Those of you reading this under the influence of nine and half glasses of red wine, one pint of cider, two and a half shots of gin, six glasses of sherry, thirteen whiskeys, half a pint of ale and a shot of lighter fluid will have recently done one of two things:
a) played the “Withnail and I” drinking game
b) participated in a “welcome home” lunch for Arthur Porter, publisher of Crain’s Manchester Business
Taking a cue from this bizarre conjunction of frankly galactic proportions (and notwithstanding the fact that, spookily, Crain’s December 17th 2007 launch date is almost exactly The 21-Years, Three Months and Eight Days Anniversary of the First Time I Watched the Mighty “With”…), it is obviously incumbent on me to mark this occasion by introducing the first How-Do.co.uk drinking game.
Bearing in mind How-Do’s target audience includes media owners and those who sell corporate hospitality for a living; I have kept the rules obligingly simple. As with lunching with the gregarious Mr Porter, during the “Withnail and I” drinking game participants are obliged to have a drink whenever our hero has one - preferably one of the same composition and strength.
For those wishing to participate in the How-Do drinking game, it is simply a matter of downing a large tumbler-full of your choice every time a story on your favorite North West media and marketing website matches certain criteria.
For instance take a large gulp for every mention of the non-word “monetize”, take two if the word in question is in a quote from a cash-strapped regional media owner and take three if he mentions the word “digital” in the same paragraph. (As a guide for those not wishing to peak too early, try not to read anything with the words “Trinity” or Mirror” in the headline until late afternoon, preferably on a Friday.)
We’ll start off with a few relatively straightforward rules this week and then subsequently amend, refine, enhance, replace or simply ignore them as the mood takes us on subsequent occasions. For this first week we’ll start off with these seven founding principles to add to the one above:
Seven principles
1) Every “How-Downer” (as they will henceforth not be referred to ever again) must drink two fingers every time a NW PR company you have never heard of announces a “major” new business win (make it three if you’ve never heard of the account either).
2) Two fingers is also the obligatory tithe for any mention of an existing, new, prospective or defunct North West business publication. However these are not to be drank, merely waved in the general direction of their proprietors or editors whenever such an opportunity arises.
3) All participants must take half a tumbler-full every time a company announces a “major win” within two weeks of suffering a “major blow”
4) All participants shall imbibe three quarters of a tumbler-full every time an unwary North West marketing communications company falls into the ever-greasening palms of some seemingly AIM-listed conglomerate
5) Any story that makes the ultimate form of Media City UK seem less substantive, worthwhile or desirable shall require participants to knock back a whole tumbler
6) Two pints of crème de menthe is the obligatory throatal toll every time a publicly-funded “creative” body in the North West seems hell-bent on pissing away tax revenue on some venture ultimately unlikely to benefit anyone except those involved in its commission or implementation. (Strictly speaking, this is not part of the game; this is merely to help with the pain.)
7) Any editorial item that sees Liverpool progress yet further in its bid to secure the Guinness Book of Records authenticated All-comers Shooting-Yourself-in-the-Foot title (currently held by the monopedal veterans of the Italian Somme Survivors Association) shall require imbibulous browsers to strip off and dive into a punchbowl of Olympic swimming pool proportions and not surface until all the alcoholic beverage therein has been drained. (Incidentally this dramatic gesture is not a sign of the rarity of such content, but has been strictly stipulated by Pilkington Glass, official sponsors of the How-Do drinking game.
So let’s see just how rat-arsed we’re going to get in this the inaugural week of the How-Do Drinking Game…
Well, first up let’s knock-back a whole tumblerfull courtesy of the Beeb.
Let it not Cbeebie…
This week the news broke that the BBC’s children’s TV department is scheduled to be cut down from the 600 said to be moving to Salford back in 2005, to a current estimate of just 300. By the time the BBC removal van eventually chugs into the M6 postal code area in the summer of 2011, I confidently predict that its sole occupant will be Mrs Carol Summerbee (deputy head of Grange Hill catering 1978-87). No doubt her beguiling tales of Zammo Maguire’s culinary peccadilloes and Pogo Patterson’s dieting tips may not prove the boon to the North West media scene that Peel Holdings seem to be staking a huge £360 million stack of the Bank of Scotland’s cash on.
