Ah, Books

As a mild change of pace here at ALS, I thought I’d run you through the books I read whilst I was away, and share my thoughts thereof. First off, a couple of things I believe: anyone who wants to be a good writer needs to first be a good reader; anyone who claims they have ‘a favourite book’ isn’t to be trusted; and finally, young Suits will learn more about how to be better at their jobs by reading Updike, Roth, James and Marquez then they will in Whipple, Herd (personally, I’ve always harboured a soft spot for Earls’ first book, which is essentially about a banana) or Ogilvy on Advertising. Leave the ‘Advertising and Marketing’ books to the Planners – they love that shit.

So, to my reading holiday. I’ll start with the only advertising book in the pile – Matt Beaumont’s ‘e2’. If you work in advertising and haven’t read ‘e’ then you’re really missing out, and whilst the follow up lacks some of the energy of the first one, it’s still one of those books you have to read. Beaumont, as you might expect from a Creative Director, can’t write Suits particularly well, and Planners are patently a total mystery to him, but he sure can write brilliant Creatives and management. It goes without saying that it’s very funny, and it goes without saying that some strands are much more affective than others (some of them, it has to be said, are utter nonsense), but I was genuinely surprised to find myself getting a bit emotional about one of the characters as I came to the end of the book. These are cartoon creations, but some of them come with a pretty sizeable cartoon heart. Go read.

Richard Ford’s ‘The Sportswriter’ had come highly recommended from somebody whose opinion I respect, so I was pretty disappointed to find it cold, emotionless, contrived and utterly lacking in any kind of heart. Ford’s clearly a very good writer, and I could appreciate the craft of it, but it was all pretty joyless, and ‘Independence Day’ and ‘The Lay Of The Land’ made the journey back home unread.

The same was very much not the case with John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ books. This was my first experience of Updike, having always looked to Roth for my ‘Contemporary American Fiction’ fix, and I can now gleefully admit that I’d missed out. For the unfamiliar amongst you, there are four volumes of Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ books (‘Rabbit, Run’, ‘Rabbit Redux’, ‘Rabbit Is Rich’ and ‘Rabbit At Rest’) each written and set a decade apart, and dealing with the life and times of the eponymous Rabbit, a high school sporting legend and local hero raging against the fading memory of his glories, and his family and friends, and I can’t recommend them strongly enough. Rabbit is far from a sympathetic character, but Updike writes him with such a wonderful mix of frailty, fury, insecurity and arrogance that you just can’t help but care. These are incredibly human books, and incredibly involving as a result – and also, at times, extremely funny. The way in which they were created means that you’re not just reading the story of Rabbit’s life, you’re reading the story of America in the second half of the 20^th Century, and it makes for a subtle, involving and addictive read. Finishing ‘Rabbit At Rest’ was quite a big moment – there was a genuine sense of loss as I realised I’d never get to read a Rabbit book for the first time again. Anyway – the ‘Pomposity Sensor’ is ticking, so I’ll move on.

To balance the amount of middle-aged naval gazing literature I’d brought out with me, I dipped into Wodehouse from time to time – a couple of hours spent dashing through the merry travails of Jeeves and Wooster were hours pleasantly passed. It lightened the mood and it made me laugh out loud, and sometimes that’s a very important thing.

I’ll dash through the rest now before I bore you all terminally. Victoria Hislop’s ‘The Return’ was just about smart enough to sit slightly above your standard holiday puffery (though not miles above), and Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s ‘The Angel’s Game’ was Garcia Marquez re-imagined by somebody who is distinctly lacking in soul. Not a bad book by any means, but as a Spanish novel dealing with preternatural themes, it’s playing in a pretty tough league, and it struggles. Geoffrey Household’s ‘Rogue Male’ on the other hand (an old-fashioned ripsnorter of a tale, following our protagonist as he attempts to avoid being captured after a failed assassination attempt) is bonkers, and brilliant. And finally, of Roth’s ‘The Human Stain’, an achingly intelligent book, all I’ll say is that it’s one of Roth’s finest. That should be all you need to know. And finally, from time to time, I dipped into Louis MacNeice - 'Snow' and 'Sunlight On The Garden' are worth the price of the collection on their own.

