Watch me rap about the Mince Pie Marathon Competitive Eating Challenge

Simonsays –

Simon Wakeman -

Greenbanana -

Still feel crap that I could not stay on. Oh well.

Mark declares his love of Coronation Street to Nickie Sanderson and her agent.

I celebrate the fantastc TV coverage and now time for bed Zebedee

I originally made the comment on BBC Radio Five News and Sky News when the media was feverishly speculating about the leaked court papers.Considering my angst about quotes being filleted and then used at a later date by l those who want to take me down a peg or two, (OK, so I deserve it on occasions), I thought I would reiterate the point.

Weeks ago I came out to say that in the PR war I thought it was very astute move by Heather’s llegal team, Mishcon de Reya, to bring the old corporate war horse, Shimon Cohen to the party. I have to confess I know the veteran Cohen: I met him years ago when he worked on the Andrew Lloyd Webber (whoops, Lord Lloyd Webber) account for Tim Bell (whoops, Lord Bell). I had offered an opinion about ALW in a magazine article and he was quick to snail mail (yup it was that long ago, people still used the post to make a point) me his thoughts on my position.

We agreed to have coffee to settle the issue and we parted as professional pals. He made his client’spoint and I saw the other side of the issue. I recognised how difficult his job was, working at the time for the Lloyd Webber organisation,which he handled with charm and grace. Some of the great PR operators, particularly in Tinsletown, have a magnificent way of saying “no” – or being firm -without slapping their proverbial dicks on the table.

It’s a skill that isn’t easily taught. I believe the elegance of media relations is being lost and is being replaced by a hardcore paranoia driven by a belief that the news and feature media is the enemy. I advocate that the trade needs to spend less time pinging one-line emails and more in building meaningful relationships with the press – the people that so many of those starting in PR industry seem to dread.

The Blogosphere and the digital ghetto grow minute by minute, and are a fabulous outlet for instant opinion. But even in the age of 24/7 wi-fi and hand-held broadband access, you can’t beat good old-fashioned human contact

Watching him at close quarters, tirelessly working his butt off, never showing any signs of flagging, I wondered how many chairmen of corporations would have met their responsibilities with the same amount of good humour and vigour.

I watched him spend his day giving interviews and charming the pants off some rather cynical business hacks. It’s never easy repeating the same things,yet somehow RB has an inbuilt skill in giving the same sound-bite a fresh edge.
Equally impressive was the real connection he had had with his staff. Branson turned up to the “after-show” party for his employees and spent hours mingling with them, playing computer games and engaging with their banter. Incidentally he seems to be huge fan of the new Wii (pronounced as the pronoun “we”, IPA: /wiː/) Nintendo’s seventh-generation video game console. However is doing the PR I have the photographic evidence. It was clear that he genuinely enjoys their company.

I got a real sense of his passion for his business in all its forms. His success is not only due to his skill at putting the art of publicity at the core of his brand – it’s backed up by his authenticity. And that gives the Virgin empire a heart and a soul.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/design/article/603548/mark-ritson-branding-hit-scandal-it/

The continuing need for 24/7 news quotes from pundits like myself and Max Clifford, only illustrates that you can comment on a situation as it happens, and as you see fit to comment at the time.

However, not representing the person, you cannot see the bigger picture and sometimes soundbites can fly back like a boomerang and smack you in the face.

I have always used my “get out of jail free card” saying that things are likely to change, but news organisations or newspapers always choose to fillet the caveat. It’s clear that in the initial stages of the PR meltdown, brands did have to distance themselves from Moss. Those brands that needed an edge embraced her and by doing so, she became rehabilitated and her new existence was forged.

Make no mistakes; in any celebrity career, every day has a sunrise and a sunset and whether it’s a red sky in the morning or at night, it’s usually governed by the ongoing conduct of the individual to generate safe column inches.

WHEN Katie Targett-Adams takes to the stage with her Celtic harp in Beijing this week she will not be wearing the suggestive outfit that has become de rigueur for the ambitious young female classical musician.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2460345,00.html

She is one of a new breed of artists who are rebelling against the pursuit of sales through what she describes as the “seedy” sexualisation of classical music.

As the music industry’s marketing machine cranks up for the crucial pre-Christmas market, other classical musicians with ambitions to crack the pop charts have also opted for a more demure approach.

All Angels, a group of teenage choirgirls who released their debut album of arias and hymns last week, have retained the rights to their image to veto revealing shots. Over the past decade, their rivals have willingly slipped into bodices, hot pants and low-cut tops to boost their appeal.

