OMG! Peaches Geldof and the Celebrity Heart of Darkness
I received an urgent comic tweet instructing me to watch OMG! with Peaches Geldof on ITV2 last night from my old pal Kevin O’Sullivan, aka @Tvkev the legendary Sunday Mirror TV critic. ‘You’ve got to watch this at least once!’ he said, so I tuned in with my two sons. We lasted a little under […]
Bombing in Libya
As the bombs rain down on Libya, there are already people looking beyond the images of the destruction wreaked who are eager to get in to the country, post-conflict. Big PR will be planning already how to own the hearts and minds of the world with regards to Libya. There will be lots of meetings, […]
Charity Mugging
Looking at the pictures of dedicated, anonymous plant workers risking their lives in Japan to prevent the meltdown of Fukushima’s reactor, I fell to thinking about all the unnamed heroes in the world, especially as it’s Comic Relief tonight. I find myself regretting that charity is so heavily reliant on celebrity to sell a good […]
The PR Apocalypse
Can I ask a dumb question – is it safe to build a nuclear power station on a known fault line and then leave it there for 40 years? The Japanese authorities are only finding out now, and yet the full horror of the situation remains shrouded and shadowed. As the Fukushima reactor appears to […]
Cigarettes, Celebrities and Packaging the Future
This is an age of brand truth, an age of transparency. An era when all the nasty little secrets start to bustle about just below the surface in the hope of being exposed. Take Charlie Sheen, for example. He’s been a chaotic hellraiser for years, but only now is the extent of his hedonism and […]
Remembering Jane Russell and the Man Behind Her Fame
The sad news that Jane Russell died lat night is perhaps an opportune time to remember the amazing publicist who moulded her erotic brand, the man who coined the politically incorrect moniker: bombshell. I hope many of Russell’s obituaries credit the strategic mind of another Russell, the Texan Russell Birdwell, for shaping Jane Russell’s narrative. […]
Churnalism and the Death of the Press Release
At long last the question of how much of our daily news originates from PR pixies is to be answered. A new website, churnalism.com, has been launched and its mission is to expose the extent to which articles have been lifted from press releases. I welcome the site – it’s not something good publicists should […]
Possibly the Best Royal Souvenir… EVER!
Just what you need for a cold February – a bit of humour and sardonic wit. This truly magnificent thing of beauty is proof that Great British creativity moves into overdrive when the stuffy Establishment offers it the opportunity. I was sent this earlier today. Arguably it’s the best Royal wedding souvenir ever…
The Lost Art of the Long Lunch
Yesterday I managed to find the time to lunch one of my old journalist pals. Now retired, the wizened old hack knew how to harvest my leads because he cut his teeth in an age when press releases were walked into the newspapers and news desks and journalists needed copious amounts of TLC. In an […]
Spin and the Winds of Change
As the winds of change sweep across North Africa and the Middle East, various commentators are pontificating about the future shape of the geopolitical landscape. This is of huge interest certainly, but I am currently more interested in the language of PR spin deployed by apologists. I was struck particularly by yet another shamefaced government […]
Rebel Radiohead and the Brits
Radiohead are back with a new album, The King of Limbs, and a development of the original stunt for their last album, In Rainbows, which was for sale on a ‘pay what you can afford’ basis. Excitement has been amping up and up since the band announced the early digital download release of the album […]
The Egyptian Protest Gear Awards
Mubarak has gone and the streets of Egypt are peaceful once again.The tension has subsided and now, finally, a little humour can be found in the situation…
Vegan Football
Football’s back in the news, but this time it’s not about vast sums being splurged on footballers in the transfer market, it’s a stunt that raises awareness about the quality of food at your average sports match. My local team, Forest Green, have a new chairman, CEO of Ecotricity Dale Vince. Vince is vegan – […]
Design an Outrageous Costume for a Star
Pop stars and celebrities all need to match the creative thrust of Lady GaGa and her outrageous, headline-grabbing costumes if they are to rise to the top of the heap, as I discussed in my previous post. So I have produced a short list of suggestions for for awards ceremony costumes for any star who […]
Why Everyone's Going GaGa at the Grammys
Stand by – the Lady GaGa Grammy show is heading to town! The awards season is upon us and the stars have been camping on the doorsteps of designers and rounding up the usual suspects when it comes to kitting themselves out. And they all have to up the ante to match GaGa. No camping […]
Anarcho-Royalism in the UK
In 1981 serious riots swept the country, but the Royal Wedding still comforted and distracted the great unwashed with sumptuous street parties and lit beacons of hope. 30 years later, thanks to the digital enlightenment and the forces of social media, we might well find ourselves experiencing significant social unrest at the wedding of Prince […]
Truth, Transparency & Trust: The New Celebrity Mantra
As Andy Gray and Richard Keys reach the desperate end of their careers, Jeremy Clarkson has weighed in to the row, saying that he is concerned about people being sacked and vilified for “heresy by thought”. Is it possible he’s worried about people discovering what he’s thinking? He should be if he is foolish enough […]
Sullying the Beautiful Game
Andy Gray and Richard Keys were relatively well known sports commentators until a leaked tape showed them uttering sexist comments about assistant referee Sian Massey at the Liverpool v. Wolves game yesterday. Now, their faces are everywhere. There’s no excuse for the sort of behind the scenes off-the-cuff black humour they were indulging in, but […]
Scapegoats & Subterfuge: Andy Coulson and the Phone Tapping Saga
In the wake of Andy Coulson’s resignation, a number of questions immediately come to mind that have been only passingly addressed by the press over the weekend. How to deal with news organisations owned outright by people such as the Barclay Brothers and Rupert Murdoch comes top of the list for me. We need to […]
Katie Price, Vengeful Goddess of the Tabloids
Ever since Tom Paine’s book Fame: From the Bronze Age to Britney came out, I have been looking more and more at the way celebrity and myth intersect – and now the news, and Katie Price specifically, has presented another killer analogy. In Celtic mythology, the Year King would be feted and loved and cherished […]