Predictably, the dynamic folks at Marketing Leeds maintained a dignified silence in response to my e-mail, and after all, who could blame them? How were they to know that Hong Kong had been running a major marketing campaign for two years using the very slogan they had come up with? It’s not as if Jackie Chan, the star of the promotion, was a well-known figure, was it? And when you’ve only got £150,000 to play with, you can’t expect every tiny problem to be sorted out, can you? The business editor of the Yorkshire Evening Post, Nigel Scott, was, in contrast, admirably swift in his reply to me on the copyright issue. Apparently, they haven’t copyrighted “Leeds” but the slogan “Leeds Live it Love it”. I wonder what the Hong Kong equivalent of m’learned friends will think about that?
Incidentally, when I were a lad, the slogan for the Evening Post was “there’s nowt like it at night!” You can imagine the Marketing Leeds suits spluttering into their canapes at that….
Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | ‘They said you’ve a call from the Nobel committee. I said, why?’: Pinter, it seems, is pretty surprised to be awarded the Nobel. And, as might have been expected, he too feels it may be as much to do with his politics as with his plays. He says: “But I suspected that they must have taken my political activities into consideration since my political engagement is very much part of my work. It’s interwoven into many of my plays. But I will find out more when I go to Stockholm in December. I’m told I am required to make a 45-minute speech which is the longest speech I will ever have made. Of course, I intend to say whatever it is I think. I may well address the state of the world. I’ll be interested myself to find out how I’m going to articulate the whole thing.”
I notice that the Marketing Leeds people are shamelessly sticking with their Live It Love It slogan, and have even managed to copyright the word Leeds – how did that happen? Surely that can’t be right? I’ll ask them and report back. In the meantime, I think I’ll copyright, oooh, “Tunbridge Wells”… And has there ever been a more pathetic invitation than “We will soon be launching our consumer-focused websites, where everyone will be able to live and love Leeds all day every day”
Yuk!
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Pinter wins Nobel literary prize
I suppose this is not entirely unexpected, though it will cause much harrumphing in certain quarters. I can’t help feeling that this is not so much an award for his literary output – what has he done in the last few years, really? – but for his political views, which, I dare say, are in tune with those of the Nobel committee. And of course, given that he has a very serious medical condition, it’s maybe a question of if not now, when? Should be an interesting acceptance speech!
BBC NEWS | England | West Yorkshire | Row over second-hand city slogan
This is a hoot (Leeds in-joke). Two things need to be said. First, in answer to the councillors who asked whether the city has got value for £150,000 research and launch costs, the answer is NO. The second thing, leaving aside the breathtaking incompetence of a firm that can charge that sort of money for a second hand slogan, is – what the hell does it mean? Live what? Love what? The “it” can only refer to the city, so I suppose charitably we could say the slogan suggests that the reader will love Leeds – the verb’s in the command form, so we don’t apparently have a choice. But live it? How do I “live” a city? If we must have marketing slogans for places – and I seriously doubt we do – at least let’s have ones that mean something. It’s asking too much of course. Personally, if I were Leeds council, I’d be asking for my money back. And if they really want a slogan, organise a competition in the city’s schools, and give the winner a book token. It’ll be bound to come up with a better idea than this vacuous nonsense. It makes the “Marketing Leeds” puffery all the more laughable – their website says ” Come back soon to see how the cream of Leeds enjoyed the Marketing Leeds launch party and the much-anticipated unveiling of the new Leeds brand.”
I’m tempted to add that Leeds has a city motto -Pro rege et lege – that at least has some dignity. The current campaign, apart from being nicked from Hong Kong of course, is more reminiscent of Macd*nald’s “I’m lovin’ it” than anything. But that’s what comes of trying to sell a place as if it were a burger, I suppose.
BBC NEWS | England | Manchester | Fergie ‘too famous’ for bill ban
I’m with the judge here – the prospect of a Fergie doll is just too gruesome to contemplate. Presumably it would have auto red face function and special hairdryer effect…
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Diplomat ‘was real Shakespeare’…to which the most obvious reply is “yeah, right.” I wonder why there is such an industry trying to prove that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays. Jonson, who had an even less privileged background than Shakespeare, has never, to my knowledge, been doubted as the author of his plays, but most of the anti-Shakespeare brigade rest their case on some variation of the “he wasn’t bright enough to have written the works” argument. And whilst there is little we actually know for sure about Shakespeare, there is a historical record that documents his life, and various contemporaries said things in praise of him. I doubt whether the authors of this latest study have found any documents in which someone says definitively that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays. See also, the claims of the Marlowe Society that Marlowe wasn’t actually killed in a tavern brawl, but lived in exile – some believing that he wrote some “Shakespeare” too.
This book will join the rest of a surprisingly long list of books which reveal – absolutely definitely – that Shakespeare’s plays were written by Bacon, Queen Elizabeth, the Bishop of Llandaff, a committee, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Rutland etc etc…
Of course, there is a radical alternative to these brilliant theses: maybe some bloke from Stratford was behind all those plays.
BBC NEWS | Education | Literary greats ‘key to English’
Well – who knew, eh?
Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | The price of unfairness
More on the Marlborough boy. Mark Lawson points out that the case is symptomatic of a society in which people think money entitles them to anything. I’m reminded of a student who didn’t attend, nor do any work, and didn’t respond to messages asking him to contact me. When I finally tracked him down, I told him I couldn’t see in what way he could be classified as a student. He was most put out – angry even – and insisted that he was a student. When I asked him on what basis he could claim that, against all the evidence, he said “I’ve paid my fees.” I hadn’t the heart to tell him his fees were no more than a contribution to the cost of his education, and that they would probably account for no more than a couple of months of his course. What concerned me more was his notion that simply by registering, and paying his tuition fee, he became a student – no study was involved, apparently.
Girl arrested over Bollocks to Blair shirt – Horse&Hound Online Here’s a first – a link to a story in Horse and Hound, not the urban vegetarian’s journal of choice. But this is ludicrous. No police were present at my workplace today when I was confronted by a trainee primary teacher wearing a tee-shirt with the marvellously witty slogan “Born to FCUK”.