even the glass, feathers and paint this work is made from.

Lily

I once went to see Monet's water lilys at L'Orangerie in Paris. It was closed for the first time in 50 years. I went again. It was open. I had to respond in kind.

Music 2

Same MO. Different result.

Music 3

Different song.

Music 1

I love composing and I love painting. This is what happens when you try to do both at the same time.

Portal

I have seen how light the body seems in death. Something more than the air in our lungs goes missing. I don't know what it is. I don't know where it goes. I'll let you know if I suss it out.

B4 of 4

Everybody benefits

B3 of 4

The Bees get in on the act

B2 of 4

The Flowers soak it up

B1 OF 4

The Sun shines down

The window

Ever seen an eye as the Pupil expands and the Iris contracts in response to light? Two muscles that reduce or increase the amount of light entering the eye. That light is converted into electrical impulses, our brain interprets our vision of the world. Go look into the eyes of someone you love and take a look into the place where they create their vision of you. What do you see?

That Day

Just a single, solitary house on a vast headland in Wales. You wouldn't be allowed to build it now. It speaks to a time before the car when it enjoyed complete isolation form the world. A place where you could watch the waves and listen to the gulls for days on end and never see a single soul save for the opportunity to get a glimpse of your own.

Mel

Caught in the act. She, who like us all, will play many roles in her life. But she, unlike most of us, will get paid by the West End for hers. My wonderful daughter Mel, Ophelia, Juliet, Bessie, Peggy, Arkadnia, Lady Macbeth, Lady Bracknell, Vivian, Meg.... etc, etc

Tree/branches/lungs

Don't the bankers get it? The most valuable thing in life is breathing. What the trees give off keeps us alive. Nothing in your deepest, darkest offshore accounts and vaults is anywhere near as valuable.

Found it

They've spent billions looking for the Higgs Boson particle in Cern. I got there first.

Seed

When you think about the extraordinary microscopic details of the actual moment of creation. It's a miracle each and every one of us is here.

Dragonfly

They were here before us and chances are they will be here long after we have been and gone.

Michael

He was the strong, silent type not given to sensationalism, hyperbole or bullshit. Words of wisdom, it seems, take time in the making, seconds in delivery and last a lifetime in impact. My Father.

Power Station

My Father told them not to take the middle part of the station out. They didn't listen and the chimneys started to move outwards to the point where it has cost millions just to hold the structure together. The asbestos has gone and so has my Father but the energy trail they left lives on.

Here comes the sun

It showers our planet with energy. That energy drives everything we taste, smell, touch, hear, see, think and feel. How little we appreciate the things that have value beyond measure.

May you never be too old to play

When we were young, everything seemed more intense, more interesting. The days were longer because we lived in the moment. It pays to be mindful. There is no past. There is no future. There is only now.

The Celestine Prophecy

The book made me think about the quantum exchanges that take place in every intimate act. There is enough energy stored in the human body to create an atomic explosion. Mind how you go.

Meet the real me

JF took one look at this self portrait and said, "You need help." He might be right.

