End of a Century…it’s nothing special

It’s almost exactly 19 months since I opened this WordPress account and started blogging. Recently I suggested to another blogger that for his 100th post he should list 100 things he had learnt since starting his blog. He gamely accepted the challenge, so some similar list is the least I can do…

So, looking back so far, a ‘York Notes’ version of What I Reckon (May 2009 – December 2010)

1. Aiming to post 2-3 times a week is a noble aim, but not at 600 words a time.
2. It’s about people (not data segments or clusters or whatever).
3. Don’t try and surf if you can’t easily and smoothly stand up from lying prone on solid ground.
4. Fish are friends, not food.
5. Sometimes sitting down with an icecream is more fun than flying a kite.
6. I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
7. The smell of Birds’ Custard makes me think of Sunday lunch when I was a child.
8. Businesses should stop centralising and get closer to their local communities.
9. Dr John Mislow was a friend of mine a long time ago. His death at 39 is a tragedy.
10. Arthur Honnegger’s ‘Pacific 231’ is a brilliant evocation of the power of the steam train.
11. I really don’t want the BBC to tell me what other people reckon about the news. I want the BBC to tell me the news.
12. Advertising can sometimes produce very moving, powerful campaigns for good.
13. There’s skint, and there’s middle class skint. I know which I am, and I am grateful.
14. The Wire is the best TV series I’ve ever seen, even better than Mad Men.
15. The menu découvert at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons is expensive, but astonishingly good value.
16. I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
17. Man on Wire is a fantastic biopic, documentary and heist movie all at once.
18. The Merlin Entertainments London Eye is a stunning way to see London, but it was also a soulless corporate experience for me.
19. Stuff takes longer when you’re camping, but in a good way.
20. Marketing is usually the application of common sense.
21. U2 are a brilliant band, and their live shows are tremendous.
22. One of the best things about my week is listening to Filmspotting.
23. Most products can be easily and almost instantly substituted for a functionally identical alternative. The difference is in design, experience and how it makes you feel.
24. Margaret Thatcher was wrong. There is such a thing as society, and it’s not David Cameron’s ‘Big’ version either.
25. This American Life, presented by the peerless Ira Glass, is a marvellous radio show.
26. Queen were a terrific band, and Freddie Mercury the greatest front man of all-time.
27. The mound above Tarn Hows is a wonderful spot to have lunch, looking across to the Langdale Pikes.
28. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a masterpiece.
29. Social Media isn’t complicated. It’s a conversation. Be interesting, and listen to what other people are saying.
30. Revolutionary Road has much to praise, but ultimately I found it hollow, considerably less than the sum of its parts.
31. The problem with most brands is that they want to talk about themselves all the time.
32. Andy Goldsworthy is a tremendous ‘natural artist’.
33. Sometimes my iPod shuffle command seems to know what it’s doing, and creates playlists of real beauty.
34. The PCC  seems pretty toothless to me.
35. Watching a film on a train can be dangerous. It can leave you utterly unprepared for the real world at the end of the journey.
36. Orange seems to take me for granted. And yet I stay with them. What does that say about #23?
37. The end of The Graduate is the least triumphant happy ending in cinema.
38. A Gary Larson cartoon and a Jack Johnson quote have driven more traffic to my blog than any other post…
39. Real mail is at least as important as email.
40. I wish I was half as cool as Christopher Walken.
41. If you want me to care about you’re supposedly trying to sell, at least pretend like you care about me.
42. There’s something very empty about the same sort of people drinking the same drinks sat at the same tables listening to the same music in ‘chain bars’ all over the country.
43. Did I mention that The Wire is the best TV ever made? Ever.
44. The opening paragraph of Jim Crace’s Quarantine is as good as anything I’ve read in years. The rest of the book is pretty darn great too.
45. Bono learnt a lot of what he knows from Freddie Mercury, except the bit about not taking himself too seriously.
46. ‘Company Policy’ is usually the death-knell to allowing staff to treat customers decently
47. Men, as a rule, hate indiscriminate shopping.
48. Anyone who thinks It’s a Wonderful Life is schmaltzy sentimentality run riot hasn’t been paying attention.
49. In Rainbows is as close to a perfect album as pretty much anything I’ve heard.
50. Everyone wants to be where someone loves them best of all…
51. I got tired of writing about poor customer service, because it doesn’t seem to change anything.
52. Corporate car adverts need to be less boastful about how good their cars are, and pay attention to #41 above…
53. Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together. For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place.
54. The Cluetrain Manifesto is as relevant now as when it was written 11 years ago.
55. I need to review my old posts more often – several video embeds are now defunct…
56. PT Anderson is a brilliant director, probably the best around.
57. I laugh more in an episode of Green Wing than in a whole series of most comedy shows.
58. John Hillcoat’s adaptation of The Road is a fine film, but not quite a masterpiece.
59. Keeping a written record of significant experiences is a lovely way to remind myself that my life is pretty darn fine, actually.
60. Many businesses swing wildly between a plan based on pie-in-the-sky assumptions with no foundation, and analysis-paralysis.
61. BBC 6Music packs in more variety in a day than most commercial stations do in a month.
62. I hoped the UK General Election in May 2010 would lead to positive change. I was half-right.
63. Devon and Cornwall have beaches to rival anywhere in Europe.
64. Many of my favourite songs are under 3 minutes long; perfectly-formed pieces of beautiful art.
65. I truly hoped the Conservative / Lib-Dem coalition would be a progressive force for change in UK politics. I was naive.
66. 2 of my Top 3 films of the last decade are not in English (City of God and The Lives of Others).
67. Sometimes traffic to my blog comes from the most unlikely sources (Lady Gaga?!).
68. Cate Blanchett is one of the most interesting actresses working today.
69. Companies need to care more about their agencies.
70. Uncovering decades-old diaries can be both uplifting and uncomfortable.
71. When you are dancing and laughing and finally living, hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly.
72. Usain Bolt is a greater role-model and champion than any English footballer.
73. The salaries of the 24 players in England’s dismal World Cup squad would pay for over 3,300 British Soldiers.
74. Martin Luther King never spoke in terms of SMART objectives.
75. Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows…
76. Volunteering for The National Trust enables me to meet great people and do some good. Nice.
77. (Despite the doping scandals) The Tour de France is a sporting spectacle like nothing else.
78. There is no political violence, only criminal violence. But this can be state-sanctioned too.
79. Natwest Bank’s ‘Helpful Banking’ campaign is depressingly cautious and underwhelming.
80. Gifford’s Circus is brilliant old-school entertainment.
81. I am incredibly proud of the way my 5-year-old daughter deals with her  nut allergy
82. Anvil! The story of Anvil is as wonderful a love story as you’ll ever see.
83. There is nothing worse in life than being blind in Granada…
84. Roald Dahl is my favourite author for children.
85. Does our ability to overcome nature make us immune to its danger and challenges?
86. It’s really important to believe in your own abilities: you can be better than you’re currently allowed to be.
87. The 24-hour-news cycle means we make mountains out of molehills and forget very quickly.
88. Easyjet are not as bad as they’re made out to be.
89. The Bugle is the perfect antidote to the 24-hour-news-cycle
90. The shared experience of the Twitterati watching Strictly Come Dancing or X-Factor proves that appointment TV viewing is not dead.
91. The Cove is a brilliant and shocking documentary that does for (part of) the Japanese fishing industry what Jamie Oliver has tried to do for battery chicken farming in the UK
92. There is such a thing as too much choice.
93. Long live Jesse Smith’s Butcher in Tetbury and all those like it.
94. Movember is a terrific charity, and it brought our team at work closer together. The power of the Mo is real…
95. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen is another near-perfect album.
96. I grew a moustache and I liked it (for a month anyway)
97. I’m a French Horn player and proud of it.
98. I’m also proud of this blog. Thanks for reading.
99. Struggling now… as it’s nearly Christmas, can I point you in the direction of my recipe for a lovely festive season?
100. Trying to plan ahead with posts, especially when my blog is reasonably wide-ranging in scope, is important. I get distracted easily and lose focus. Outlining is important, and writer’s block is real.

