Give me an hour...

We all lost an hour at the weekend but I think I know where mine went. Therefore it follows I know where to find it. But do I really want it? Well, it depends what type of hour has gone missing. In the last month I’ve been earning, on average, about nothing per hour, so if it’s a working hour, I may as well leave it where it is. But, as you may have seen from my last blog, I’m about to embark on a marketing campaign that is likely to make me millions. So if it’s a mind blowingly creative hour, it might be in my interests to retrieve it quickly.

I know what you’re thinking. We don’t ‘lose’ an hour, not really, because in the winter we get it back. That’s true, but we could all do something constructive with the winter hour we get back, if we wanted. We can’t when the clock flies forward, because it’s gone in an instant. Unless you know where it is, like I do.

Time is such an abstract thing. In truth we only got a uniform time because of the railways. It’s not easy to run a timetable in which each station runs on its own local time. Before railways, you popped down to the bottom of your garden, took a gander at your sundial and made a guess.

I spent an hour, of the un-lost variety, on the train recently. This is an hour I would have happily lost, as I suspect would the lady sitting opposite me reading ‘Overcoming Anxiety for Dummies.’ Now, I don’t know about you, but the quickest way to make me anxious would be to advertise to a train full of passengers that I was a dummy reading a book about how to overcome anxiety. She, on the other hand seemed oblivious to the irony, which either indicates the brilliance of the book or that she wrote it.

Talking of anxiety reminds me that I still haven’t heard from the agent, who by now, should have been literally begging me to sign up to her agency. This might be because she hasn’t yet read my work of literary munificence. Maybe she hasn’t had an hour to spare.

I know where she could get one…

The Power of the Pea

It’s been a disappointing week for things happening. The agent pondering over my book, and whether I’m worthy of her representation, is still cogitating. And, upon checking for responses to catapult Slash into the critical role of ‘Happy Czar,’ thereby saving the world, I find I’ve been inundated with silence. This is a poor return for the effort expended, and an accurate reflection of my current economic position. But I’m not downhearted, because I think I have a solution. Marketing.

Marketing is the means by which organisations persuade us to spend money. And they can be very clever at it. Who, for example, ever needed a fondue set? Or indeed remained interested in it after the third piece of marshmallow fell off the fork into molten cheese?

This is where marketing is smart. It doesn’t tell us we need something: it leads us to making that conclusion for ourselves. No one ever purchased a fondue set, what they bought was a novel dinner party with friends, or a memory of a great skiing holiday.

Marketing is commercial sleight of hand. It shows you something that isn’t actually there.

Of course, marketing isn’t for everyone. Undertakers never advertise: they don’t need to. They just have to wait. But they are exceptions to the rule. Even the Government understands the power of marketing. In fact they are one of the biggest users of it in the UK. Who knew how evil alcohol units were until the Government told us that 19 units a week was OK, but 20 was the quickest way to meet the undertaker who never advertised?

Yep, marketing is where I’m going wrong, because, despite helping companies with theirs, I don’t have a plan of my own. Until now. And I have to thank the humble pea for its formulation.

Now, I’m not a lover of your pea. I don’t like the smell, the colour, the shape, or the taste. Even the name has revolting connotations. Then, a frozen food advertiser suggested I text the word ‘pea’ to 63330. Who could resist such a thing? I couldn’t, so I did. I got a text back immediately, informing me I could I visit a website, where I would learn all manner of pea related things, like how to cook them. Fascinating. I like this approach a lot.

So, all I need now is a text account that I’m happy to make public, a website, and an enigmatic word: like pea. Yep, I need one word that encapsulates my campaign. Something that defines what I do.

But this is not as easy as it sounds when you write for a living. Its an ambiguous career and not as neatly packaged as a pea.

For example, this morning I sent out five proposals to magazine and paper editors. The subjects ranged from travel, to consumer finance, with a bit of nostalgic hairdressing sandwiched in the middle. This afternoon I’m preparing proposals to design and edit newsletters for a couple of potential new clients. This evening I’m writing some stuff for a website (very funny, coming to your screens soon…).

The common denominator is words but the output is markedly different. So my enigmatic word needs to encapsulate this. If I were a vegetable what would I be?

If you have an idea text ‘confused’ to…

Don't worry, be happy

I’ve been back from Libya a couple of weeks now, and reacclimatised to the British way of life, which as we all know predominantly involves searching out its most negative aspects. OK, we all know the country’s bankrupt but do we have to keep banging on about it?

This continual drip, drip of misery and gloom has been pushing me closer and closer to an abyss of desolation from which I may never escape. However, and this may come as a shock to regular readers, Slash the editor dragged me away from the edge.

I sent him the first 10,000 words of my book to review. I should add here that the words I sent are not just any old 10,000 words. These are the actual words that I believe should be in the book. In other words, the best words I know, in the finest order I could put them into.

Much to my surprise he loved it. This was pleasing. His appraisal was measured, incisive, and positive. It made me happy. To celebrate I did something unusual. I went shopping for a tee shirt. I came back with three.

At first, probably like you, I never connected these seemingly unconnected events. Why should we? I mean, what has my book review got to do with a commercial transaction?

Then it dawned on me. The only way out of this crisis is to be happy. Because when you’re happy, you buy tee shirts. This transaction sets off a whole chain of positive commercial events...

Now, Slash is by nature, and he won’t mind me telling you, a curmudgeon. Indeed he is the only person I know who would cross a road to avoid a smile. So if he can make someone happy, anyone can.

I’m not much of a campaigner but I can see the spin off merchandise already:‘ Make someone happy buy a tee shirt,’ tee shirts. ‘Don’t be a Mug,’ mugs.

But the most important thing here is to make someone happy by praising them. Don’t walk past a road sweeper without commenting on the tidiness of his patch. Pat the next policeman you see on the shoulder and tell him how much safer you feel for having him around.

If you want to save this country, make someone happy enough to buy a tee shirt. It’s your duty.

If you have listened to as many business consultants as I have, you’ll know this campaign would be considered a ‘bottom up’ approach. But I’m also thinking ‘top down.’

What we need is a focal point. Someone we can rally round. We need a Happy Czar.

Slash isn’t too busy at the moment…