Reactoblog

I don’t know whether there is such a thing as block but certainly in a creative sense it can be hard to constantly invent something to write about. Having said that, I nailed on a Christmas campaign theme for a fashion client today. Myself and Fehin are probably more on the same wavelength than ever before. It is a strange alchemy but it works. If the client runs with it, I’ll maybe post it here. And fuck it, I think it’s good. But in the case of this particular client I can’t get inside their head in the same way as others.

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Working also on an old long standing job. My kitchens, I have been working with Lairdo for BA for several years now. And again we seem to get the stuff right almost by second nature. Primarily I suppose because they are a very good client to work with, open to ideas, there’s a good relationship there. We have done some very creative work and they like the approach we bring to design and copy. I get a free reign to throw copy ideas at them and they mostly are happy to run with them. Just now I’m chasing my tail on one big job, trying to produce a patchwork based on what I have already done. It looks like I’ll have to put it in the ditch and start again.

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Reading. I was amused to read that the book club I attended for while had taken on poetry as the assignment for a particular month. The book selected was a collection of the usual suspects and indeed one of my erstwhile colleagues was peddling the virtues of Gerald Manley Hopkins to some of the younger girls of our camogie team during one of our road trips. Firstly I wouldn’t inflict Hopkins on anyone, there are more accessible poets around even moving beyond the Seamus Heaney et al set of Irish writers. In the last year I have discovered Norman MacCaig, Paul Durcan and Charles Bukowksi. That in addition to rereading the likes of Yeats, primarily for work purposes, Derek Mahon and Wordsworth. I find that for writing, poetry is by far the best stimulus along with music. I dread however to think what might emerge were I relying on a diet of Hopkins. Note to self to read Omeros by Derek Walcott. Note to others try it also, great stuff. Put that in your book club!

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I watched a documentary about U2 the other night. I admit to having gone form being a fan of their music to finding it tiresome. I put that down almost entirely to the pomposity and self importance of Bono (or Bonio as my former boss used to call him) The Edge and Larry Mullan Jr. Certainly they put on one hell of a show and if playing in Flowerfield or the Crescent I might go down to watch, but otherwise I’ll gently pass.

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Finally for this particular episode, I have watched and listened dismayed at the response of commentators and pundits in the south to the entry in the presidential race of Martin McGuinness. I don’t think Martin has handled his campaign that well – more attention should have been given to prepping him for the incessant and inevitable questions he would face. But no-one perhaps could have envisioned the non stop vitriol coming from every quarter, much of it not so much anti Sinn Fein as anti Northern and highly subjective. When probed many southern commentators and mouthpieces have little or no understanding about affairs up here. Therefore as empty vessels, the noise is deafening.

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