So there you have it – read Updike, Roth, Wodehouse and Beaumont. When it comes to Richard Ford, don’t believe the hype. But, most importantly, just get reading – proper books. Put down John Grant, and step away from Earls. There are far too many wonderful books out there to waste your time reading about advertising. Apart from on ALS, obviously.

Something Lovely For A Monday

A friend of a friend did this, a very talented chap by the name of Gavin Leisfield. It is three minutes forty-four seconds of unremitting, unalloyed, haunting loveliness. You should all watch it and then tell people about it. And then feel slightly better about a world with something this pretty in it.

An Atypically Personal Post

Last night, as those who have the dubious pleasure of following me on Twitter will know, was spent at a University reunion – or, rather, a gaudy, as my esteemed establishment of learning terms it. And, as is my wont, it got me thinking.

I was at University with some really quite fantastic people. I am in touch with several of them, but not as many as I’d like. And advertising has played a part in that. One of the side effects of working in Adland is the number of brilliant people you meet – and one of the sad facts of life is that there’s only room for so many folk, and working in advertising has meant that more of those slots are filled with people I met in my 20s than is the case for friends who work in other, more lucrative, but less fun industries.

As life progresses, you have to make decisions – sometimes conscious, sometimes inadvertent – about who gets to remain a part of it. And if life does come with regrets, then that, for me, is probably the area in which most of them lie. So if you are a student, be aware that choosing to work in advertising will mean that you lose touch with a lot of the people that you currently feel are indispensable. And that sometimes it’s only human to regret that.

Come on now, DHM. You've had enough.

Another Thursday, another beautifully crafted (by the fabulous Dave Dye) press ad in Campaign for Dye Holloway Murray, an Agency staffed by lovely people that's been making some very lovely work for a while now, but not really getting anywhere. They're now trying to make a bit more noise, in this instance by proudly proclaiming how quickly they can make those all-too-tricky 'can we pitch' decisions - previously they've sold themselves on geography. I'm sure the 'We're smaller than AMV' execution is in studio as we speak.

Making a bit of noise is a laudable and sensible intention, and an absolute necessity in 21st Century Adland, but I'm far from convinced that this is the way to be doing it - I'm sure I'm not the only one getting a vague whiff of desperation. DHM are in danger of turning into the drunk bridesmaid at the wedding, and while there's never a shortage of people willing to take her home, not many of them will hang around for breakfast.

The Smoothest Of The Admen

From Anthony Sampson's, 'The Anatomy Of Britain' (1962):

"The smoothest of the admen are the account executives, who look after clients; they are the salesmen for salesmanship. They are masters of ploy and one-upmanship - knowing just where to live, who to know, what to say, where to take their clients to launch....

Most senior admen come from Oxford or Cambridge. Advertising is a favourite destination for the public school boy, and men who thirty years ago might have gone out to rule India or pace the quarterdeck may now be selling detergent campaigns at the Connaught."

As true today as it ever was...

See you all in a fortnight

For a variety of reasons, it's been quite a 2010, and so I'm buggering off for a fortnight to dive, read, eat and sleep. I'm not Dave Trott (thankfully), so I won't be checking comments, tweets or emails whilst I'm gone, but that doesn't mean that I won't be thinking of you lovely people. I just won't be thinking about advertising. I haven't posted for a while, but rest assured, my enthusiasm for all things ALS remains unbated. Expect a bumper batch of posts when I return, including ads I wish I'd made and, conversely, why the work doesn't matter if you're a Suit. But that's for then. I really need to pack now. This, incidentally, is what I'll be reading while I'm away.