I'm telling your Mum

That lazy git Todger, if he isn’t sleeping, he’s, well he’s... sleeping. We had a meeting at the Flabby Road studios to discuss the Comfortably Dumb tour sponsorship deal. We get some free studio time; they get an inflatable banner with the word “Flabby” on it.Seems fair. Anyway, we left the negotiating to Todger, him being the mathematician of the outfit. He only failed his math’s O Level, the rest of us got “Unclassified.” Right in the middle of his pitch, he nods off. He only woke up when his head hit the table. When he sat up with the remains of a jam doughnut glued to his hooter, we knew the deal was off! We took Todger home to his Mum’s. She tells us he’s got something called Narcolepsy. He can nod off at any moment. Just then, we hear a crash coming from the driveway: Todger has kipped off while parking the van and taken out the postman on his bike and hit the garage door. “I told him to lookout,” said the postman from under the van. “He’s got Narcolepsy,” said Togger’s Mum. “Yeah, and he’s deaf,” said Dick, “It’s like in that film: Double indignity.” Just then Todger comes round and stagers out from behind the wheel. He starts shouting at the postman and then Rick starts doing all this Bruce Lee stuff. The postman thinks he’s in for a kicking. “Don’t mind him,” says Dan, “It’s just the epilepsy.” “Bloody Hell, I say, “It’s like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” “No. It’s not,” says Todger’s Mum. “It’s worse. Much worse. I’ve seen them at a gig when only Dick was left pounding on his organ.” Dick starts to say something crude but I throw a fist full of letters at him. “That’s illegal,” shouts the postman who threatens to call the police before he notices Dan, dressed in his Roy Rogers outfit, going for his six-shooter. Todger starts whistling the theme tune from Fist Full of Dollars. “Go ahead, make my day,” says Dan, metamorphosing his characters and confusing the hell out of the postman. The postman’s eyebrows furrow. The sound of gunfire fills the air. Everyone dives for cover. The smoke clears to the sight of the postman running down the street while Dick, Todger, Rick and Dan are being attacked by Todger’s Mum with a broom. A few days in and I am wondering if it’s time to leave the band before I end with a Jack Nicholson-style lobotomy. Whatever next?

Rehearse this

Are these guys serious or what? They want rehearsals in fancy dress! I had to drag my gear out of the car in broad daylight dressed as Nelson. That twat of a keyboard player, Dick Sleight (of hand), kept shouting, “Kiss me Hard-on,” right in the middle of Us and Them. If he does it during the gig, I’ll give him Dark Side of the Moon straight in the kisser. During lunch we discussed names for the band over a curry. I suggested Pillar of Wind on account of it being a Pink Floyd track and the smell emanating from the general direction of Rick Monsoon, the bummer (sorry drummer). By the time Todger Voters(local politician), the bass player, is throwing up in the bog, “It’s vindaloo in the loo time,” shouts Dick, we have decided on Comfortably Dumb as the name. They think it a fitting tribute to one of the great Floyd tracks. I prefer to think of it in terms of the other guitarist, Dan Glamour, who keeps noodling all over my vocals with that multi-million watt amp stack of his. I offer to re-arrange his peddle effects cables. He offers to re-arrange my features. In the interests of band politics, I offer to drink him under the table in the boozer. We end up pissed and comfortably numb and dumb in the pub with all our gear locked in the rehearsal room overnight. That is until Todger hits on the fun idea of breaking in through the skylight. It was going well until he fell through the bloody thing and ended up in the jewelers next door. Burglar alarm. Police. Meat wagon. Fingerprints. Criminal record. Bollocks! No job and now a Criminal Record...

Meet the Band

I started browsing through the band members wanted vacancies for months when this offer of a spot with a Pink Floyd tribute band came up. I don’t sound like Dave Gilmour but you’ve got to start somewhere. I make it to the audition just outside London and my sore throat actually makes me sound like Gilmour. I try to explain that I normally sound like Sting but they are so busy thinking about up and coming studio and tour sessions that they hire me. “Did anyone else audition?” I ask. “Want a coffee from Starbucks?” replies the bass player, Todger Waiters. Is he bonding or avoiding the question. It was later I discover that he’s almost deaf. I thought that duff note at the start of Time was just ring rust. By the time he bought an empty cup of coffee back, I realised he also had Parkinson’s. What next? Oh Jesus. The drummer, Rick Monsoon, suffers from intermittent epilepsy (it helps on some solo parts apparently), the keyboard player, Dick Sleight, is an ex-porn star (always laughs at his own “I’m still playing the organ” joke), and the other guitarist, Dan Glamour, dresses up as a cowboy at weekends and goes looking for Pocahontus in and around The Oracle Shopping Centre in Reading - oh how the shop assistants in the Disney shop must love to see him coming. Not! What am I letting myself in for? In the next installment I’ll be covering rehearsals...

