Thursday, May 01, 2003 My Life is a Joke In Composts tonight chatting with Alan from Glasgow, Neil from Portadown, Andy whose family's from Abergavenny and there was me from Liverpool.
There was an Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman ... the punchline was someone poured a pint of beer over us from the balcony.
11:28 PM
Democracy Inaction Local elections all over the rest of the country and the May Day protests in London. A chance for some political upheaval? Bollox.
The May Day protests, as we go to press, have consisted of: a bunch of protesters shouting at the Lockheed Martin offices on High Holborn so wimpily that a mate of mine in an office down the road had no idea they were there; a pelaton of cyclists riding in environmentally-friendly circles round Trafalgar Sq and Oxford Circus; and a march that went up Strand, across Trafalgar Sq kinda headed towards Soho, then changed its mind and went back to dance around a bit under Nelson's Column ... and errrr that's it. There was a bloke of "middle-eastern appearance" nabbed by the cops screaming up in cars Sweeney-like outside the Bank of England because he was carrying a package in a suspicious manner ... but they let him go after a bit.
Almost makes the local government elections look kinda interesting .. ok let's not get overwrought. But voting for your local candidate Big Brother-like by SMS or touch tone phone, as 6.5m people have been able to do this time, could be kinda fun. You try to pay your phone bill and end up voting BNP!! But it does seem to have boosted turnout (can we call it turnOUT if you dont have to get your arse out of your own sofa?).
As a Londoner, I'm disenfranchised this time round. So miss out on my usual row discussion with the poor teller sitting in a near-deserted school hall all day about what constitutes a spoiled ballot. The law doesn't say it has to be a cross, it says it has to be a definite mark ... so far i've submitted various emoticons (depending on the quality of the candidate ... this is not a spoiled vote apparently), filled in the box in solid black pencil (this might be). Did think of just sticking my pencil through the sheet last time and see what they made of a hanging chad, but the candidate was fairly ok so he got a smiley. Making a mockery of democracy? At least I turn up.
6:12 PM
Found It! Thanks to Mike I didn't have to wait to run into the DJ again to find my mystery funky disco track: Tutto Mattu, Peace ... Trying to work out a way of saying their name that doesn't sound like Two Tomatoes.
Told the Swedish Chef about my difficulties identifying the track, and he said: "Use Shazz." I said: "????" So he's given me this number to dial on my mobile, then I point it at the speaker playing the song that has me confused and I supposedly get a message back saying what the tune is. First thoughts: yeah right!!
Karaoke tonite so gonna try it on the songs Neil plays between singers ...and if that works I'll see if it can work out the difference between Macy Gray and DJ Moley singing Macy Gray.
5:23 PM
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 Lest We Forget Is it really four years since the Admiral Duncan bomb? Remember thinking my BF was in there at the time; the flowers on Soho Sq; the vigil on the Sunday afternoon; the FT using a gay reporter to cover the bombing (we can be cool sometimes); the police arresting Copeland on the Saturday and me thinking "Why not 24 hours earlier?"; meeting a lad I knew a while later and finding he had lost his leg and to this day won't go down Compton Street.
6:35 PM
Tuesday, April 29, 2003 Hear Sell How much do you eavesdrop conversations in the lift? In the supermarket queue or at the bar, smiling surreptitiously as you pry into others' life stories, edging a little closer to get all the details? Alan Bennett seems to have made a writing career out of other people's conversations. So it had to happen. An advertising agency is using our innate nosiness as a marketing tool.
To support an alcohol awareness campaign from the Portman Group, a couple of actors are being sent round town centres (Reading first I think, then others), faking conversations in places they'll be overheard about what outrageous things they got up to the night before while twatted on WKD, Carling or turpentine. Apart from supposedly shocking the eavesdropper into instantly going on the waggon in horror at what these hedonists did, the lubricated thespians will drop the campaign's slogan "If you do do drink, dont do drunk" in as some kinda punchline before throwing up all over the other lift occupants/queuers.
The sarcastic bit of me brain thinks: if you really had a hangover could you say that slogan? and any of my mates who overheard a conversation like this would either just think: "Top night!" or turn round to the fake lushes and say: "Oh that was nothing compared to ..."
Could this catch on? This campaign is selling a negative, could you sell a positive the same way? Bit labour-intensive having to hire all the actors needed for a mass ad campaign ("Darling, what's my motivation here."). But an analyst mate of mine had to do some research into where people got their information from and how much trust they placed on various sources: newspapers, documents at work, TV, internet. The two surprise high-placers were pillowtalk and chance conversations, any source people felt gave them info they felt they were getting unofficially, cos they felt it gave them an edge.
Dunno if any other agencies have tried this route, but I feel an experiment coming on: me and a mate in a lift in Canary Wharf (nice long lift journeys) sounding off to one another about this AMAZING bar with great cocktails and a cool atmosphere we found in, god I dunno ... Vauxhall would be tempting but Hoxton more convincing. Soddit, Dukes it is ... but dont tell anyone cos we want to keep it select. A few times up and down in the lift mentioning its name and passing the message on. Then pop down the Duke of Cambridge for a couple of nights to see if the clientele gets any more upmarket.
Muscular Christianity Well I knew Jacob wrestled an angel.
9:33 PM
Monday, April 28, 2003 Help Heard a track being played in a pub the other night that had just about everyone jumping up and down in their seats and tapping their glasses on the bar. Went to ask the DJ what it was and he said he had downloaded it. The track was called Peace and the group he had written down as Tatto Mattoo (sic). Didn't look right, but he insisted that was how it was spelled. Tried Kazaa ... nothing. Tried various spellings .... nowt. Tried Google .... no mention.
Anyone heard of it? ... otherwise I'm just gonna have to wait til I run into the DJ again, which might not be a for a few weeks.
10:48 PM
