The Making of the Old Spice “I’m on a Horse” Advert
Leo Laporte interviews the creatives at Wieden + Kennedy who were responsible for this epic commercial.
Things to do in 2010
Timmy had this idea, on his fabulous site, so without his permission I have ruthlessly lifted the idea, and written my own:
1. Travel somewhere brilliant
2. Start to learn to drive properly
3. Do some proper photography again
4. Become really good at designing magazine covers
5. Same as Timmy’s 5
6. Finish Dara O Briain’s book
7. Learn how to use Flash (far too late)
8. Finish watching Lost
9. Start my post-university life
10. Graduate
11. Do something unexpected
12. Blog far more
13. Get my dad to buy an iPad
14. Properly learn the fundamentals of Marketing, before my Marketing course is over.
15. Help build The Squirrel into something that continues long after I leave University.
16. Have an issue of The Squirrel without a single error on the cover.
I think I’ll add more to this post as time goes on, but that’s it for now.
So you thought Tobacco advertising was banned
If you’re anything like me, you will have followed Formula 1 a bit throughout your lifetime, and while I lack a television these days, when I did have one at home I did on occasion spend a good 3 hours of my life watching a Grand Prix. In the 2000s a big change took place which meant Tobacco advertising was slowly banned in Formula 1 in many different countries, I am now lead to believe that all countries have banned the practise.
Since I was aware of this ‘fact’ I thought that all teams had removed their Tobacco advertising entirely. We no longer saw ‘West’ or ‘Benson and Hedges’, and I thought, we no longer saw ‘Marlboro’ on Ferrari cars. But one thing still bothered me. If Marlboro was gone, why did Ferrari still have a massive badge on their cars, the same size, shape and colours of the Marlboro mark, albeit in Barcode form?
Well, turns out, somewhat obviously to me now, that it is indeed the case that Marlboro still sponsor Ferrari, and that the ‘barcode’ mark is for anyone who knows the cars in their traditional form, a subliminal callback to the Marlboro logo, and their brand.
I found this genuinely shocking, because far from being an inside joke that we all get, like when you see the company logo at one race, and then a funny parody one at another (to get around the rules), this subliminal non-logo is now seen at every single race. The government is always complaining about how Tobacco companies are sneakily marketing to everyone, why haven’t they stopped the one thing right under their nose?
Crucial cuppa
So I said no to a cup of tea…
Now you don’t think of me…
You said it was ok to say no…
Little did I know…
Life could be so different now…
All because of a cup of tea.
Is a House a Holmes?
Interactive digital charity advertising hits London
Don’t worry, the planning committee have a plan B
By Random_fotos on Flickr
I hate to make my blog all about them, but it seems to be a never ending issue. According to the Age of Stupid documentary I just saw a bit of, all over the country turbines are being refused because of anti protest groups. Urgh, it actually gives me a headache, don’t people realise what they are saying when they protest these things? Global warming is consuming the planet, but you’d rather have an unspoilt view of a hill than do something to stop a global crisis?
It’s horrifying, and the planning committees seemed to be staffed with people who largely agree with these people.
Case in point, the Cheverton Down turbine application. People have been on about it for what seems like years, the pro camp, with thanks to people like Kerri Trickey (disclosure: my friend), have finally got their voice heard. But what happens? Though the public voice was almost evenly split, the council voted 6 against 3 to not approve the application.
To make this clear, thats not covering the Isle of Wight with badly sited Turbines, thats 3 neat turbines, on a hill. It would look amazing. Yes, they’d be tall, and as the County Press (god love ‘em) keeps pointing out, a bit more than twice the height of St. Thomas’s Church. Well, breaking news, churches aren’t the tallest things around anymore. In fact the TV masts we see all around us on the island, are massive compared to the proposed turbines.
But alas, refused, by NIMBYs, again.
It genuinely makes me mad.
Why do I climb the mountain?
I’m currently ill, and when you’re ill it always helps to have some techno music and William Shatner waxing philosophical about climbing a mountain.