Wam Bam Jam - Birth of a Band

Like a lot of people, the boss spoke to me for the first time the other day. He got my name wrong and then said," You're Fired, er i mean redundant." I left the building in a politically correct state of bemusement and went home to review my finances with my financial advisers: the cat, the dog and Alf my life insurance/pension bloke. Apparently, I have nothing to worry about: it’s only wild animals with valuable skins who tend to meet their end courtesy of a poacher’s incandescent tool up the Khyber. Despite his reassurance, you’ll never see me browsing through the African section of the local Travel Agents. I guess that sense of trepidation makes me boring but I can honestly say I’ve crammed a lot into the past two decades. Perhaps I should be content with the latest of 3 marriages, 12 kids (accumulative total), reasonable income and healthy social life I have, but I still wake up every morning listening for the sound of the starting pistol. On your marks - wake up to the same old Radio 4 news. Get set - hate the same old drive to work. Go - relive the same daily fantasies about a life more meaningful. Why can’t I help but feel as though something profound, meaningful, possibly of earth-shattering consequence is missing? If the world won’t change to meet me half way (what an ego), I will have to change. So here’s the deal: from this moment forward, I’m going to live the life of an overachieving-existentialist; you know: balls-out and bum in the breeze - sometimes both at the same time. For the benefit of posterity, I shall keep detailed notes and digital photographs of this on-going experiment. My hope is that others my feel inspired to throw caution to the wind and discover the joys of running amok through the rest of their lives. The first thing I am going to do is join that band I have been talking about for years... more soon.

You have to question their questionnaire

If you ever have an odd week or two to complete a subscription form, this is the site to turn your brain into mush and have you running out of will to live before you have got anywhere near the end of reaching the first Proceed button at which point you say "Not more".... I can't take any more of this bloody life/questionnaire...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

http://www.marketinglaw.co.uk/subscribe/default.asp

DMA Email Marketing Council Blog

News from the front. The collective wisdom of the movers and shakers in the fastest growing communications channel in history.

DMA Email Marketing Council Blog

Quidco - The web's cashback cooperative

Bag yourself a quote on what your affiliate program might cost you.

Quidco - The web's cashback cooperative

Website Optimiser - to boldly go where your website has never gone before

Never mind the split infinitive, if you are looking for a sales hyper-drive button that will help you "go boldly" where you've never gone before, Jean Luke Piccard (Gavin Sinden) recommends a visit to planet Google's Web Optimiser package. It's free... but that doesn't mean it can't help improve engagement on your website.

Website Optimiser

Google Insights for Search - Web Search Volume: compare the market - Worldwide, 2004 - present

Love him/it or hate it, this is on-line branding and response building in a nut shell. Just compare (get it) its performance against the market (get it).


Google Insights for Search - Web Search Volume: compare the market - Worldwide, 2004 - present

So that's what £100,000 in cash looks like

It pays to believe in your product. In this put-your-money-where-your-mouth is campaign, 3M use a street poster made from two sheets of glass, containing over £100,000 in cash, to demonstrate the strength of their belief in the product's ability to resist the advances of bus stop vandals. In fact, they want as far as to tell members of the public that they could keep the contents if they could get at it. If only I had come to work via a JCB with a thermal lance in my brief case. Mind you, I have no doubt that the poster would have come to an untimely end in certain parts of London. No, I don't mean the East End, I mean the City of London. As we now know, most of the UK's major criminals work in the Banks, Brokerages and Financial establishments around Thread Needle Street. While it might have taken Arthur Daily a few hours to find a suitable hammer drill, the average Hedge Fund Manager has enough ill-gotten gains floating around to call in an Airstrike from the US Airforce/Carlisle Group/Bush neo- conservative welfare fund. Even the Brinks Mat boys could never have mustered the resources at the disposal of the average Derivatives Dealer. Go on 3M, I dare you to set it up somewhere in The Square Mile. Those ruthless, thieving Bankers will have it out of there before you can say, "It's as easy as asset stripping a pensioner's pension fund."