For Targett-Adams, from Edinburgh, the turning point was a meeting with the impresario who moulded the image of Vanessa-Mae. Mel Bush, who persuaded Mae to pose with her violin in the sea, seemingly wearing nothing but a white vest, urged her to wear shorter skirts.

But while the image was credited with giving birth to “classical crossover” music as Mae achieved hits in 92 countries, Targett-Adams, 27, walked out on Bush and a management deal.

Targett-Adams, who inherited her looks from her mother, a former model, said: “I could see a little bit of logic in what he was saying but it got to the point where my mind just wouldn’t let me. I found it too seedy.”

She added: “I had to draw a line . . . classical and traditional music industries feel they must continually vie with an increasingly ‘sexier’ pop world. In the end I just thought, ‘I can’t do this.’ I did not share Mel Bush’s views on how to make it, which is why we parted company.”

She is missing from a gallery of “pin-ups” of 29 female harpists to be found on a website dedicated to beauty in music. Few of them, however, can match her achievements: Chinese audiences shout “We love you” and write her name in the air with fluorescent wands.

The idea of using sex to sell classical music helped rescue sales in the mid-1990s, a period when the excitement over the Three Tenors had died down. At its height the ploy saw record companies release titles such as Bedroom Bliss with Beethoven and Making Out to Mozart.

The four teenagers who constitute All Angels have adopted a radically different approach, vowing never to show off their bodies.

One of the girls, Daisy Chute, 17, from Musselburgh, East Lothian, said: “For us, it’s all about the music. We won’t be on the cover of magazines like Heat and we won’t be wearing our school uniforms in any music video.”

They are signed to Universal Music, whose biggest classical star, the operatic diva Katherine Jenkins, 26, often appears in cleavage-enhancing dresses.

But a spokesman for Universal said: “The girls have complete control over their image, and are to be portrayed as musicians and not in any way inappropriately. Their management have very strict guidelines over this.”

Similarly Simon Cowell, the pop music mogul and judge of The X Factor, the music contest, has dressed his new classical group, Angelis, made up of three boys and three girls aged 11 to 14, in suits and demure black dresses.

Bush, who promoted rock stars such as Elton John and Led Zeppelin before turning to classical music and launching the careers of Mae, now 27, and the all-girl quartet Bond, said: “It is not about flesh. It is about playing the right music and having the right image to fit the music. Vulgarity will not sell records and would bring damage to both artist and record company.”

Mark Borkowski, the PR guru who 10 years ago helped shape the image of the Mediaeval Babes, a 12-strong girl group who included a former stripper and an alleged witch, said: “Sex and drugs and classical music sells but there is a finite market for it. The plunderers will know there is a sell-by date stamped somewhere on the rump of their artists.”

Borat

A satirical movie starring a British Jewish comedian which pokes fun at the apparent anti-Semitic nature of some of Kazakhstan’s population has been banned in Russia.

http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/11612

“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” had already garnered much controversy through its depiction of the former communist state as being backward and full of anti-Semitism.

It tells the story of a fictional Kazakhstani journalist, Borat, who travels to America to learn about culture. In the movie Borat explains how “Jews” are one of the main problems in Kazakhstan and that locals drink fermented horse urine.

Despite the offence taken, the Kazakh government did not ban the film, which stars Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen. But on Thursday it was announced that the Russian the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency has refused to grant the film license out of concern that it may offend.

Offensive

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“The film contains material that some viewers may consider offensive to certain nationalities and religions,” Yury Vasyuchkov, head of the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency’s department that licenses movies for distribution to theaters, was quoted a saying by the Moscow Times.

The movie was supposed to open in around 300 Russian cinemas on November 30, but local distributer Gemini Marketing have said that they do not expect it to be available for Russian viewers until early 2007, if at all.

Nikolai Vorunkov, deputy general director of, the movie’s distributor in Russia and a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, said: “There was some kind of explanation that the movie might create tension between races and nationalities because of its far-from-simple humor.”

Much publicity

The controversy over the movie has only served to increase its publicity, especially after the Kazakh government first went on the offensive dismissing the character.

Public-relations specialist Mark Borkowski told the Jewish Chronicle: “The way Kazakhstan hasn’t taken the joke — that’s fallen into his lap. I think that a third party has wound Kazakhstanis up in an attempt to get them to react.

Borat has also been praised as a clever method of making digs at political leaders. At the recent US premiere Baron Cohen, in character, said:”Kazakhstan very much admires your mighty warlord, George Walter Bush. He is a very wise man and also a strong man – but perhaps not as strong as his father, Barbara.”

Baron Cohen, who first found fame as Ali G, is a north London Jew who was educated at Haberdashers Askes school and Cambridge University where he studied history.