Talking of having a wee, I popped into the gents at Preston station this morning before boarding the Arriva TransPennine TraumaTrain™ for the very last time before Christmas (thank God).

Like a lot of public comfort stations (and with a bladder like mine I've seen a LOT), these have a little chart on the door stating that some lowly, underpaid drone has done his duty in the last hour and checked the bogs. There was indeed a little signature agains "06.00" to say that the chap had stuck his head round the door.

In this particular case, he'd presumably checked that the urinals were STILL full of fag ends and chewing gum, that the taps STILL don't work and the whole place STILL smells as if someone's died.

Things I’ve seen number two: public pissing

Two episodes of broad-daylight urination that stand out:

The first, Stockholm in 2001, at my local systembolaget (state liquor store) – at about 2pm (so broad daylight even in Sweden).

A guy walking out as I was walking in. Business suit, obviously not poor – but clutching the week’s special bottle of gin, whisky, vodka or whatever to his chest like a newborn baby. He walks to the kerb, stops, unzips and starts letting forth into the gutter without even a hint of embarrassment.


The second, Paris, May or June this year. Again, broad daylight in the entrance to the Gare de l’est metro station.

A woman, middle age, crouching in the corner, skirt and tights round her ankles, gushing a stream that would put most horsse to shame. Public toilets? 20m away.

Things I've seen Number 1

One summer's day in Cambridge, on one of the main shopping streets (opposite John Lewis - but that's not important right now).

A guy accompanied by three women (apparently his wife and two daughters). He was carrying a cup of tea and a handful of those little pots of UHT milk you get.

He opens the tea, pours one of the pots of milk into it, then passes two each to the women.

Who drink them neat.

I know another copywriter, who's looking for some freelance right now. His website (which is jolly good) is www.mighter-than.com.

Obviously you should offer me the work before you give it to him, but he's a good second choice.

However much I moan about the copywriting you see in Britain (like a 48-sheet ad for Tescos that said "Chart CD's"), it's as nothing compared to what you see in Singapore. Like this, which is a press release for some New Year party:

"NEW YEAR STREET PARTY - WED 31 DEC

The whole of Pekin Street is going to be turn into a massive party on New
Years Eve and it is definitely the place to be to count the New Year in
true part style. Smirnoff are helping hosting the event with together with
all our friends along the street. Drinks will be same price at all the Bars
so don't worry about where, just make sure your there to indulge!"

One of the most irritating thing about my job is when you go and present some nice work to a client, and they say something like this:

"Well we really like (exciting impactful campaign idea), but our consumers are really dull, techy types, so this is a bit risky. We'd better go with (dull anodyne campaign idea which is only being presented to make the other one look even better)."

This is, of course, complete bollocks. Imagine you're selling something like a router, which is some piece of gubbins that allows computers in a network to talk to each other. You're probably selling it to the IT manager, the finance manager or the managing director. These people may have high powered jobs, and they may spend a lot of their days playing with grey boxes, counting beans or firing people - which is where I think clients get the idea that they will somehow be frightened by interesting marketing materials.

But (and this is the bit they apparently don't teach you in marketing school), THEY'RE ONLY PEOPLE!!

When they go home, they have wives, husbands, kids, friends and everything else that the rest of us have (well not friends in my case obviously). They buy the same products as the rest of us, they have a sense of the aesthetic and (wait for it, this is the clever bit)

They're people that react to cool advertising for consumer goods, and they're people that buy things because of it.

So why, exactly, do otherwise intelligent people forget this, and try to make them spend serious amounts of money from their budgets based on dull, uninteresting mailings? One company that used to be a client of mine used to send single sheet A4 product sheets (which basically list features, benefits and specifications and that's your lot) in order to try and sel equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Needless to say they didn't sell very many. We (and I mean the creatives) managed to persuade them to do something a bit (and only a bit - but sometimes these things take time) more inetersting, and their sales went up by 200%.

Even worse is when the bloody account people at the agency start watering concepts down before they even get presented. It's not the best way to manage a client relationship.

I've added a comments section now, so you can pass judgement on anything I say. That's if there's anyone reading (apart from you, Nigel).

I just worked it out, and I have friends from

UK
USA
Canada
Brazil
Ecuador
Argentina
New Zealand
Australia
India
Singapore
Malaysia
Hong Kong
Philippines
South Africa
France
Ireland
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden
Germany
Austria
Switzerland
Poland
Ukraine
Spain
Italy
Estonia

Which, when you think about it, is quite nice.

I know I keep going on about the train, but it takes up nearly four hours of my day every day at the moment, so as you can imagine it looms large in my mind

Anyway – this is a nice story. On Friday the train was just pulling into Leeds, carrying its cargo of sleepy, slightly pissed-off commuters – all of whom were no doubt telling themselves that they just had one more slog before the weekend. The conductor (or train manager or whatever the hell they call them these days) comes over the tannoy:

“This train will shortly be arriving at Leeds, which is our next station stop. This is a message for the girls in the front carriage. I’ve looked at my timetable, and there’s a train departing in two minutes’ time for Meadowhall from Platform 14. You could make it if you run, but I’m guessing that you’d prefer to get the one leaving from platform 11 in half an hour. If I was you I’d sit in the warm in McDonalds and have a nice breakfast. It’s only £1.99 and great value.”

A pause…

“And that goes for anyone else traveling to Meadowhall, too.”

Laughter.

It wasn’t especially funny, and it looks a lot less so written down. But everyone on the train laughed or at least smiled – and they all got off the train a little happier than they’d been getting on it.

The point is that I think that sort of thing only happens in Britain. You can sit on the tunnelbana in Stockholm, the metro in Paris or the MRT in Singapore all day (and they’re all better transport systems than you get in the UK) and never hear anything like that. In fact, thinking about it, Brits are pretty funny people – and they take pleasure in making other people, even total strangers, smile and laugh. Think about it: you watch two strangers meet in Britain and I bet you that within a minute one or other or both of them will say something funny or at least something that makes the other smile. Does that happen anywhere else? I doubt it.