When celebs sell stuff (when they shouldn't)

The old adage asserts, 'Word of mouth is the best advertising'. And there's a lot of truth in that. When a satisfied customer recommends a product or service to a potential customer, a form of potent and cost-free advertising has taken place and it's unarguably effective. You'll also hear the wise sages claim 'You can't buy publicity like that.' But can you? What if the individual doing the recommending is a) famous and b) on the company's payroll?

Of course celebrity endorsements are nothing new. From Clark Gable to Cheryl Cole, the well-known have always been tempted by the commercial buck and happily rented out their likeness and reputation to advertisers. However, when Cheryl pops up, hair swishing luxuriantly, on a the telly or a magazine page, she's not delivering a word of mouth recommendation, she's starring in an obvious advertisement. We know she's been paid for her kind words and lovely face, so the experience may be cheesy but it's never deceptive.

Perfect Storm

Storm Thorgerson, who has died aged 69, was responsible for the design of so many classic album sleeves, it's almost unfair. His company was 'Hipgnosis' and rather than dominate the age of iconic record artwork (the late 1960s to the late 1970s), his team invented it.

He founded his studio with Aubrey (Po) Powell, in 1970 having come to a realisation so obvious it had been largely overlooked: that 12 inches of double sided cardboard make a perfect canvas.

Sure, records had sleeves in the decades before Hipgnosis. And those sleeves had pictures and words on them. The psych-typography of the mid-60s had dipped a toe in the waters of intriguing imagery, but those sleeves always carried the artists' handle and were actually cruder than we imagine. Before Storm and his collaborators, the primary purpose of an album's outer envelope was to tell the punter what they were buying. This was never a priority for Thorgerson - indeed, much of his best work actually defies and excludes the title of the LP and name of the band. Quite a handy device if you wish to bestow an aloof kudos on your audience.

The naked truth

Brace yourself, I have some shocking news. An advertiser has used sexually provocative imagery to sell their goods. I know, it seems incredible, but I think you deserve the facts. Don't panic though. Fortunately the moral might of the Advertising Standards Authority has intervened to keep us safe.

The advertiser is the clothing brand American Apparel and the photographic work attacked by the ASA appears on their website. Calling the imagery ‘offensive’ and ‘overtly sexual’, the regulator pointed to one ad, carrying the headline ‘Bodysuits and Thigh-Highs’, which showed six pictures of a female model in a black lycra bodysuit and thigh high socks, photographed on a bed, kneeling and occasionally with her legs apart. A second ad presented a different woman, naked but for a large sweater.

Of course there's nothing unusual about the ASA getting into a lather over provocative images in advertising. Indeed, they would argue that is their role. But this particular instance does raise some interesting questions.

Scoop Dodge

When Calvin Cordozar Broadus - or Snoop Dogg / Doggy Dogg / Lion - was refused entry to the UK after a fracas at Heathrow in 2006, The Sun had a field day. Calling him 'sick' and worse, the red-top worked itself into a preposterous and arguably racist lather, delighting in the decision to send him back to the US and bar him from further visits.

In the grand tradition of tabloid hypocrisy, the paper is now delighted to interview him and feature his exploits on their showbiz pages after the ban was dismissed by a court in 2010.

But - morally duplicitous as this is - it pales in comparison with the attitude The Guardian took to Snoop in last week's Weekend magazine.

What Thatcher's death tells us about Twitter ...

As a youth in the 1980s, I spent rather too much of my time marching through the streets of various British cities chanting 'Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Out! Out! Out!'. I was an officer for my local NUS and for all my passion, I suspect my whooping and hollering made little difference to the Prime Minister's reign. However, it was at least an outlet for my callow militancy. The only outlet, to be honest.

And so, yesterday, Margaret Hilda Thatcher (nee Roberts) really did take her leave of us, dying from a stroke in the Ritz Hotel.

Perhaps inevitably, all the wounds, divisions and bitterness from her time in charge rushed back to the surface. Not in me, particularly, but certainly in many whose hatred and animosity had laid dormant for two decades, until this key moment unleashed them once again. Only this time, there is a mouthpiece so much more sophisticated than a yell in the cold air. This time there is Twitter.

Corrections & clarifications

In rock and roll, as in life, there are tasks which many are too idle, proud or busy to perform. Fortunately, I am none of these things. Which is why I have taken responsibility for sifting through an expansive pile of popular lyrics in order to identify those hidden, but crucial anomalies, so often overlooked by the writer.

Call it a public service. Call it an unhealthily pedantic obsession. Put a hat on it and call it a thing, because here come the results.

Creativity. A dirty word for government?

As the coalition continues to press citizens to find jobs, while simultaneously conspiring to reduce the opportunities available, jobseekers face further indignity. In recent weeks I've heard many opinion formers and politicians bemoaning people's ambitions to work in the media or creative industries. 'They need to be realistic and lower their sights', one minister told us. Well, at least he acknowledged a creative career is a high calling.

In truth, Britain leads the world in creativity. We gave the planet The Beatles, David Hockney, Alan Bennett, Monty Python, Pink Floyd, Charles Dickens, Ian McKellen, the internet, John Peel, Sex Pistols, Harry Potter, Dr. Who, Spitting Image, Danny Baker, Peter Cook, Alan Parker, Boy George, William Boyd ... and on I could go. However, for some baffling reason, our lords and masters have a thinly disguised contempt for the creative arts.

Thanks to swingeing cuts, libraries are closing, theatres are facing a complete withdrawal of their backing and the Arts Council has suffered a cutback of almost 4% since 2010. Combine this with an overhaul of the national curriculum which treats childhood creativity as something akin to a corrupting force, and it isn't hard to see which way the wind is blowing.