Monday 27 September 2010

Along The Brown Sign Way all signs are created equal, and thankfully none are created more equal than others.

This morning I was sitting on the train reading The Corporation by Joel Bakan, a book essentially about the power and influence that corporations and businesses have over us, the lay people of this world, and it began to make me feel a little bit sick. I find it so sad that advertising and marketing techniques actually work on people in the first place. I've never liked people telling me what to do or being subjected to opinion I'm just not that interested in, it's one of the reasons I don't really watch TV (when I do I only watch something I really want to see) or read the papers (well, that'll be nothing actually because I find it extremely hard to read any newspapers at all), it's also why I mute the TV if I happen to be watching anything with adverts spliced in. I understand that advertising works, but to be honest it makes me feel a bit depressed that it may well work on me, so I avoid it wherever possible. Don't get me wrong, I do know that advertising is vital for most businesses to survive but I'm talking about advertising gone mental.

Monday 13 September 2010

The most appropriately spent Roald Dahl Day ever

After my huge excitement at finding out this morning that it is in fact Roald Dahl Day today it seemed only right that I should visit The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre at my soonest convenience. Happily I was already heading Buckinghamshire way to work on the exciting design of my new website with a man who knows his Photoshop. So when we should have been sitting down to some serious work, instead, after my not-too-strong persuasion, we were getting into the car and heading off to Great Missenden. I do love my unpaid, money-draining job.
Everyone loves Roald Dahl. Mention his name to any passing person, young or old, and it's likely you'll get an immediate smile and some happy recollections of long afternoons spent reading a favourite Dahl classic. I, of course, also read Roald Dahl, but I have to admit I only actually liked reading some of his books, these were (in order of preference) Danny The Champion of The World, The BFG and Fantastic Mr Fox.

Sunday 5 September 2010

Top secret Brown Sign Mission: Codes, 1984 computers and reusable condoms

I've wanted to visit Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire for some time. I like all things history, war and intrigue and Bletchley Park, where ingenious code breakers spent sleepless days and nights in make shift huts cracking the infamous German Enigma code, has to be the place to go to get all that. A good friend of mine (who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend) volunteered to come with me, good thing too, how else would I have completed the "know your planes - friend or foe?" game with almost 100% accuracy?
Having suffered in the last few weeks from a serious cash flow problem (read: cash non-existent problem) I haven't even been brown-signing very much at all, so I was a bit nervous about talking to Bletchley Park's Retail Manager about my project and the museum. I needn't have worried though, she was very excited about getting her brown signs noticed, loved the thought of more visitors happening upon them, proceeded to stick stickers all over us and shooed us out to discover the vast slightly randomness that is Bletchley Park for ourselves.