NORTHERN PLANNER

Scott brought this ball into work. It’s autographed by Roger Federer, so naturally I touched in in the hope of some talent rubbing off onto my malfunctioning backhand-  the vintage Lendl shirt hasn’t worked. Stu could teach me a thing or two anyway, he took a set off Henman as a junior, or so he says. 

August is an odd month, there’s nothing on TV and most can slack off in the quietest month of the year. Not agency land though. Mostly you work doubly hard to cover other people on holiday and spend your own break recovering. Being a one man department, it means doing as much as you can before you go and preparing for what’s awaiting you on your first day back. Can’t wait for a break though.

Right now I’m 9 days from being here:

If you’re my age and you live in the UK, you’ve probably laughed at Paul Calf and his disdain of ‘lazy students’. But the picture of layabout undergraduates isn’t really true anymore, at least according to the The Royal Bank of Sctotland’s ‘student index report’ . Over half of undergraduates will work part time next term , that’s up 40% on last year. At first I thought "Good, about time too" in a typically grumpy fashion(conveniently forgetting the Autumn term of 1994 when I manaaged to miss every lecture on South African Government). But then I read on to see that people who work in term time are a third less likely to get a first or upper second class grade. Not good since University is supposed to be about learning stuff.

So what do you think? You could say that it’s not fair on kids from poorer backgrounds who need to work to pay their tuition fees. You could also say that they still seem to have plenty of spare time to drink in the pub. I’m not qualified to comment since I managed to coast to an upper second doing bugger all (I did work at a nightclub though and working with bouncers helped me prepare for briefing  certain creatives as a lowly account exec).

I was reading that they’ve discovered a new techonogy for removable sticky stuff, all thanks to sudying spiders. Reminds me of all the things we’ve learned from copying nature. Like these:

54% of Britons want to live abroad (Institute for Policy Research), but nearly half that do emigrate come home. Maybe some of this is to do with doing before thinking, but doesn’t it show how human desire is a contradictory little monkey? We want what we can’t have and tire of it when we get it.

Julian Barnes’ makes this point in the last chapter of ‘The History of the World in 10 and a Half Chapters’. His version of heaven is a place where all your hearts desires are granted, but after a few millenia, sheer boredom leads you to choose to be deleted from existence.

If you do one good thing today, pay it a visit to Give Rob a Job and sign the petition, even better just hire him!  That’s right, no one has given  The Famous Rob Mortimer the planning job he so richly deserves. Rob @ Cynic has lost patience with us all and kindly created the site. Do not let Rob down.

If you’re in any doubt of Robs powers, take a look at his blog. If you haven’t been lucky enough to meet him, you must have seen his generous comments on other people’s blogs, so you’ll already know what a nice fellow he is.

…sprinters you could trust. No ‘nutritionists’ in the shadows, no grotesque musculature, just skinny chaps in baggy white outfits (from The Guardian). Still, now they’re getting better at catching cheats, maybe they’re on the way back….