You show me yours and I'll... well, I'll tell on you.

I love this true to life ad for Energizer. It shows what kids might get up to if you let the batteries in their toys run out of power. Toys out of power only serves to let nature take it's course and the next thing you know... the kids are heading out the gate of Eden at a rate of knots. Let this be a warning to you. Get Energizer into the toys or they'll end up going at sex education 101 like the Energizer bunny. At this point in the blog, I imagine a girl I knew at the age of 3 or 4 is shockingly recalling how I once reneged on my promise to engage in a recipricol show and tell session. Having had my peakaboo, I promptly ran off to tell her Mum what she had done... without returning the compliment and, to make matters worse, even told her Mum it was her all her idea. I hope it hasn't adversly affected her ability to trust men? Don't worry Marrian, your secret is safe with me. Ooops! Anyway, I blame the parents... who had obviously not sorted out the battery situation. Mind you, I shudder to think what might have gone on if Barbie and Action Man came with Energizer batteries. "Oh Action Man." "Oh Barbie." "What about me?" "Bugger off Ken!"

Do I look big in this bum?

This German campaign aimed at job-seekers stuck in dead-end jobs has constantly made me laugh out loud in public while heralding a wind of change in creative thinking regarding ambient marketing. They started with ambient posters stuck on the side of every kind of vending machine imaginable. The posters reveal that inside the vending machine is a bored stiff human worker. Now they have got to the bottom of the matter with an event entrance poster that shows how we try to improve our lot by 'ingratiating ourselves with the boss.' This 'tunnel vision' approach needs to be put to one side and you need to take a more hard-assed (sorry) approach to developing your career. Ambient and experience marketing is one of the best sources of amazing creative ideas. The combination of concept tied into a sense of theater seems to bring out the best in creative departments across Europe, putting fun into building the Client's bottom (sorry) line.

For F@*k's sake

How can you switch on to a Gordon Ramsey show and then complain when he goes verbal to the tune of 243/187 F words (depending on the news source). In response to phone calls to Channel 4, Lib Dem MP's were forced to stop wondering which professional pervert leader not to elect; Ofcom were forced not to comment/do nothing (what's new) and the not so great and the not so good everywhere were yelling into their lattes in Cafes from Bloombury to Islington. If you don't like the Gordon Ramsey approach to verbals... don't watch. Why are you watching if you are a sensitive soul/bore? Does it hint at that you are in denial about your latent masochistic tendencies? Do you have a lack of things of consequence to occupy your dull life and ploddy intellect. Get a life. Stop watching celebrity-floging PR bullshit TV and pick up the phone and complain about theiving bankers, dumbass politicians, murderous conflicts, teenage drinking, crap healthcare, company pension fund raids, asset stripping tychoons, Job losses. Russian oligarchs, American robber barons and International Criminals owning our footie clubs, Celebrity retards influencing our kids with their own vacuous TV shows etc. I could go on, but then I have already... Fcuk me!

Oh. My. God!