BOS should perhaps be a little more circumspect, lest they want their 2011 report and accounts to be headlined: “Even more Northern, Even more Rocky!” – after all 3 million square foot of space is a lot of room for one solitary semi-retired catering assistant. Even a fat one.
Out of Context
A quick two fingers now, courtesy of Context PR. Whoops, nearly forgot, there’s another finger there in non-recognition of its Team Simoco win (perhaps you should stop changing your name Derby-based radio telecom guys!).
Regan
The who’s Who of North West business editors….
Two fingers too for the news that Martin Regan’s return to the editorship role at EN , sees the Crain’s-inspired squaring up of NW business magazine editors increasingly resemble one of those multi-Doctor Who stories from the seventies and eighties. These saw various incarnations of the TV time lord competing with each other, ostensibly to save the Universe, but, in reality largely for ego-salving screen time.
For the home planet of Gallifrey and having two hearts, read instead the constellation of Newsco and (as all the contenders are former Insider editors) very little evidence of any of them having any heart whatsoever.
Taylor
If we stick strictly with the analogy, this makes Michael Taylor the current incarnation of the I-really-haven’t-got-any-Time-to-talk-to-you-right-now-Lord (this has, admittedly characterized all Insider editors and, truth to tell, all regional business editors, regardless of prominence or ability!). Blimey, that makes him David Tennant (though, in truth to tell, he’s more reminiscent of previous incumbent Christopher Eccleston).
Dispensing with chronological consistency in favour of analogous behaviour and demeanour, where do we punt the other two former N/W Insider editors now slugging it out?
Well Regan’s cigar-wielding pic gives him more of the air of the renegade Time Lord, the Master, most recently resurrected by Life on Mars’ John Simm. However, the obvious sartorial predilections can truly only mean one thing – step forward Martin Regan, tonight you’re going to be 70’s Doctor Who and future Worzel Gummidge, Jon Pertwee.
Brauner
That leaves us with Steve Brauner, editor of the colonially-coffered Crain’s Manchester Business… Well pictorially, he is somewhat reminiscent of Peter Davison, the former All Creatures Great and Small actor who played the Doctor in the early 80’s and who was united with his latterday successor on last Friday’s Children in Need. However, his reputation suggests he has far more in common with the famously irascible William Hartnell who played the first ever version of the good Doctor way back in 1963…
Surely, though, that role should be reserved for Mr Nick Jaspan, founder of Insider, the North West Enquirer and now How-Do? However, his Scottish connections, vague sense of omnipotence, general sense of having the inside track on some masterplan, and, not to mention, his build, makes him a shoe-in as the last of the “classic” Doctors, the diminutive Sylvester McCoy.
Maybe the solution is for “Sylv” Jaspan to “summon” his subsequent “selves” to a grand debate to establish what, if anything, is going to be the key difference between these competing business brands. At the very least, all of the two-fingered gestures accrued by then could be proffered simultaneously and non-prejudicially.
Steak and Bake Holders
Blimey (1), all of those feeling a little parched, can now relax with a full half-tumbler full (!) of their favoured libation courtesy of MediaVest Manchester. This is thanks to last week’s loss of some £30m insurance company billings being ever so slightly replaced by the win of some £4m worth of work to promote Gregg’s savoury bakery products . Blimey(2) that means Greggs need to sell an extra five million “steak bakes” just to fund their bid to ensure Messrs Dave Lucas and Andy Jeal (MediaVest’s proprietors) don’t slip even one notch in next years Sunday Times top track companies listing. We’re with you all the way boys.