I hope I can continue to feel proud of this for another 100 posts, and that you can continue to find it interesting. Thanks for reading and supporting my little blog.

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Happy Birthday…

I started this blog 12 months ago this week. At that time I was very anxious that it didn’t turn into some kind of mid-life version of a teenage diary, ranting and rambling about What I Reckon,  and had concerns that no-one would read it.

I’m fairly happy that neither of those things have happened. I know that my audience is small (but I like to think at least a teeny bit devoted!?), and I’m also delighted that they’re spread around the globe. I know that a handful of my posts have attracted most of the visitors, through their bizarrely high rankings in Google. If you don’t believe me try Googling…

“I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell”… (page 2), or

“it’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win”…(page 1!)

I have Lady GaGa to thank as well. A few months ago she tweeted that very Bruce Springsteen lyric without any further explanation to her gazillions of followers. Many of them doubtless pasted the line into Google and somehow stumbled across my piece about small-town communities in Northern England. Oops – the power of the ‘long tail’ of Search Listings…

So, one year in and going strong. I’m very proud of some of my writing. I’ve had a couple of film reviews ‘published’ on LeftField Cinema and I still enjoy reading older posts. So much so, that after a year and 60-odd posts, this is my first cheat, my first ‘clips show’ with a few links back to (ahem) unfairly neglected posts that for whatever reason haven’t been as widely read as I might have liked.

