Mauders on the mend, a fire in Blackburn, the X Factor/iTunes innovation and a couple of Welsh girls, all in the bat of an eyelid.

The world is getting quicker. No it’s not that I’m getting slower although my sidestep and bodyswerve cross a time zone in their execution..but a couple of examples in the last week have caught my attention..

A week last Sunday my good friend Brian Maudsley suffered a bad angina attack. He was admitted to hospital  Monday, had heart surgery Tuesday( to have a stent, a small mesh tube that’s used to treat narrowed arteries, inserted, he’s got the full set now,) out Wednesday, and (as always) it was great to enjoy his company at Blackburn Rugby with the lads on Saturday. Anybody seeing him one Saturday to the next would not know any different!  Amazing.

Yesterday there was a big fire in Blackburn Town Centre and as I sat at my kitchen table I was looking at pictures of the fire on Twitter while it was happening….even before the fire engines had arrived! The speed of the internet. A photo taken and broadcast and spread  round the internet in a matter of seconds. Amazing.

My reader and his dog will know that I am a big fan of how The X Factor is marketed. And this year they have pulled yet another masterstroke. By linking with iTunes and allowing the public to buy the performances of the contestants at a £ a time within hours of them making them is pure genius (speed again!). As the technology gets even more refined and faster we will surely be able to purchase live broadcasts almost instantaneously. Amazing. Here’s my favourite performance of the show so far…

Not only is Simon Cowell going to make even more money (with very little additional work) he will also be privvy to the goldmine of information of which acts and which songs the public are actually shelling out their hard earned cash for. Combine this with charts of the numbers of phone calls made, and numbers of online hits for the various artists on you tube and on their website, and he has all the market information you could possibly ask for to ensure that several new ‘cash cows’, I mean pop stars, will be created this year. Adding even more cash into his coffers…in time for the whole money spinning machine to start again next year compounding his earnings year on year on year! Amazing!

As a fan I think it weakens the show. Since Simons motivation is now to ‘sell’ each performance to the millions listening the iTunes innovation will make him and his judges very reluctant to criticise any performance, therefore the days of him saying a performance was terrible, or cruise ship, or anything derogatory that might prevent a listener buying the song are over. Shame.

We’ll still get the insults in the auditions though. Here he is  having a go at two of my countrymen…or women….(I love the last bit where she says “she’d still do him…!”  Amazing.

A plum night at Malmaison, a buzzing agency, pie to die for, a bitter derby, and sunday lunch in a chapel!

The VERY plum coloured Malmaison in Liverpool!

Great weekend! It started Friday afternoon with a trip to Liverpool for a night out at Malmaison with friends John and Marion. On the way there I got not one, but two texts from the office saying that we had won big projects we had pitched for! In fact we have won three big campaigns in the last seven days. Absolutely amazing! I would love to write all about them now, but we have to wait and get client approval to openly discuss their campaigns. But the agency is absolutely buzzing.

Here are a couple of txts I got from our team…”everybody is really pitching in at the mo feels like we got a proper team all doing their bit”… and this one…”Great to top off a well hard week of work with some victories under our collective belt! We deserve it tho’ the work was spot on. We have the winning formula now, dunno wot it is, but we got it!”

Ow Smiffy, What's Occurring!

Needless to say our evening was excellent, great food, great company and the wine flowed. John and Marion run Instanta, who make water boilers, and have just sold their company. Their son Paul is the brains behind the hit Sky TV series, he created ‘A League of Their Own’ hosted by James Corden. So both couples had a lot to celebrate, and we did!

And then a swift return straight to Blackburn Rugby Club on Saturday, for the amazing pie, chips and peas (unquestionably the best steak pie in the whole world) lunch hosted by our accountants Beevers and Struthers, (the artist previously known as Waterworths). We were well looked after by our hosts, we’ve only recently switched to them, and it’s so far so good’.

Blackburn Rovers' David Dunn scores to beat Burnley!

Sunday morning brought the East Lancs derby and Burnley 0, Blackburn 1, great win. My youngest son Ben had a couple of mates round for breakfast, to fill up before going to the game for a long day of sport and beer. I was delighted Blackburn won and are now safe from relegation, but I really want Burnley to stay up. Two derby matches are a lot more interesting than two games against West Brom. This derby has a long history of bad blood and it’s a bitter rivalry which always spills over into violence of some sort and judging by todays news reports this one was no exception.

And then off to my eldest son Tom’s flat for Sunday dinner. They rent a flat in the big Wesleyan chapel above the Emporium in Clitheroe. They have it looking really nice, Tom’s excited about his new venture The Whalley Wine Shop, and Sarah is doing really well in her job with the NHS as a physiotherapist, and has just been promoted to a higher grade, something rarely done for someone of her age. They have  transformed from a couple of students to a couple of young professionals in the blink of an eye!

Toms flat is the top right window of this old Wesleyan chapel.

And so to bed for a peaceful night of rest? Nope, as a parent, I couldn’t sleep worrying that youngest son got home OK from the football, and worrying that eldest son isn’t pushing hard enough to get his shop open on time. But on the whole….great weekend!

Mark.

no time to blog….too busy eating raw leeks

The talented young Welshman Aaron Ramsey. I hope he makes a full recovery from this horrific injury

When I started this blog I thought it would be fairly straightforward to rattle off  a few hundred words every day, and so on my e-mail footer I proudly invite readers to ‘follow my daily blog’. However, it’s been almost a week since my last post, so clearly I’m either too busy or too disorganised to have any semblance of a routine. Instead I’ll do a summary of what’s been happening since last week…( it’s not through lack of things to write about, all of  the things below could be a blog post in their own right!)

Two visits to new web developers in Manchester (promising), a management meeting (positive), Live Ribble Valley MD Tedd Walmsley in the building (larger than life!), CXL event organised for Workhouse Studios (exciting), 9-man delegation from The Holiday Cottages Group at Workhouse (brilliant but overdue),  Wales v France on TV (aaargh!), an intoxicating win at Blackburn Rugby Club (hallelujah), The Boyfriend at the Parochial Hall (sterling effort), booked our summer hols (cruising), last minute Wine Shop legals(frustrating), Ben moved into flat (at last), Aaron Ramseys broken leg (soul destroying), Wayne Rooney (awesome), a family Sunday dinner (delicious), Ice Hockey (unbelievable!), CXL photoshoot (good fun), Rib Cricket Club AGM (status quo), no oil at home (very cold), St David’s Day (daffodil-less),  catching up with blog (here and now…..)

Talking of St Davids Day, when we were at school, you were allowed to wear a daffodil OR a leek, and it became a lads thing to get the biggest leek you could find, wear it on your lapel….then eat it raw! Here’s some grown-ups doing the same thing!!!

Mark.