Freedom of Tweet

This week, when Greater Manchester Police arrested an individual who set up a Facebook page praising a man charged with murdering two WPCs, it was just the latest in a string of stories concerning unsavoury messages appearing online. In the summer, a Twitter post suggested young diver Tom Daly had let his father down by underperforming at The Olympics, another 'accused' Daly of having an sexual relationship with his team mate. Louise Mensch MP was called a 'rich whore'.

I have no hesitation in condemning this sort of cowardly name-calling, hurtful rabble-rousing and puerile idiocy. When the abusers are exposed and held up as pathetic nobodies, I am delighted. That said, I am also wholly opposed to their arrest and prosecution. And I take this stance for some solid reasons.

Read me on a Kindle

Just a short post to let you know that some of the columns I have written for www.creativepool.co.uk are now available for the Kindle e-reader.

You can download the book 'ADVICE' by clicking here.

And thanks.

Cut!

When Matt Pledger posted this https://www.facebook.com/ODEON/posts/523396924342167 he couldn’t have imagined he’d attract 120,000 ‘likes’ and 10,000 comments, but perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised. Almost anyone attending a multiplex cinema recently will recognise the expense and misery to which he was subjected. Which is odd, because cinemas are in no position to be screwing with their customers.

Help yourself

An enormous advertising company (Leo Burnett) – and a small creative film company (Asylum) have had a difficult couple of weeks. It’s a tangled tale but essentially Asylum produced a film for the McDonalds charitable foundation for Leo Burnett. Barely covering their costs, they charged £5k – presumably in the hope the larger company would be so impressed, it would commission further projects with bigger budgets. So far, so unexceptional. However, Leo Burnett then took the film to another provider and had it re-made, shot-for-shot.

Working capital

Paul Burke is a writer and producer with AMV BBDO. In a piece for The Drum and Creative Circle magazines on 28th August he wrote this:

“If you work in advertising and call yourself a “creative”, why on earth would you move away from London, away from the very hub of creativity?”

Now, allowing for the distinct possibility he is being deliberately provocative, this may well be the most depressing statement I’ve read in quite a while. I’ve lived in a handful of cities, one of which was London. I was there in the eighties and for about five years in the latter half of the nineties. I don’t live there any longer, but I do remember my time in the capital with affection and gratitude. After all, it was in London I managed to gain a foothold in the creative business as a copywriter – a career which has, so far, lasted about eighteen years. So this is by no means an anti-metropolitan rant. It is, however, a heart-felt contradiction of Burke’s assertion.

Red, White and Who

Alongside the new season, there's talk of a Doctor Who movie. Then again, there's always talk of a Doctor Who movie. But it never materialises. Apart from the inevitable struggle to finance any movie project, I suspect arriving at a suitable screenplay is also a bit of a nightmare. Doctor Who doesn't fit comfortably into a Hollywood script, it's not built that way.