A friend of mine (@randomnine, indie coder extraordinaire, part-time musician and constructor of intricate and mutated boardgames) just tweeted this: “Easily the most emotionally powerful video I’ve seen all year, and it’s… an ad spot. Amazing.” The ad in question is Channel 4′s Paralympics spot. I can’t embed it due to copyright restrictions on the soundtrack, but you can take a look here: Channel 4...

Despite the fact that it’s far too hot, I love this time of year. Because it’s gooseberry season. Gooseberries are one of the last truly seasonal foods. They’re only available for a few weeks every year, so I’m forced to stockpile. Forced to, y’hear? Generally I try to eat a pretty balanced diet. It’s part of my endless desire to optimise everything. But for these few weeks, 95% of what I eat will be...

I’m an arrogant sod. That doesn’t mean I can’t admit I’m wrong… just that I don’t like doing it. You can relate, I’m sure. But we – and by we I mean all of us who always know best – need to remember there’s absolutely no shame in getting something wrong, realising we got something wrong and making a U-turn. This can be hard to do, because we all love to be consistent. Consistent in how...

Have you heard Muse’s Olympic anthem yet? I did, yesterday. In case you’ve missed it, here it is… but beware. Listen to the pundits, and you’ll be worried that pressing the play button will cause your computer to explode like an amp turned up to 111. To be honest, it was all a bit underwhelming. It’s not a bad song. In fact, it’s pretty good. Definitely wipes the floor with the usual Erasure-based rubbish...

Everyone in the marketing industry has something to learn from this business. They’ve got one of the most aggressive niching systems known. But thanks to this niching system, they can discard vast portions of the potential market, concentrate their sales efforts on the very best prospects and, most of the time, generate a significant financial return on these qualified leads. I am, of course, referring to the Nigerian E-mail Scam...