Ah, go on then, let’s have another half-tumbler full on behalf of BDH TBWA//Manchester who this week announced they had won the account of self-tanning specialists Fake Bake . However, just why a client whose products are designed to ensure you are looking good whilst concealing an inner pallor should have opted for TWBAManc is beyond me.
Amaze-ing Disgrace?
Still a trifle parched? Well then let’s treat ourselves to a three quarter tumblefull, courtesy of the ever-obliging Hasgrove plc. This last week or so has seen Hasgrove confirm its acquisition of digital media specialists Amaze and its assertion (seemingly unsupported by the client) that it is guaranteed to retain the lucrative Archant contract that will see it re-developing more than 100 websites for the publisher.
Hasgrove continues to lurch across the N/W marketing community whilst demonstrating all the purchasing discernment of an inebriated, recent step-dad late home and present-less on Christmas Eve. Don’t buy your shareholders a financially compromised digital media company boys! Mayhap they’d prefer a PlayStation 3 – after all the market values now seem to be about the same…
Gentleman and ladies please charge your glasses and be far more upstanding than you should, in truth, be entitled to be at this juncture (even though you work in the North West media or marketing scene and should be well prepared.) Ah, well, it will put you in good stead for the impending Christmas shutdown as we have to look at the Big Two Last Items on the How-Do Drinking Game Board.
If you see CIDS, bill’em
Okay, crème de menthe time as The Creative Industries Development Service announces it has signed up 12 unnamed ‘geniuses’ to give free advice to creative firms at this year’s Business North West event. For geniuses read “mates of CIDS who are at best semi-employed self-styled marketing consultants” and for “free advice” read “obvious attempts to insinuate themselves with ailing or fledgling businesses with self-remuneration at the top of their agendas.” Next week, should the hippie-infested CIDS deign to name its self-confessed geniuses, take a sip for everyone you’ve never heard of (but not if you’re driving).
Sadly, another mini-quaffete of the foul-tasting bright green brew now as we reflect on the news that Trafford Council is seeking bidders to generate £600,000 for sponsoring its roundabouts. Wow, the budget for the joint celebration of “Keith and Val are 40” must be well up this year. They probably got a “creative use of urban signage and community notification grant”. From CIDS.
European Capital of Vultures
And finally, we ritually strip down to our marine-friendly under-keks and prepare to dive in for 20 lengths of our Pilkington-provided prodigious punch bowls as Liverpool proves yet again its appetite for self-destruction.
Boris Johnson, a university contemporary of mine, once infamously ascribed a “victim” culture to Liverpool and was forced, in between injudicious shags, to apologise. Much as I hate to endorse the views of a mad-haired Maggie-esque metropolitan mayoral candidate, you have to see his point.
Despite its much-vaunted civic pride, there is a hint of Woody Allen-esque contempt from Liverpool’s foremost media luminaries for their less enlightened fellows – a sort of “I wouldn’t like to be a leading citizen of a city that would have someone like me as a leading citizen.”
This endemic “I’m not on allowed to be on the take, so I’m going to allege that you are” is Brookside’s frequent non-neighbourly allegations of “fiddling the leccy” writ large.
The home-grown predators are circling to make Liverpool’s year in the international spotlight look like it was scripted by Carla Lane in her far from well-advised (or amusing) “Bread” years (seasons: 7, funny bits: 0).
Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the impending arrival of 2008 and Liverpool’s potentially wince-making sojourn as the European Capital of Vultures.
If you wish to add new rules to the How-Do.co.uk drinking game then please email tonymurray37@hotmail.com with your suggestions. Any deprecating cheap shots about him personally will be considered non-canonical and may only be used by participants within their own establishments or at meetings of the Newspaper Society.
Finally a big thank you to Lorna Hawtin, disruption director at BDH TBWA Manchester who sent me a big hug last week via the Imperial Leather website . As Lorna appears somewhat cuter than previous BDH senior executives (Roger Ward, Laurie O’Toole and Al Dickman spring somehow to mind) I look forward to redeeming it personally when I’m back in the North West.
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