It's official. Social Networking has the blessing of 'God's official representative' here on earth. It appears the Holy See wants to get down with the Catholic Youtubers across the world by broadcasting short video news clips on His activities and events at the Vatican. So what can we expect? Pope gets his ring kissed in public? Pope ponders his Hitler Youth photo album? Pope does nothing about Gaza? Pope fails to flog Vatican booty to end world poverty and starvation? Pope bollocks editor of Catholic Herald for slamming the Internet as the work of the Devil just before he launches onto Youtube. Pope gives class on Creationism v Cretinism (or are they one and the same thing?) Pope gives low-down on the top ten spiritual themes of all time. (Que: Alan Freeman VO with Italian/German accent), "Coming in at number 10 in this weeks chart it's: I am Therefore You are Not, by Notorious G.O.D. Up two places at 9 it's: Though Shalt not Thrill, by Forbidden Condom. And at number 8 it's: Suffer little Children Unto me by Confessions of a Catholic Priest in a new parish. At number 7 it's: Killing me softly, by Cain and Able. Creeping in at number 7 it's: Disability - you asked for it by Ban Stem Cell Research. Just outside the top 5, at 6, it's: Mary: Did she or didn't she do it with an Angel? by the Immaculate Conception. At 5 it's: Father, they know not what they are doing by IMF and the Bankers. At 4 it's: God told me to kill my Son for a laugh by Abraham and his estranged son Issac. At 3 it's: Yes, I'm talking to you by Burning Bush. In at number 2 it's: You don't count the dead when God's on your side by Crazy in Croatia. And at number 1 it's: And the Truth Shall set you Free by They'll say Anything if you Torture them with a little help from Jesus in Guantanamo Bay. Can't wait...

Whose Brand is it anyway?

I can't tell you the number of times I have asked in a lecture room full of brand people 20 floors above Canary Wharf, "Who owns the brand?" The brand people to a man, woman and hermaphrodite answer, "We do."
"If that's the case," I prompt, "I want each of you to write a one liner on the brand." After a few minutes of allowing them to look deep into the recesses of their considerably well-educated minds (for the corporately approved answer), or out of the window over the Thames (for a little personal inspiration), I collect the answers and list out the incredible, not even remotely related range of answers. I then go for the brand jugular...
"If you lot can't reach a consensus, how are the hell are customers? The fact is, most brand gurus seem to have little or no interest in what real people think about brands. It's better to stick your head in the sand/up your own backside (take your pick) and just get on with thinking out of the box/our box (depending on amount of cocaine used to stimulate creative juices). After all, we are the pros, are we not? Why let the great unwashed/uneducated (those without an Eden Project-sized atrium in the office) have a say in anything? I wonder if this blinkered thinking is why direct is now bigger than brand and both will soon be subsumed into digital (the brand that people are defining and re-defining 24 hours a day. Start listening to what the people (not in artificially inseminated focus groups) are saying about your brand in real time and you might learn something: the truth about your brand.

Here we go again

It's that time of year when we ask ourselves the two vital questions: "What have we done?" and "What next?" Did you finally get your work/life balance sorted out? Will it be this year? What is the correct ratio for the achievement of balance in one's life? 50/50? seems a little neat and not very practical. One of the key problems is that you spend a large percentage of your "Life" factor in bed asleep, thus wasting perhaps 50% of your down time on getting your head down. So you try insomnia to help make the most of your awake time only to find that clients/contacts/students start emailing and facebooking you at 4 in the morning. Now your work/life balance is really skewed/screwed. So you spend more time out of the office, working from home, hoping that Gmail will act as a moderating channel between you and the world and only to find that your nifty Blackberry never shuts up twittering and muttering at you. I'm driving to a meeting, it twits. I'm in the loo, it twits. I'm going out of my mind, it twits. There it goes again. Work/Life balance my arse. I must be crazy to even audit my work life balance. Look waht happened to Dudley Moore in the film Crazy People. He's an ad man who has a Jerry McGuire moment and say's "I know what we'll do: we'll tell the truth about products and services in our ads." They end up locking him away in an asylum. I hope there's room for me. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em I say. If we all end up living in a "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" wardened controlled home for retired ad and marketing people, perhaps the world would be a better place. No-one to make the general populace suffer from coms-induced status anxiety about the lack of funds required to purchase the latest ipod. No aspiration-crushing demonstrations of ad campaigns designed to underscore your oh-so-obvious inability to have it all (the footbal clubs, old masters, gargantuan houses, helicopter-toting yachts, private aiforce, top gear wheels, faberge eggs for breakfast etc etc. No it is easier to just join the nutters asap. The more, the merrier.