“Watch out… Wilko – Habana’s so quick he’s been racing cheetahs in preparation for South Africa’s World Cup clash against England this Saturday. And nearly winning! The speedy Springbok player publicised the launch of a wild cheetah census with a race against the fastest animal on earth.”
A friendly journalist sent me this press release this afternoon which he received from a PR agent. Its content surely heralds a new phase of celebrity hell. The journalist commented that it was probably one of the most unpleasant press releases of all time, but that it contained some zen wisdom about our celebrity age. He is right. […]
Looking at the press yesterday I saw two examples of attempts to garner publicity, one being positive and the other rather negative. The first was the launch of Halo 3 last night at the IMAX. It’s one of the most successful Microsoft games ever and its press department have obviously treated it as such and […]
All today’s papers have reported on Winnie Langley the defiant smoker who celebrated reaching 100 yesterday. Pictured lighting up from one of the candles on her birthday cake, Winnie, from Croydon, was reported to have been smoking for 93 years and has no plans to quit just yet. Surely this is good news for the […]
In boardroom terms it was a hostile takeover. Katie Hopkins, the poison-tongued “alpha female” contestant on The Apprentice, fired Sir Alan Sugar last night and walked out on the £100,000 job. After months of acidic put-downs, Ms Hopkins, a 31-year-old brands consultant, had manoeuvred her way past 14 rivals to reach the grand final of […]
This morning we heard that the mother of Madeleine McCann, the missing girl who was snatched from her parents’ holiday home in Portugal last Thursday, has made a desperate appeal to whoever is responsible not to hurt her daughter. The British public take it for granted that the Police use the media, but what they […]
Today’s news was dominated by two stories. The first to be served up was a survey on how our busy lives are leading us to be able to cook only four different meals in our lifetime. Lack of time and long working hours mean we don’t learn how to cook different dishes and plump for […]
Barack Obama’s presidential nomination campaign looked like it was steaming ahead perhaps a bit too smoothly. The headlines this weekend, “Obama ancestors owned slaves, a researcher found” http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/04/obama_ suggest that some dark force had a reason to throw a spanner in the bandwagon. Pals of mine in the U.S. had suggested Obama would be an […]
I was sent this sad and brilliant story from the Reuters bureau in Boogata which provoked deliberation. I have worked in the entertainment industry for many years and my mantra’s has always been, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity!” Sometimes I have a tough time defending that “All publicity is good publicity” as an […]
Trivial Pursuit is in the news; it seems that its questions are getting easier. The great parlour game has become a victim of the dumbing down of culture. Borkowski won the account to promote the game back in the early 1990’s and we retained the job for five years. Much fun was had by one […]