NORTHERN PLANNER

I don’t  really but I bet a got your attention.

I hate it. If you really know what problem you’re solving and you’re not kidding yourselves with the creative solution (it’s made for the audience not you) it all seems a bit pointless.

BUT – it can be used to your advantage.While lots of good work falls to crap moderation, good moderation can get it through. Clients can argue with YOU of course, but it’s hard to argue with their own customers smiling, nodding and loving your work.   

This kind of stuff really helps when you’re trying to build relationships with creatives Of course giving them good briefs and lots of fodder in the first place matters, but they’ll also love you if they think you’ll get their ideas through.

Back when I was a politics student, Francis Fukuyama’s ‘The end of history and the last man’ was required reading. I remember being impressed with his argument that the idealogical evolution of human beings was over, and western liberal democracy could well be here to stay. The joy of innocence.

Back then the cold war was over, we were told there was only one superpower, green issues were considered a bit weird and ‘tree huggy’ conflicts were few, and they were big, neat and simple. Any remaining struggles would be the death throes of different systems before they gave into  capitalism. Now look at us:

China and India are the superpowers of the future, Russia is regaining it’s strength, US authority is waning (lets hope this is demonstrated with US bacon), the world is more complex than ever with a web of warring interests and ideologies, consumers now have the tools to fight corporations and we may be facing to the greatest challenge we’ve ever faced – global warming.

I’m interested in Fukuyama’s current argument that most of this represents the final convulsions before western democracy wins, but I’m not so sure. My generation has been very lucky. We haven’t had to worry about any big wars, our way of life has remained unchallenged really, we have more money than ever, things are pretty stable. We’ve been taught to be complacent.

My parents had the three day week, Kruschev, the tail end of rationing, the tumults of the 60’s revolution and, in this country as least, the impact of secularism.

It’s been easy to relax and think this is how it will always be, but the future is more uncertain than any time I can remember in my short life. Even capitalism is reaching some sort of epoch as consumers find being able to afford their heart’s desire leaves them empty – maybe we’ll see a return to Victorian austerity? Now. for the first time I get the sense of BEING in history.

Suez, WW2, Kennedy, Vietnam are just some of the things I studied that seemed far removed from my reality- dramatic events like we’d never see again.

Now I get the sense of moving through time somehow, many of the decisions we’ll make over the next few years will have a profound effect on future generations – the techtonic shifts of the US, Russian and Chinese Empires will affect things 100 years from now, just as the origins of the things that affected the end of the 20th century can be traced back to Austro-Hungarian Empires, and indeed the British Empire.

Maybe we’re doomed to repeat out mistakes forever, I’m not sure. But since human nature doesn’t sit still for very long, I bet there will be plenty of ‘where were you when’ moments in this generation and those that follow.  Maybe you have to live for 33 years or so before you get to realise this. Maybe reading less political theory helps too!

Oh great, it’s Valentines. While I agree with Rob that I don’t need a day to help to show (or tell me to show) that I think Mrs NP is special, there’s another reason I don’t like this day.

Valentines is fine and dandy is you have someone, or a perfect excuse to pop the question if you haven’t, but I hate the way it makes lonely people feel worse. Christmas can be a hard time for some, so can birthdays, I just don’t think we need another day to remind people they’re on their own.

Picture courtesy of Gaping void

(Picture courtesy of Seb)

Having seen Marcus’s post for sausage V bacon,  it’s easy to be complacent about the meat project quarter final (not least because of the amazing pork and mushroom ones I had from my local butcher this week) BUT…

The last bacon round was close, we must make sure no one confuses American bacon with the good stuff. Complacency is the enemy, let’s stay angry.

And there’s plenty to be angry about. I love proper bacon –  British/canadian/back bacon. US bacon, however, is what we call in the UK ‘streaky bacon’, the cheap stuff, only fit for cooking.This inferior meat masquerading as the tasty cured meat for all occasions is an insult that must not be borne.

America is great – they’ve given us Seinfeld, Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm, the blues, Mean Streets, Angelina Jolie…

…but like all great things, there is a dark side (and not just Bush)  – that awful habit of ruining traditions that should stay as they are.