I just wanted to say…
Photo copyright 2009 Darran Gange
Life is not linear, it does not make sense, I have seen no film with a happy ending that ended in dying. I mean I don’t want to sound emo, I am completely happy in life, I’m just saying it doesn’t make much sense.
Also why is the only House podcast in existence, with only one episode, so well produced, and so utterly dead after its first episode?
Entirely unrelated note: I got a new camera, the Nikon D3000 which is my first D-SLR (before now I borrowed one). I also signed up to gdgt, a site where you say what gadgets you own, here’s my profile. It isn’t very impressive, featuring among others a Mighty Mouse and the worst Wireless router you could quite possibly own. But I urge you to create a profile because I’m intregued to know what gadgets you all have.
By the way, if you’re interested in our ever growing gadget ‘upgrade’ culture, there’s a quite epic documentary by the poet Simon Armitage (of all people) called ‘Upgrade Me’ which is on the iPlayer until Monday the 12th. He goes into the Microsoft/Samsung house of the future and turns out we’ve all got RFID chips in our heads, Adam Curry was right!
Also, I’m quite into La Roux (click for Spotify action) at the moment (you may have seen my awful Theroux parody before now), I can’t quite believe that she’s just 21, being 20 myself. I have made a couple of wallpapers which you can find on my newly reinvigorated DeviantArt: Here and here. (no they aren’t particularly creative, but they do the job)
Anyway, sorry if that seemed slightly crazy, but that’s life. 
Summer of News
Well summer was exciting, one of the most interesting I’ve had, I would say. Though it’s hard to compete with the time I had at 4creative in 2008, this year I got to work with the fabulous reporters at Isle of Wight County Press, got to know the people at VentnorBlog, and even chatted to the guy from the Isle of Wight Gazette.
This entire summer was driven by the protests that occurred at the Vestas factory, itself driven by some brilliant people who came down from the mainland, inspiring some very usual islanders, to do some very unusual things. Originally I went to photograph the events as an impartial observer, my photos first appeared in VentnorBlog a little while back as I experimented with a camera I borrowed from a local Youth group. Appearing in the County Press when I got a photo of Jaymie Rigby jumping off the balcony (that the workers had been occupying for weeks). See below (complete with trademark County Press spelling antics).
I was drawn into the protests and getting to know genuine honest people who took part in them, I went down every day, even witnessing/taking part in an invasion of the factory grounds on the day after the big jump, (See my photos of that here) that no big media, not even the County Press, covered. It was covered by VentnorBlog.
What followed this was my week at the County Press, which I don’t think I can talk about too much, it was interesting working with the reporters, in a paper that (when the national media is being rocked at the foundations) is still alive and well.
Also notable was the big Bestival bus crash, where I accidentally ended up writing the story for VentnorBlog, (unexpected but exciting), and providing photos.
Finally, I kicked back from being a unwitting-newsman to take my usual photographic holiday at the Bestival at Robin Hill. You can check out some highlights of that in this set.
Feel free to follow me on Flickr, where I seem to post far more often than on this blog, and I hope this gives you a brief summary of my summary, it’s by no means complete, but see Flickr for a bit more. 
Slavery
“According to researcher Siddharth Kara, the profits generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 was $91.2 billion. That is second only to drug trafficking in terms of global, criminal, illicit enterprises.”
Source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
La Louis The Roux
| Yes, I was bored… enjoy. |
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| Ta for now. |
Making a MacWorld cover…
Cover creation from Peter Belanger on Vimeo.
Even the iPhone has to be retouched…
Do Androids dream of Genetically Modified Cheese?
Photo by Paul Main (Flickr)
So my last post highlighted the epic documentary ‘The World According to Monsanto’, I left watching it feeling a bit devastated, and gave it the caption ‘if you ever wondered what you’re eating’. But after doing some more research, no, in the UK and Europe we don’t tend to eat GM goods. The crops are (as far as I am aware) still completely banned. However GM foods from abroad do infiltrate some products, which unlike the USA are clearly labelled as such. For example: I bought some own-brand cheese from ‘The co-operative’, and noticed that it contained a GM ‘vegetarian rennet’. Being a vegetarian, I understand the need for an alternative to rennet (a substance harvested from the meat industry) to process cheese, otherwise I can’t even eat it, but why did it have to be GM?