Ta-ta for now. x

PS Sometimes I over-punctuate. I'm ok with that.

The Fringe And Some Random Niceness

This was originally going to be a very different post. As planned, I write this on the train on the way back from Edinburgh, having just spent 30 odd hours at the Fringe. The plan was that I'd have watched several shows and would now be writing several hundred words on each of them, making and breaking the careers of the protagonists as I went. (You know, or not.) Unfortunately, a couple of things happened which changed the plan somewhat.

The first, on which I'll spend little time, was the cricket. I couldn't ignore it. And so, having traveled up to Edinburgh from London, I spent an awful lot of time sitting in a pub watching sport that was happening in London. And then we won the Ashes. That, my friends, was 'time well spent'. And I apologise to the stand-ups whose shows I neglected because of that. I did see Laura Solon, who was awesome, and Dan Antopolski, who was VERY funny when he was funny, and talked too much about his kids when he wasn't. If you're up next weekend, see both of them. But especially Solon.

The second issue was an idea I had yesterday - Fringe postcards. I've been thinking quite a lot about online relationships of late, and this came about through that. Essentially, my thinking is this. I really quite like a lot of the people I interact with through this blog, and through Twitter. From the outside, it may well appear that the relationship I have with them is a slightly odd one - for one thing, they don't (apart from a fairly random few) know who I actually am. But that's one of the joys of the internet, as far as I'm concerned: the relationships I have aren't based on anything other than the fact that I like reading what people have to say, and talking to them, and they reciprocate in turn. They may not know my real name, but we talk about real things, share genuine emotions, and bicker occasionally. It's all really quite lovely, in a tediously 21t Century kind of way.

And, whilst getting an email, a comment or an @reply is a very nice thing, to my mind nothing quite beats getting something through your letterbox. That's your actual letterbox, in the front door of your house. Or flat. Or palace. Or whatever.

I had an idea. I thought, as I sat, fairly bored, on a train from London to Edinburgh, that it would be nice to send these people a postcard. I'd love to claim that there was some kind of underlying motive to it all, but there wasn't. I like them, and I wanted to do something nice. And so I tweeted, at around 10am on Saturday, that I'd send a postcard from the Fringe to anyone who DM'd me an address before 1pm. And then quite a lot of DMs arrived.

So I spent yesterday afternoon writing postcards to everyone who wanted one. In the process, I discovered that it's harder than you might think to buy postcards in Edinburgh. (And don't get me started on stamps.) The writing took a fair while, but it was strangely satisfying. As I've said, I don't just appreciate the people who choose to read this blog or follow me on Twitter, I genuinely like (most of) them, and this seemed like a nice thing to do. I posted cards to all parts of the UK, to Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand (my timing was bad for the US - I'll plan the next one better, promise), and I hope they're as good to receive as they were to write.

And so there we are. If you wanted a postcard, let me know that it arrived, and, if you feel like indulging me, tweet a photo of you with it wherever you are. That would be lovely. But the main thing was that I just wanted to say hi. And I don't think getting a postcard is ever a bad thing. Yes, it means that a fairly large number of people now know that my handwriting is a touch embarrassing, but it also means... well, it means that those people got a postcard and that they know that I genuinely enjoy (not 'value'. Enjoy. I think the difference is rather important.) the relationship that we have. On balance, I think that's probably a pretty good deal.

If I was any good at ad-blogging, I'd now share some observations on brands' digital behaviour, and the importance of involving people in the conversation. But that would be boring. If you asked for a postcard, one is on its way. Because we should all care about what people think of us, and we should all do what we can to be nice. Andd because you're ace. That's the point.

PS I'm on holiday for a fortnight from next Sunday - I'm thinking about doing the same thing from there. But slightly bigger. Even if it's just because there's more time for people to get involved. Let me know in the comments if you fancy a postcard from somewhere slightly further afield than Edinburgh.