Posts Tagged ‘british’

It’s an absolute fact that once you’re in the public eye everything changes. Politicians in particular struggle to get used to being public property. Perhaps it should be called the Camcleg law of diminishing contact with everyday realities, at least for the duration of this Parliament.

‘Call-me-Dave’ Cameron and his wife Sam’s latest PR stunt is a classic case of hubris gone awry. Why take a budget weekend break in Spain to prove to the great unwashed that he’s ‘just like us’? It is unrealistic: we all know that his life has long since left the realms of normality. Read the rest of this entry »

The Malcolm Hardee Awards are getting a good rise out of their latest crop of nominees – or one of them in particular. The awards honour Hardee – one of the greatest festival pranksters and publicity magnets – by giving out semi-satirical awards.

This year the committee chose to nominate US stand-up Bo Burnham for the inaugural ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award. Burnham’s London PR company, whose clients include a Wealth Management company and an insurance broking, risk assessment and financial services company, wrote to the Award organisers saying of Burnham: “making money is not what he’s driven by at all and (we) don’t think he’d be at all comfortable with receiving this award.”

As a consequence, the Malcolm Hardee judges have now nominated Burnham for their main Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality because “for a modern day stand-up comic not to be interested in money is entirely original”. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s edition of the Sun features an exposé of Wayne Rooney’s recent night on the tiles as his team-mates “completed rigorous pre-season fitness tours”. It is a typically irked and excitable article, chipping away at the veneer of sporting heroism that has been liberally applied to Rooney and his sporting colleagues in the past.

The article is desperate to get people fulminating about spoilt football players in the wake of England’s World Cup flop, on the assumption that these football “legends” are heroes and idols for the nation’s kids who are betraying their legions of fans by going out and being normal. They are doing nothing of the sort. Read the rest of this entry »

The article below was published in yesterday’s Observer, alongside a big profile of Sir Martin Sorrell. My piece hasn’t been published online, so I’m reprinting it here. To read the profile online, click here.
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Sir Martin Sorrell’s accomplishments are nothing less that stunning. In PR terms, he is a cool, assured and effortless communicator. As we say in the business, he has “the stuff” and his comfortable media persona never seems to falter.

He has impeccable timing and, even with a British accent, has the knack of setting the media business agenda across the globe. Read the rest of this entry »

A new poem by the Borkowski poet in residence, dedicated to Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, who will be making his first, controversial appearance on the BBC’s Question Time tonight. For the audio version, scroll to the bottom of the post…

I’m Anglo-Saxon, I’m of German extraction.
I’m a Celt. My blood’s from the East.
I’m Norman, I’m Viking and I came hiking
to the British ethnicity feast.

Yes, I’m British, British, born of the skittish
aftermaths of empires gone.
I’m mixed, multiracial and no PR facial
can take away from the truth of my song.

I’m Muslim, I’m Gurkah, I’m a social worker.
I’m Jewish, I’m royal, I’m black.
I’m a desperate immigrant, an urgent applicant
escaping from torture, attack.

I’m a Brit, I’m a Brit and anyone’s fit
to take that name with pride as a tag.
I live in a world where one cannot stay curled
hermetically up in a flag.

In the Britain I live in, no one should give in
to hate or abuse or despair.
Whatever my creed, orientation or breed
all that matters is to be kind and be fair.

Yes, I’m British, British, born of the skittish
aftermaths of empires gone.
I’m mixed, multiracial and no PR facial
can take away from the truth of my song.

The British Song by Adam Horovitz [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download