I can just about forgive the mangling of coffee, The Office, Italian food, proper English and even that steadfast refusal to pronounce foreign languages properly. But trying to pass off inferior bacon as the proper, wonderful stuff,  we all know and love is too much.

Take a look at this Big Mac, the epitome of taking the great (German) hamburger, and removing all the taste, character from a truly great tradition. That’s what US bacon symbolises.

Mobilize now. A vote for sausage is a vote for the America that brought us Mean Streets.  A vote for US bacon is a vote for pronouncing  Alsace as ‘al sayce’. Let’s keep America great!

Kirsten at work was bouncing up and down the office  on this space hopper:

Thinking it looked easy, I had a pop and managed to fall off and twist my knee. I pretended it didn’t hurt, but they’ll be no five a side for a week or so.

It reminded me of all sorts of things that people manage to make look really simple, like supermarket checkout people who can work a till that would confuse Mr Spock at first.

That’s a problem with presenting strategy sometimes. If it’s something that’s simply beautiful, being slick and making it look effortless can backfire – it looks like you haven’t tried.

I watched a film this weekend where someone had to phone a friend to tell her some bad news. While it was ringing, she repeated to herself, "Don’t pick up, don’t pick up".

It made me think of the times I have HAD to phone someone, not text, either I don’t want to talk to, or whom I had to talk about something difficult – and the sense of relief when the answerphone kicked in.  This’ll come in handy one day….

I had a little car bump during the drive home Friday night. Since The ice and snow had left the roads in my village like glass, I was driving at glacial pace when the girl behind me lost control and drove into my rear bumper. We exchanged details, both cars and people we’re fine, though she was a bit shaken. Nevertheless, she had to get a move on for an appointment to ‘design’ someone’s kitchen in their home.

Later, in front of the fire, I thought about this. Here was me on a Friday night, enjoying a particularly good bottle of wine, the weekend in front of me, while she was in a stranger’s house, trying to sell them a kitchen while they did their best to get rid of her. I hoped she enjoyed her job, but it made me feel lucky doing what I do.

The other day I got a nice little leaflet from an company that delivers organic, eco friendly boxes. I got a bit excited – I like good food, stuff like this is important to me and companies that do this are rare Up North.

Lovely little website, lots of nice stuff. I got very excited, especially when they mentioned that they source food locally. BUT, they’re based in London and ‘locally sourced’ seems to mean as close to the UK as possible. Why don’t I just go to the local market and butchers?

Even without air freight, thats a lot of vans using a lot of petrol, and anyway, I want to support people HERE in sunny Yorkshire. So pretty green, but the fine print shows some weaknesses. We’ll see a lot of supposed eco brands that don’t bear close scrutiny I think.

I’m reading a rather lovely book by Alex Kapranos- him from Franz Ferdinand – about his food adventures on tour. It’s beautifully written and shows you should be careful when judging what people are capable of – he did quite a few things before getting famous, it shows.  I’m also liking how he demonstrates the stories around what you’re eating totally changing the experience (the sausage experience is certainly different thanks to Marcus). Anyway, I love this quote:

"When you get to a certain age, if you haven’t tried something there’s probably a very good reason".

With that in mind, have a look at this post from the wise, succesful and opinionated Rob Campbell.

By the way, this post has some things to say about the biggest survey on British sexual fantasies ever. You’ll never be able to look at your work colleagues in the eye again.

I’ve had to make some hard decisions this week.

It doesn’t matter what it was about, but it’s forced me to think about what’s really important. Once upon a time I would do whatever I wanted, and hang the consequences. That’s fine when you’re young, but when you get older the stakes get higher. You’ve less time to learn from mistakes and other people get affected too.

I’ve always been curious – never settling anywhere for long and hating taking the easy option. I wanted to go out to the edges and find what was out there. This week’s made me wonder if maybe the hardest thing is NOT doing something and wondering what might have been. This week I did the right thing, I didn’t do something I really, really would have loved to have done,  I did the best thing for me and mine instead, the thing that will make us happier. That doesn’t mean it was easy. Just right.