Zeusblog

The Dunwich Dynamo is a magnificently eccentric event. Every year, on a pre-arranged date (this year it’s July 4th), hundreds of cyclists turn up at London Fields. They pay £1 for photocopied directions (handily avoiding dangerous A-roads once you’re out of London) or just follow the long line of blinking red LED lights. Then they all ride off through the night to Dunwich on the Suffolk coast about 120 miles away. About halfway into the ride there’s a village that opens up its (warm and dry) village hall in the middle of the night and sells pasta salad, flapjacks and tea to refuel the weary cyclists. Other than that, you’re on your own - there’s no backup or rescue service. 

When you get to Dunwich you’re supposed to jump in the sea, but most people get breakfast at the beach cafe and fall asleep. To get back to London, you can book a slot for your bike in a furniture van and a seat for you on a coach. Some people catch the train back and some nutters ride back. People do it on all sorts of bikes; race bikes, touring bikes, commuting bikes, fixed wheelers, recumbents, folding bikes, and even tandems. I say even tandems because my cousin and I did it on a tandem a couple of years ago - quite the stupidest endurance endeavour I’ve ever undertaken. We thought it would be fun on a tandem and we might even be quite fast. But it was a tandem with soft mountain bike tyres - it was like pedalling through treacle, and in the rain; the torrential, unremitting, cold, wet, wet rain. We did have a lot of good laughs in the face of adversity though. Which is why we’re doing it again - but not on a tandem! If you’d like to join in, click here for details from the organisers.

You can get an idea what it’s like from this (quite long) video of the 2007 event, which was the one we did on a tandem…

Chalky

According to the BBC news site, the Local Government Association has published a list of words which should not be used. As we are not avid buzzword-bingo players, we wholeheartedly agree with most of them.

There are one or two such as ‘agencies’ or ‘priority’ which can be proper words as well as buzzwords, but by and large, the quality of all of our lives would go up a notch or two if we never have to read or hear about ‘engaging users in top-down bottom-up overarching multidisciplinary blue-sky thinking in a joined up meaningful dialogue’ or ‘benchmarking their transactional toolkits’ again.

Thank goodness it seems like it’s still alright to swear though.

I had a swimming lesson from a world record holder this weekend. She holds multiple world masters records - including every distance for freestyle in her age group and the age group below hers. (Note for less acquatically-inclined readers: masters swimming is competing by age group.)

It’s probably no surprise that she’s faster than me. But it may surprise you to learn that she is 78. Yes, that’s right - 78 years old. Her name is Jane Asher, and no, she’s not the cake lady. She certainly doesn’t look like she’s in her 70s, and she is a very good coach - she even got me tumble-turning which is a feat no-one else has ever achieved. She was very inspiring.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the great explorer, is another great inspiration. He believes that the best way to combat the effects of age is to become more and more active. I think there’s a lot to be said for that approach, although I wouldn’t advocate going to the same extremes as Sir Ranulph, who completed 7 marathons in 7 days a couple of months after undergoing open-heart surgery!

And in the London marathon last year, I was passed on the Embankment by lots of men who looked old enough to be my dad - although to be fair I was passed by almost everybody on the Embankment; I really must learn to pace myself properly.

Whenever I see old people getting on and doing things that most people half their age couldn’t do, such as 86 year old guys doing audaxes (100km + cycle rides) or the competitor at the Tooting Bec triathlon a few years ago whose t-shirt read,”Cyril, 80 not out”, I’m inspired and realise that’s one of the reasons I do triathlons. (Others include the chance to wear skin-tight lycra and rubber )

Having written this, I really can’t be lazy and go to work on the tube today, so I’m off to get my trusty Brompton out now and pedal to work.

Chalky

We were walking past Blacks yesterday and saw a sign saying, “Closing Down Sale”. It surprised us as neither of us had heard that Blacks were in trouble. It turns out that they aren’t in trouble, although perhaps they should be with the Advertising Standards Authority - or even Trading Standards. Blacks isn’t closing down at all, they’re just stopping selling winter and skiwear for the season.

