Slightly Askew

Anyone who’s read the the bit on the left that says a little about me will know that one day I hope to have a cat.  Writers have cats.  Farmers have cows.  Scary people have violent dogs.  That’s just the way the world works.

Caroline found a cat last week.  It was crying by the roadside.  She brought it home and gave it food and water.  It was gone the next morning, but it came back.  Again, we gave it food and water.  We gave it our attention, and it stayed with us in the garden until we went indoors.  The next day it came back again.

Give a cat food and water and it might come back.  Show it some affection too, and it almost certainly will.

Maybe cats are like customers.

If you give customers a product or service at a good price, they’ll come back. But only until they find someone else who offers a good price.

If you give customers a great product or great service at a good price, they’ll come back.  But only until they find someone else with a great product or great service at a good price.

So how do you keep them coming back after that?

Make them smile.

Happiness is a bloody powerful emotion.  Some songs make me happy.  Some adverts make me happy.  Some products make me happy.

Make me happy and I will remember you.  I will keep coming back to you.  Great products, great service, and good prices are what I expect from any business with half-an-ounce of common sense.

Do more.

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I got some tickets to see The Boss at the Emirates Stadium off Ebay.  A bargain, I think.  Although they haven’t arrived yet, so I shall reserve judgement.  The last time I saw the great man, he played Thunder Road first.  If Heaven exists, I imagine it sounds like those first tinkling piano chords.

I’m watching less and less television as I approach twenty-six-and-a-half.  So when I do choose to watch it, I generally avoid ITV.  Two independent sources told about some dancing dog on Britain’s Got Talent though, so I had to resort to YouTube.  I wasn’t disappointed.

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Spine-tingling.

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Apostrophes are like knives: bloody dangerous in the wrong hands.

Now, as we know: apostrophes are used to denote possession or to denote missing letters.  Never plurals.  Never.  Even when it (arguably) adds a touch of clarity.

A bugbear of mine is do’s and don’ts.  It should be dos and don’ts.

Yes, dos looks like something computer programmers use, but do’s is just wrong.  There is no missing letter and no possession - so just leave that poor apostrophe out of it.

And if you’re going to persist with do’s, then for the sake of being consistently stupid, you should write don’t’s.

Pluralising common words often leads to trouble.  The following poem is from Woe is I and is rather wonderful.  (And yes, noes is the plural of no.)

Words to the Whys

Ups and downs and ins and outs,
Forevers and nevers and whys.
Befores and afters, dos and don’ts,
Farewells and hellos and goodbyes.
Life is a string of perhapses,
A medley of whens and so whats.
We rise on our yeses and maybes,
Then fall on our noes and our buts.

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Occasionally, a video makes a song better.

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Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

Wise words, I reckon.

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Yes, yes.  I know we’ve spoken about The Courteeners before, but some bands are worth the effort.

St Jude has been looping on the Creative Zen for quite some time.  (I have the heavyweight 12″ vinyl too, darlings.)

And it’s brilliant.  Quite breathtakingly brilliant.

Not in the way that post-OK Computer Radiohead albums are brilliant.  No, definitely not.  With those Radiohead albums, you listen to them a few times, can’t decide whether they’re awful or not, and go with the trend (In Rainbows = brilliant, Hail to the Thief = poo poo).

No, St Jude is a much brillianter brilliant.  Like putting Bucks Fizz on your Rice Krispies.

Okay, so there’s a fourteen-year problem with this idea, but it’s almost as if the Oasis classic Rock’n'Roll Star was written about listening to this album.  There’s a swagger.  A real swagger.  Not a Twang swagger.

Idiots will tell you that

the lyrics are a bit like the Arctic Monkeys

but ignore them.  They know nothing.  Bands did write songs about real life before the Arctic Monkeys came along: Pulp’s Common People being the most perfect example.

So frontman Liam Fray bites…

Just because my newspaper pages havent been the Times in ages: does that mean that i don’t know as much as you?

No you didn’t, no you don’t

…amuses…

The mothers take a shine to you; that’s not the case with the dads.

How come

…and stirs the soul:

Come sing your heart out with me.

Bide your time

And all this through about five-and-a-half guitar chords.

But songs have always been more important than fancy musicianship.  Which, incidentally, is why you’ll always look a dick playing air guitar. 

So expect to read reviews about how it sounds like Babyshambles (it does, but with more guts and conviction) or The View (just no, fuck off now).  Expect the Manchester cliches and the “he’s called Liam” bullshit.  Expect the cynics.

And just be thankful.

Thankful that, every now and then, we do get the bands we deserve.

Roll on Shepherds Bush.

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Here’s an interesting idea.

And here’s my attempt.

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Says a sign on my way to work.

Hmm.

One really big shrub is doing a tap dance?

A really big shrub is being sold?

A shrub suitable for giants is putting on a performance?

Heavy machinery is being sold?

Heavy machinery is putting on a show?

Or a really big amount of normal-sized shrubs are being sold?

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There’s something wonderful about the idea of getting milk delivered in the morning.

Maybe it’s that whistling milkman, piping an unforgettable melody from this week’s hit parade into the crisp morning air.  Perhaps it’s his cute little milk float, buzzing around with minimal noise and bother, gently clinking as he stops at another home.  Or probably that cold bottle of seemingly unbranded milk that awaits you and your Corn Flakes; helping you to start your day the Kellogg’s way.

Why doesn’t everyone use this wonderful traditional service?  Surely glass bottles reduce wastage and carbon footprint - allowing us normal folk to pass for tree-huggers once in a while?

The reality is that, at half-past eight this morning, my milk hadn’t arrived.

So do I go to work and come home to a bottle of milk that’s been out in the sun all day?

No.  I cancel my orders and go buy it in a plastic tub from Sainsbury’s.  In a plastic bag.  In my car.

So, you can have the all the glorious tradition and imagery you want - after all, marketing is about telling stories.  But, if you can’t get the basics right, like delivering my milk before I go to work, you lose.

And you always will.

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