I'm trying to think

Full On Fancy Dress

As I'm leaving Agency Republic in a couple of days, I thought I'd go out with a bang at the fancy dress Christmas party. (I'm meant to be The Beast from Beauty and the Beast by the way.)

Why did the organic chicken cross the road?

...to get away from the lies of right-wing journalists.

One of the arguements you constantly hear against blogging (often in the traditional press) is that people can write whatever they want without checking facts. Someone could write something fake and another blog might pick it up, then a site could pick it up and then before you know it, it's entered the world as a genuine truth; a cast iron fact. It's an understandable fear, but this happens in the traditional media all the time and more often than not it's the world of new media that fact checks and actually gets to the bottom of the story. Check out this great blog on Comment is Free from Peter Melchett , he simply and deftly picks apart Cristina Odone's anti-organic story from the Daily Torygraph tracing her innacuracy's back to the fact that she reported on a report of a report - never bothering to actually check the Daily Mail's facts that she's drawing her own green-bashing conclusions from. Is this the real reason for the 'Old Media's' fear of the the new media - we don't have print costs and circulation figures to worry about, so can spend plently of time and words cross checking their nonsense and letting the world know how lazy their journalism really is.

The bike graveyard

We've all seen them, those bikes that are locked up and left to die by the roadside. What happened? Did someone lock it up when they were drunk and forgot about it? Did someone get knocked off, lock it up and always mean to come back for it? Is someone (as I write) buying a new saddle and pump for this sad deserted bike? (Email me your pictures of dead bikes and I'll add them to the Bike Graveyard.)

7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People

Habit number 1 - Not reading the book...

This poor chap, I saw on the train platform, got about as far as I did with this book. I was expecting something about always having a pen on you to jot down ideas when they struck, or ironing shirts the night before or something habitual. It's actually a life coaching book all about finding your true path etc. Interesting and brilliant, but if all you want to do is up your game rather than start your own organic underwear company, it's a heavy read.

VIP Brands

(This weeks top 10 is called 'let's see how far we get.')

I had the misfortune of going to a Gumball 3000 party last week at Koko, which was all in aid of Maximillion Cooper's latest feature film about some Jackass, skateboarder types (as well as the usual Jet Set) driving around the world in fast cars. Whilst I was waiting for the bar to open once the ridiculously long, indulgent travelogue-disguised-as-a-movie had finished, a realisation struck me. Gumball is a bizarre brand built on the exploits of an elite few, then sold through merchandise to, on the whole, the lower middle class and working class masses. Which got me thinking...

In this age of brands that seem to stand for something like Howies and Innocent Smoothies, how many brands are going the other way and cashing in on the lifestyles of the super-rich and selling them back to the rest of us in small affordable but ultimately meaningless bite sized chunks? I'm not really talking your Armanis and Calvin Kleins here, because those brands grew out of real clothing companies, plus you still get a pair of jeans, a well cut suit or even a pair of overpriced sunglasses. I mean the brands that really do offer nothing more than a passing affinity with an elite group of multi-millionaires.

1) Gumball 3000. Apparently the Rally makes very little money these days - it's a marketing event that leverages the lives of the rich and 'famous' allowing the Gumball owners to sell it back to the rest of us in the form of key rings, playstation games, hats, t-shirts and dull films.

2) Celebrity perfume. If you can't live like Jade Goody, Britney, Paris etc. you can at least smell like them. Nice!

3) Ferrari. They now have the full clothing range for all the Mondeo drivers out there.

4) Manchester United. Not the real fans, but rather the Japanese girls who buy David Beckham shirts. (All football may go this way as we become more concerned with off the pitch than on it.)

5) Oxbridge. An outsider this one, but how many tourists leave Oxford and Cambridge with scarves, rugby shirts and the rest dreaming of being clever enough to have gone there.

Coming soon:

6) Kensington and Chelsea. Can't afford to live there? Never mind, now you can own one of these K & C key rings or even a fake congestion zone waiver that says to the casual observer - wow, they must be loaded.

7) Merchant Banks. Only a few thousand people have what it takes to turn money into yet more money. But you too can imagine receiving a bonus bigger than most people earn in a lifetime with these genuine embossed business cards.

8) Lear Jet. It's the ultimate VIP accessory but you too can own a small slice of celebrity sky with a bottle of Cabin Air. "Pressurised by Fame."

9) The old school tie. Can't afford to send your kids to Eton, never mind. This collection builds week by week into a complete bluffers guide. Learn all about fagging, rugger, matrons and bumming. Part 1 comes with a binder and an old school tie.

10) Private Islands - Can't afford one in real life, own one in Second Life. Commerce and real estate is already playing a big part in Second Life. How long until virtual Marxism? I may get a t-shirt that says "All virtual property is real theft." Do we think it will catch on?

Yes, it's all a bit of a stretch, but let me know what you think in the comments section and please add to it if you can think of anymore. I know there's the obvious ones like music, magazines and films - but that's what they are. Newspapers started as court circulars, so when you buy Hello and the rest of those magazines you still get a magazine experience. The same with CDs and Films, you're paying to be entertained. All the VIP brand offers is a strange insubstantial affinity and not much else.

What this blog is for

I'm increasingly surprised by people's reactions to this blog. On the whole, I thought blogs were pretty ubiquitous - everyone 'seems' to have a blog these days, but clearly that's not the case if people's reactions are anything to go by.

For a start, people have ignored the title of this blog - 'I'm trying to think.' This a diary of my thoughts and my thought process - an attempt to make sense of the world through recording ideas and sharing them. It is not the comment pages of a newspaper. It is not editorial opnion, it's reflections on the world that one day may be one thing, and another the next.

However, some people still seem to think 'how dare you.' How dare you stick your head above the parapet and express yourself and ideas. How dare you have a private / public space where you are allowed to tell me what you might be thinking. I say, that's what the comment button is for (and thanks Freeze for your great deconstuction on my ramblings on The Theory of Unevolution. That's the spirit.) Emailing back comments and put-downs somehow seems to miss the point of what the Internet is about. It's a bit like waiting outside the back door of stand up club to collar the comedian because he made a joke you didn't like. He's on the stage, tell him now!

One more thing before I start ranting (which I have tried not to do on this blog - a rant is a reaction to now, I want this blog to be a more considered take on the world than my drunken dinner party persona). One more thing, how do you see the world? Do you see the world as a place to be feared, to be suspicious about, a place where people are always trying to get one over on each other? Or do you see the world as a place to be reflected on, a world that wants to share thoughts and ideas in a positive way. (I realise the people who know me may be surprised by that, I'm not talking about personality, I'm talking about ideas.)

And if you disagree with any of this, that's your right. If you have anything to say, click comments and go for it.