So the sign should really say ‘End of Season Sale’. But someone at Blacks has obviously got their finger on the consumer pulse (and no qualms about misleading people) and knows that ‘Closing Down’ brings out the vulture in shoppers and that we are more likely to go in if we think they are desperate. It brought out the vulture in Julia and I, so we went in. We were a bit miffed at first that they were being so blatantly deceptive. But do you know what? It worked. Not only did it get us in the shop, we both bought something. There’s a moral about lack of morals in there somewhere.

I saw this on the back of a van this morning. It made me smile, not only because it had a picture of woman with a huge cheesy grin on it, but I think that it is a really clever and amusing use of the old trick, writing on a dirty white van.

Everybody has a go, we’ve all seen ‘Clean me’ hundreds of times and ‘I wish my wife was a dirty as this’, and loads of us in advertising have tried a version or another in our student portfolios. I think this one tops them all, so well done to whovever thought of it.

We even tried phoning the number for a laugh, but nobody answered - it would be very funny if it was a dentist.

Worth getting your finger dirty for

Julia

My son is nine years old and I’m constantly amazed by the things that he and his friends get obsessed with, and the way that these things are created and marketed. It seems that these things go through a cycle: they start to appear and arouse interest; everybody starts to collect them; they pass the kiddy-crack threshold and everybody gets completely obsessed with them to the point that the inevitable jealousies, falling-outs and sometimes fights bring them to the attention of the head teacher, who bans them from school; they then fade and die, to be replaced by the new fad. I’m not talking about merchandise related to a film or TV programme, although pestered parents do spend an awful lot of money on High School Musical tat for a bit of peace and quiet, I’m talking about things that are created purely to exploit this collect and obsess mechanism.

Smelly pencils

The current must-have items that are on the way to being obsessively collected at my son’s school, believe it or not, are Smencils. What are Smencils? Why they’re pencils that smell, of course. The item fading out of favour are GO-GOs, tiny plastic characters, which I have to say, are quite funky actually. I like GO-GOs, but I’m not nine, so that’s irrelevant. And the Oh-So-Over items are Match Attax football cards.

GO-GOs protecting my car from the forces of evil

They all have something in common, which is that they are available for pocket money prices, typically around a pound a pack, and that they are collectable. They usually have some kind of upgrade halfway through their shelf-life to give sales another push, for example GO-GOs produced GO-GO Evolution models, which were the same as the other ones, but with sparkly plastic.

There are several things that amaze me about this kiddy crack marketing. Such as how can you possibly tell what’s going to work? You might expect Match Attax cards to sell, since football is so popular. GO-GOs? Well they are quite funky, but I was quite surprised at how they took off with boys. But Smencils? Why rough-and-tumble, mud-covered boys want pencils that smell of grapes is quite beyond me.

How do they get the fads started? It’s not ads. I doubt they are using eight-year old thought leaders and early adopters to spearhead the trend. It’s a mystery to me.

The manufacturers must have to be very confident. They have to have millions of the things made and the distribution side all primed as the window of opportunity is so small. Maybe there are warehouses full of bad ideas that didn’t work. And how do the sales reps prime the newsagents? “Trust me on this but the next must-have item is a pencil that smells…”

It’s all a mystery to me, but I’d really love to think of the next one…

Chalky

Julia’s prone to making random pronouncements. “I LOVE staplers” was the latest. “Aren’t buses amazing?” was another.

They come completely out of the blue, and usually express child-like wonder at something quite ordinary. She’s right, of course. The simplicity and efficiency of staples are to be admired - I wish I’d invented them, and not just because I’d be rich. And buses are amazing when you think about them… how many people you can fit on one, the logistical complexity of organising the timetable, the percentage of old ladies that ride them, nutters on the night service - they are like worlds on wheels. And of course, the eternal mystery of why they’re always so stultifyingly hot.

So while I don’t often disagree with her viewpoint, after I’ve had a moment to tune into the topic, it’s the sheer randomness of these cheery statements that make me laugh out loud.

There must be, or should be, a name for this. It’s like tourettes syndrome, but without the swearing. Can’t wait for the next one.

Chalky