Long, good(ish) Friday

Friday

Counting down to the end. It has been a loooooong haul. Surprisingly, where yesterday was busy, today was pretty quiet in comparison. Penney Poyzer kindly popped over for a last chat as today is the last of her lecture series. She has chums in Ross, and I hope she will take me up on my invitation to visit.

Some of the stands have run out of stock and closed up already, so rather than a ‘big finish’ it may fizzle. I have been warned that the last day is a zoo as the bargain hunters scavenge about, and you need to nail everything down to avoid the pilfering.

On the way home I picked up a discarded Evening Standard. Glad I did. It had a very good article by writer Will self. Another I can add to my small, though growing list of thoughtful journalists discussing our green dilemmas.

DIY RIP?

So the downturn in fortunes at the likes of B&Q are heralding the end of DIY? It may be true, but the reason that I heard being cited (with the support of a few BBC show celebrity designers) was that folk are opting to get it done by a 3rd party. That smacks of another disconnect. Who the heck are these people that can afford to bring in a designer and/or contractor at the drop of a hard hat just for a simple bit of DIY?

B(ungs) C(reate) C(overage)

I sent in my first text to the BBC news today (Emma will be impressed, except for the time it took me). For all the good it did me. I almost fell off my chair when their breakfast news business bod Declan popped up in an ASDA overall and conducted a 3 minute commercial for the supermarket chain. At one stage I thought he may actually sing the company song and recite the mission statement.

As they have now become an advertising channel (as the government has shown, it is possible to create revenue in creative ways in return for a bit of grace, favour… or, in this case, coverage), I wrote to ask for a refund. So far, no reply.

OWN GOAL

Like the talking heads trotted out on the TV today, I take no pleasure form the woes befalling Wembley, and like them I am not privy to the full facts of it being double the budget and twice as long in delivery. But I am not surprised.

The Britain I now witness is run by mediocre hype-spinners and bean-counters, who flit from job to job racking up fancy salaries based on short-term financial results and no fear of being held to account for the consequences down the line.

Hence it is now almost inevitable that the cheapest bid will win, so most pitches are pointless. But as a client, unless you are very careful the reason it is the cheapest will often result in all that we are now witnessing. And no amount of compensation or penalty clauses can make up for the damage to your reputation if you miss deadline.

It is also inevitable that if you allow too many cooks to stick their oars in the pie, it will end up tasting of camel. What I sense in situation is an agreed brief, budget and timeline being blown away by constant revisions.

Fortunately, this may be a rare situation that does not affect me much, though doubtless the public purse will end up getting tapped. Sadly, our national reputation is already pretty much tainted.