“me and my important thoughts”
The inspiration for What I Reckon – the terrific Mitchell and Webb sketch that is years old but still a frighteningly accurate parody of ‘interactive news’.

“and they say that we’l have fun if it stops raining”
We got lucky last year, in that our first family camping trips (with a borrowed tent) were blessed with fine weather. This coming weekend we’re going to buy our own tent, stove, tables and so on. We are definitely fair-weather campers, but this is surely the kiss of death for the British summer…

“it’s not going to stop”
My last post listed my favourite films of the past decade. P.T.Anderson featured twice in the Top 10. He’s a fantastic, daring director. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

“take a step outside”
In 2008 I spent a tremendously wet and almost as rewarding week volunteering with The National Trust in The Lake District. 12 strangers coming together to do Just A Little Bit of Good. I’m volunteering again for them this summer, clearing and maintaining the Jurassic Coastal footpath in Dorset.

Normal service will resume next week. If anyone wants to ‘get me started’ on something, I’ll do my best to oblige. Leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do. That aside I do have tentative ideas for future posts about BHAGs, Cate Blanchett, Retailer Marketing, Sunset Boulevard, Experiential Marketing and Angelina Ballerina. Oh yes.

Thankyou for reading.

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It’s not going to stop…

Some film directors are predictable. Their name on the poster lets you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Michael Bay gives you bangs, crashes, CGI effects, and (IMHO) mind-rottingly bad spectacles that look and feel like the deafeningly unedited fantasies of a lustful teenager.

Paul Thomas Anderson is predictable only in that he is a truly daring film director. I watched Boogie Nights this week for the first time. How had I let that go so long? In only his second feature he uses dazzling techniques and shots, and tackles an extraordinary canvas with reams of characters. The opening sequence is clearly influenced by Goodfellas, but here Anderson introduces us to many of the key players and indeed their entire world. It’s wonderful.

The film is packed with bravura scenes, extended shots and indeed performances. Mark Wahlberg has never been better as Dirk Diggler, John C Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffmann and Julianne Moore are all terrific, and Burt Reynolds makes the sort of comeback rarely seen outside of a Tarantino picture.

In this way, perhaps it represents all the things you can expect “from the director of There Will Be Blood, Punch Drunk Love, Magnolia, Boogie Nights”…

His ensemble casts are astonishing in both Boogie Nights and Magnolia. He used many actors in both these films; Julianne Moore, William H Macy, Philip Seyour Hoffmann, John C Reilly and others.

Boogie Nights has some of the best extended shots I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t get hold of the opening scene on Youtube, but this party scene features William H Macy, the butt of the joke throughout the film as his wife seems to sleep with anyone but him. Until it goes too far…

And then he does it all again in Magnolia, with this amazingly intricate scene. This makes The West Wing look easy…

His soundtracks and score are exemplary, again something he has in common with Martin Scorsese. Boogie Nights has terrific music, and There Will Be Blood features perhaps my favourite score of any recent film, composed by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead; it’s often brooding and menacing, certainly a character in itself… Magnolia features songs by Aimee Mann, one of which he turns into this stunning sequence, where the disparate characters start to sing along with the lyrics, creating links between themselves and a deeply moving effect.

But perhaps the biggest surprise for me was Punch Drunk Love. I really don’t tend to like Adam Sandler, but he is absolutely fantastic as the lonely, more-than-slightly creepy Barry Egan. Very intimate in scale compared to the previous two films, this isa beautiful love story about two outsiders. It’s very funny and very dark, revealing things slowly and wonderfully to the audience. After an agonising early courtship, Barry finally plucks up courage to pursue Lena to try and tell her how he feels. Again the music is wonderful. Again the camera follows our leading character, focusing on him through the crowds. And I love how the phone box lights up when Lena finally answers the phone…

And now I realise I’m 500 words into this post and have barely mentioned There Will Be Blood. Can I just say it’s fantastic. It thrilled me like nothing I’d seen in ages. The score is terrific. The scale, scope and ambition is breathtaking. Daniel Day Lewis is amazing as Daniel Plainview, and Paul Dano makes a valiant effort to keep up. I even like the final section, despite its jarring change in tone. My favourite elements from this film are also hard to find online, mainly the landscapes and the soundtrack, and the astonishing scene of the oil derrick fire and accident with HW. But most of all the opening, wordless sequence of more than 10 minutes, worth the price of admission on its own.

I recommend all of PT Anderson’s films, and I haven’t seen his opening feature, Hard Eight. They’re not necessarily easy viewing, but they all contain brilliant acting, music, direction and design; in that way they’re predictable, but they’re also all suprising, challenging, in that respect, fantastic.

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