Busy Busy Busy

I’ve been flat out for the past few days, which is stressful but fun at the same time. After my little winery jaunt at the weekend I tagged along on a shoot and jetted off to Sydney for lunch, as you do, and then back to the grindstone in the evening rehashing those french scripts until my battery died. Today my eyes feel like they haven’t blinked all day and the world looks like I’m staring at a magic eye puzzle. So no fun post and no entertaining links, at least not until my thumping headache subsides.

Whitewash

I am so fed up of yoghurt. It feels like that’s all I’m doing at the moment, and for the foreseeable future. Vitamin D, real fruit pieces, calcium, growing bones, active cultures, delicious flavours, protein, 0% fat. Even better, I’m writing two scripts in French, which is pummelling the brain cells back into action.  Is it a coincidence that 99F centres around a pitch to ‘Madone’ for Maigrelette, a low-fat yoghurt? I feel as though I’m surrounded by all sorts of frightening resonances at the moment.

‘”Mon secret c’est… Maigrelette. Un exquis fromage blanc sans aucune matière grasse. Avec du calcium, des vitamines, des protéines. Pour être bien dans sa tête et dans son corps, il n’y a rien de meilleur.” Penser à rajouter une demo produit en 3D avec le yaourt qui se déverse dans une jatte de lait onctueux et les mots ‘calcium’, vitamines, ‘protéines’, ‘0% de m.g.’ en surimpression avec typo grasse plus impliquant/interpellante pour nos consommatrices.’

Would you like manners with that?

My faith in humanity is dwindling. I’ve been working part time in a pub for the best part of a month and every day I’m reminded of a) how rude people are and b) what a waste of money alcohol is. People will spend twenty or thirty quid on drinks night after night and have nothing to show for it. It’s so different seeing things from the other side of the bar, and it’s definitely put me off food and drink for the time being.

 

One of our regulars was complaining about his expensive divorce, having to pay school fees for his two daughters, the cost of stables for their horse, the list went on of course, and how was he ever going to afford Christmas because he was financially crippled. Tragic stuff. Needless to say if he hadn’t spent at least a tenner a night on flat beer and terrible company for the past year he’d be much better off, and his wife probably wouldn’t have left him in the first place.

 

But despite the burnt fingers, demanding guests, unwelcome stares, gristle spitting and exploding beer it’s all good experience. There’s a lot more to it than pulling pints – boundless enthusiasm, kicking out drug dealers, making fires, haute cuisine, stock control, negotiations, endless cleaning – and all within strict laws and tight brand guidelines. In fact, Ember’s approach to all that was what got me interested in branding in the first place, giving me first-hand experience of what brand standards were and why they were important.

 

For every guest that sees serving staff as the lowest of the low, with carte blanche to conveniently ignore the niceties of human interaction, thankfully there’s usually another that goes out of their way to be friendly and, most importantly, tips well. It’s people like that that keep me going every night, when I’m being told to fetch more mayonnaise for Chipmonster in the corner and trying to explain the difference between still and sparkling water to a man from Nigeria with Krony man putting the world to rights in the background and the quiz night crowd jostling for J20s at the bar.