The Workhouse Blog is proud to announce over 33% off the Ribchester Calendar Girls 2010 calendar!

Today is my half ‘blogday’ which means I have been doing the Workhouse blog now for 6 months. During that time I have written 85 blogs, this being my 86th. As a self confessed expert  I wondered why my wife handed me the latest copy of Nat West Business Sense pointing at an article entitled ‘How to Blog’ encouraging me to read it. I noticed she had circled a small paragraph which said ” ….don’t spout off any old spurious rubbish; think about what your readers want to hear….”  Hmmmm.

So I checked out  the most popular search on my blog to discover what my readers want to hear ( I’m getting up to 4 hits a day on my blog now….) and it’s…….Ribchester Calendar Girls! Which reminds me that on Friday we’re exactly a third of the way through the year, so in an attempt to sell the remaining 25 calendars in my possession I can legitimately offer ” Ribchester Calendar Girls 2010 Calendar, now ONE THIRD OFF!…..was £7.50 now only £5…..and when they’re gone, they’re gone…don’t miss out!…”. Just let me know if you want one. And if you’re interested, here’s the four brave ladies who have already had their month in the sun!!

Miss April

Miss March

Miss February

Miss January

The calendar was shot at Workhouse Studios in our photography studio, even though I say it myself, one of the best photographic studios in Lancashire, certainly the newest and most purpose built photography studio. Andrew Woodhouse our in-house photographer who shot the semi naked women (and never been the same since), has been doing some really nice portraits recently which you can see on our other website http://www.workhousestudios.co.uk/Staff-Portraits/menu-id-96.html

The 6m high corner infinity cove at Workhouse Studios

Another anniversary occurs later this year, it being the 25th anniversary of Live Aid 1985. It seems only minutes ago that they brought out the DVD to celebrate 20 years of Live Aid. July 13th 1985 was Live Aid day and I remember it well. As much as I’d have loved to have been there I was working as a Product Manager for Visionhire Ltd, the TV and video rental company, and we had a store opening in the middle of Sheffield. We had a giant balloon race, I dressed as Father Christmas (in July?!), the Mayor showed up and it was a boiling hot day. We had all the TV’s tuned in to Live Aid and the music full on, it was a good opening. A heavily pregnant Nita and I were living in the South and I dashed back from Sheffield in time for us to attend a dinner party at friends of ours in North London, and stayed up to watch the Philadelphia leg after Wembley had finished. I’ve always been fascinated by the event, and via eBay I have the souvenir programme of the day. I am still gobsmacked how Bob Geldof managed to organise such a big event in such a small time, without a mobile or a laptop!

Back to the present day, and my son Tom (who was in the heavily pregnant Nita and was born 12 days after Live Aid) has just completed the first full week of trading for The Whalley Wine Shop. He has a final bit of training on his new EPOS today and hopefully we will have good and accurate stats showing his sales performance every which way. I know he’s happy with the way the week has been but it will be nice to see that reflected in the figures. He has a double page spread in the next issue of LIVE RIBBLE VALLEY magazine, and that will have a positive effect on sales.

And what a joy it is to see the sun shining and the blossom on the trees….and if you’ve got this far, you may as well listen to Status Quo opening Live Aid in 1985!

Mark.

Riding into the sunshine on a Harley….

Not me, but my old friends Ken and Ruth. Ken was my boss when I was a running the Peterborough branch of Visionhire in the 80’s. Now, 30 years on, I’m freezing my nuts off, stressing about the central heating (our oil run out, now our boiler is leaking),  and here’s Ken and Ruth living it up outside their apartment in Javea, Spain, before cruising the seafront on their Harley Davidson. We were due to go over and see them, and have a ride on the bike, but Daily Mail reading Mrs Jones has now decided she’s afraid of flying, so we have to go everywhere by boat…

Kenny ‘Biker Boy’

Ruthie ‘Biker Chick’

Visionhire, fax machines, letraset, motorbikes, but definitely no e-mail. Long live the 80’s!

Yesterday I felt as if I worked really hard. However, I had no meetings with clients, no internal meetings either, I just sat in my office at Workhouse Marketing and worked on my laptop all day. It got me to thinking how many people in the country spend all day, every day, working hard by simply looking at their computer screen? In our service driven economy I expect it’s probably a big chunk of our workforce. What on earth did we do before e-mail?

Fax Machine

The advertising world is now so different to when I started out in the 80’s. I remember being in the marketing department of Visionhire (a TV and Video rental company…remember them..Radio Rentals, Granada, Multi Broadcast, Telefusion, etc) with no computers and no mobiles. It was a fantastic day when we got…a fax machine! It was literally magic…we could send visuals virtually instantaneously. It was going to change the world! Before that we relied on the Post Office to send visuals back and fore via first class post.

Visionhire - I remember doing the 'V' pos with BDH!

And the agency world was frenetic….It was commonplace to have half a dozen motorbike couriers, outside the office late at night ready to physically transport artwork,(which was letraset stuck to card) to the repro house and on to each of the daily newspapers in time to get it on the press. The agency was buzzing with, put down artists, writers, illustrators, typesetters, all going nuts to get it done, with the creative teams on standby for that last minute phone call from the client…and when the bikes had gone we all went to the pub a la ‘Life on Mars’. It was exciting, dynamic,pressurized and we produced great work and met all the deadlines with not a computer in sight.

Life on Mars

I am continually amazed by the internet and how it has changed the world. Take flies for instance (why not!). I sometimes get a lot of flies in my house in the winter especially after sunny days, and they seem to gather by the windows in our spare room. So last night in 10 minutes on the internet, I found out what they were (cluster flies), found out how to get rid of them, read customer reviews advising me which is the best product to use, and bought the product on-line without moving from the sofa. Amazing. But not as amazing as the fact that in 1985 Bob Geldof organised Live Aid in six weeks without a computer or a mobile phone!

Live Aid 1985 organised without e-mail and mobiles!