I mean none of the other cheeses I have eaten, from Morrisons or ASDA or Tesco, have ever said they contained GMOs, and yet they all claim to be vegetarian. What was wrong with that process, too expensive? Too wasteful? I’ll have to do some research. So it seems we are reasonably safe from GM goods, if we check the packaging, right?
Looking back at that documentary, I can’t help but remember the narrator mentioning how the crops growing in South America, now increassingly GM based, were being used to feed livestock in Europe. So, and I’ll have to check this, but does that mean meat eaters will eat something that has injested GMOs? And is the meat labelled as such?
And of course that wouldn’t just affect meat eaters, but vegetarians also, if the Dairy Cows and Chickens are fed the same stuff. So should we all go vegan? I don’t think that’s going to happen, because no one is safe from GMOs really; they spread just like any other plant, across borders, continents and oceans alike. We just have to hope that the (frankly undertested) Monsanto GMOs aren’t as dangerous as many fear, and I fear we may not know the truth about that for some time. And if we know Monsanto, they may never let us know.
Lastly I’ll leave you with something quite enjoyable, if depressing, the band who were down singing at Vestas: ‘Seize the Day’ a ‘radical folk band’, did a song a while back about Monsanto, and you can listen to it here, for free.
By the way: if you want to listen to their amazing Vestas song, ‘Boys on the Balcony’, you can check it out here. I highly recommend it. You can also download it for free, but I recommend a donation to the Vestas fund, I paid £2 for mine.
The Scariest Thing: The World According to Monsanto
Well worth the watch if you ever wondered about what you’re eating:
A Break-in at Vestas
Food is a scarcity at the occupied factory on the banks of the river Medina, not because the Isle of Wight is some kind of remote British dependency with no shops, but instead because the owners of the factory, Vestas of Denmark, think it’s a great idea to starve their employees out. True, they provide some food, like a quarter of a pizza to each one in the evening, but it’s not exactly what you’d call a balanced diet.
The factory is contained within a barrier of fencing, which surrounds the site and prevents the colourful, empassioned protesters camped on a roundabout from venturing in, but every so often, a group dares to break through a send through some decent food. Can they get passed the private security?
That’s what one brave crowd did yesterday evening, and I caught it on camera. Amongst some other goings on.
Chill-out day at Vestas
I have begun to notice that when you go down to the Vestas factory in Newport, currently under occupation, some of the best times can be had when the least people are around. Take yesterday for example, a great little band started playing to the occupiers, via bike powered stereo. It was brilliant. And yes, I have photos of said event.
I also put up the first of our Island Turbine Action Group posters, this thing is by no means over!
Vestas Dispute Continues
The Vestas factory dispute I recently wrote about on this blog continues, creating a great opportunity for more amateur photo-journalism (hah), plus I have taken quite a few shots of the actual real journalists covering the whole event. Today was meant to be the big court day for Vestas, but numerous technicalities mean that the companies request for a ‘Posession Order’ to take back the factory has been postsponed until the 4th of August. Good news for those occupying the factory and good news for those supporting them. I have added my most recent batch of photos to Flickr again, and as I’m kind, I’ll link to them here as well.
Check out the images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pseudowhis/sets/72157621762165383/
Fancy a slideshow?
If you went down to Vesta’s today…
You might have seen me wandering around taking photos… I did attempt to smile at the lady professional photojournalist (County Press? or maybe something more mainstream?) never the less she vehemently ignored me like the amateur I most definitely am.
So I took lots of photos of the ensuing protest to save the jobs at Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturing firm on the Island which wants to move its manufacturing to America, it’s all rather sad. I have put up the “best” of the photos I took this afternoon on Flickr. Handily, you can also check them out here.
Save Vesta’s Blog
BBC Article
VentnorBlog Coverage Thanks for reading!