Zeusblog

Right now there’s a man in a bank with (possibly) a bomb strapped to him in Watford. The bank is surrounded by armed police. BBC news story is here. What caught our eye was that the police are keeping local residents informed via twitter and facebook. What’s more the hashtag they are using on twitter is #watfordbomb. You really couldn’t make it up…

EDIT Apparently he’s just been arrested.

I keep walking past this van that parks near where I live and I can’t help but think what were they thinking?

And why didn’t anyone speak up and point out that the logo says DIE?

Unless of course, I’m wrong and their divine events actually take place in heaven, in which case a logo that says DIE is perfectly appropriate.

The idea is colour-coded running tops.  And like all ideas, it’s a combination of two existing things brought together in a new way. For example, Edison’s invention of the light bulb (the iconic symbol of a new idea) was a combination of the fact that wire heats up and becomes bright when an electric current is passed through it and the fact that nothing burns in a vacuum – put them together and Eureka! you have invented the light bulb.

At xempo.co.uk they’ve brought together the idea of runners being obsessed with their personal best (PB) times and how coloured belts are awarded for different levels of proficiency in martial arts to create colour coded running tops based on PBs. (They also have the time category printed on the shirts so you can also impress those who aren’t in the know.)

When you buy the kit, xempo verify your claimed time to check that you are entitled to wear the colour you’ve ordered. They currently apply to marathon and half marathon times. If you have completed either distance, you qualify for the white top, and then the other colours depend on which category your PB falls into.

There is, I think, only one flaw in their idea, because although I could order an orange marathon one or a green half marathon one now, I might delay purchase until I can get a better colour. I’m even looking for a half marathon to enter so I can get a blue one (I’ve hit the necessary time once before, but before 2008, which is xempo’s starting point).

But then I suppose more people will buy a top and then buy another one if they improve. If it’s caught other runners’ imaginations in the same way that it has caught mine, then they’re onto a winner.

We’ve agreed to disagree over the Royal Wedding.

Julia loves a good cry at weddings and so all the fuss over the Royal Wedding is just fine with her. She’d like to recommend this link to our dear readers.

Chalky is pretending it isn’t happening, and as far as he is concerned the bank holiday is in honour of his own wedding anniversary, which happens to fall on the same day. He’d like to suggest this link to you.

We are both in agreement though that a Bank Holiday is a very good idea.

The census forms have hit the doormats this week and although we are all legally obliged to complete and return them, I predict that there will be much hand-wringing about low response rates. All kinds of politicians, historians and social commentators will be lined up to spout off about whether the problem is that people don’t understand the need for the information to be gathered, or that they feel the questions are too intrusive, or that people will think that they will be prosecuted for benefits fraud if they reveal that they have an undeclared lodger or that they weren’t actually available for work on the census date. They will all miss the point. The problem is that the forms have been delivered nearly three weeks ahead of when they have to be filled in. While it’s true that they have put in question 17 to try and keep our interest levels up – can you think of any possible reason why has it been “intentionally left blank”? – but that’s nearly three weeks for the form to be put on one side, have other post piled on top of it and forgotten about. When did you last see a piece of direct mail that implored you to act in three weeks time? I doubt that even the most hard core direct mail monster has ever bothered to test a call to action like that.

This Friday’s Euromillions lottery jackpot is £36million. So I bought a ticket last Saturday, not because I think I’m going to win (because I know, in reality, I’m not), but because it’s like renting a really great daydream for the £2 I paid for my ticket. For less than 30p a day, I get to fantasise about new cars, holiday homes, and charitable projects that could make the world a better place. I could dream about all those things without paying £2 of course, but the daydream would be more short-lived, at least by buying a ticket there is a very, very small chance that I could actually win. And when I do think “Oh I’m not going to win” then there’s the UK £1million raffle number on the ticket to set me off all over again, although on a reduced budget. Anyway, must finish now as I’ve got to choose the colour of my new helicopter.

Spotted this restaurant the other day and it made me laugh. The idea of oriental food with a black country accent – what would that be like? Noodles in a Bank’s Mild sauce perhaps? Or Scratching Spring Rolls?

For non-Brummie readers perhaps I ought to explain. A ‘Yam-Yam’ is a derogatory name used by Brummies for people from the black country (Halesowen, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Walsall etc). We’re often lumped together, but our accents are quite different, and one of the strangest things they do is to say “Yao Am” instead of “You are”. And when this is part of their sing-song accent, it gets shortened to “Yam” as in “Yam gooin down the pub?” Hence Brummies call black country folk “Yam Yams”, and it puzzles us why you’d name your noodle bar after them.

After ten years in the same office, our lease was up and so it seemed like the right time to take a step back and think long and hard about whether we still needed a West End address. Actually, unlike politicians who find every decision tough and every choice hard,  it was pretty obvious to us that we didn’t. The internet has changed our working practices quite significantly since we started Zeus nearly twelve years ago; approvals and proofs are now all done via PDFs in emails, and briefings too come in via email or conference call. It’s also less disruptive for our clients if we go to their premises for meetings, especially if there is more than one of them involved. The only exception was around Xmas time when late afternoon meetings near Oxford Street mysteriously became more popular. Strange that.

So we decided to set up home offices and invest in IT (mac-based of course) so that we could work together or apart in Finchley and Pinner, or anywhere else for that matter, without any detrimental effect on the quality and speed of our work. For years people have been saying technology would fundamentally change the way we do business and that’s exactly what we’ve done. Of course we were also told that we would have jet-packs by now, but we’re still waiting for those to arrive.

So what does it mean for our clients? Well apart from those Xmas shopping meetings, as the title of this post suggests, it makes no difference at all – we’ve already been working like this since mid December. Our phone number remains the same – 020 7255 2582 – wherever we happen to be working that day (we’ll usually be together in Pinner by the way), and our email and web addresses will be exactly as before. All that will change is our address for correspondence, which will now be the Finchley address you’ll find on the contact page of this website. We look forward to doing business with you as usual.

Just spotted this fantastic tumblr blog – Things Real People Don’t Say About Advertising – courtesy of the fantastic B3ta.com(which may not always be entirely safe for work), which gives a clue to the sort of things we have to wrestle with on a day-to-day basis. We do, honestly, we do.

There’s nothing I like better than a good eccentric race, and there’s nothing quite as eccentric as the Brompton World Championships at Blenheim Palace: race regulations require a collar, tie and jacket and a Le Mans style start. This year I opted for a dickie bow, hoping it would be a little more aerodynamic than a tie

Did it work? Well, in spite of appalling conditions, I finished 63rd IN THE WORLD! (Moving me five places up in the world ranking from last year.) So I am well pleased to say the least. And there were over 750 entrants, before you’re tempted to ask in the comments “how many competitors were there – 63?”

The official video gives a good idea of the spirit of the event…