If you live in Italy, UK, US, Sweden, Thailand, Belgium or the Netherlands you can donate by SMS: http://www.psfk.com/2004/12/tsunami_charity.html
Posted by Guy Brighton at 5:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
http://www.ifrc.org/helpnow/donate/donate_response.asp
Posted by Guy Brighton at 7:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blogging sucks when people searching on google for:
and your blog about nonsense comes second on the list....
Posted by Guy Brighton at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted by Guy Brighton at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Lady yesterday took her flight from JFK yesterday to India for a holiday she had booked. She left very nervous. Before she departed, in view of the current situation, I thought the most reliable place to check the situation for travelers would be to check the British Foreign Office website.
The following travel advice is all I could find there (and on the British High Commission of India’s web site):
Press Release re. Jack Straw’s condolences: British nationals are advised to look carefully at the Travel Advice before undertaking journeys to regions affected by the tragedy.
India Travel Advice Page: Tidal waves have hit India following a major earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The FCO emergency telephone number is as follows: 0207 008 0000
Now, please let me add some context to this information provided: In the aftermath of this tragedy hundreds of websites and weblogs (blogs) have reported very important information that has helped document the tragedy and even aid the relief effort. Eyewitness accounts are here, here, here, here. People are using the web for desperate requests to find relatives. Bloggers including World Changing are providing first-hand reports and helping to coordinate relief efforts and here. And that’s just a few - check what the New York Times has to say about the impact of the blog on the disaster: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/28/technology/28blogs.html
At the end of the day, my girlfriend being nervous about flying to Kerala is one thing but – if all these people around the world can provide all this information in real time - I wonder why the Foreign Office failed to all those British relatives looking to find information about the situation and loved ones in Southern Asia.
After 9/11 and the lessons learned - I don’t understand that governments still fail to see that web as a mechanism to immediately convey important information to a needy and nervous public. Why could the Foreign Office only provide a (engaged) telephone number???
Posted by Guy Brighton at 8:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
A year exactly after the Iran earthquake in Bam, it's sad to read about the vast effect of the Indonesian earthquake on a large section of Asia. My thoughts and prayers are with those families living there.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 7:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I am a New Yorker. Official. I sit on a comfortable seat on an Amtrak to Philly whist other poor souls stand. Ok I feel guilty about the pregnant woman but hey I'm a New Yorker.
I've worked out the mysteries of getting a seat. As the crowds flock to the track entrance (9W today) you pop down to the mezzanine track and get to the track with no line or busy body checking to see if I am a terrorist. The joy of seats...
(that was a joke about the preggers woman, she's probably just chubby)
G via crackblogging
Posted by Guy Brighton at 5:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
So there I was. I got some time off from my company - well an extended lunch break - and popped round the stores. You'd think that working on the edge of SoHo you'd be in a good position but there's so much choice there's little impetus to make a rash decision.
Also - I had a list from the Lady and I thought I could bang out a couple in Bloomingdale's. This was going to be simple. This year there would be no acute disappointment. Last year it took the Lady three months to start using the wallet I bought her and about three weeks ago, she announced what a great gift that book on interior design was.
No slow burn Santa this year - perfume and a toiletries bag from Bloomingdale's. First stop, perfume. Can't go wrong. Duck through the doors off Broadway, avoid go downstairs to the men's department and push on forward through the back lit kiosks manned by two dozen women armed with sprays and make up samples.
Head down, I got thirty yards into the store without a puff of scent landing on me by the time I met the well tanned Southern blonde behind the Jo Malone stand. I looked at the wall behind her filled with neat rows of bottles and said, "Tell me there's only one Jo Malone perfume."
She grinned and her hand swished away towards the square bottles on a small table. "And do you want scent or parfum?"
I'd find out which was more expensive later, I thought.
"So these ten bottles are different scents?" I asked. She nodded with sympathy and then recognized my accent. She pointed out which was the most popular in the US and which was the most popular in the UK.
"This is Ms. Malone's signature scent," she said as I tried to duck the cloud of droplets. We chit chatted. I chose the British choice - she could bring it back if she wasn't too happy with it. Unlike her boyfriend.
I thought about the toiletries bag I had to buy upstairs as my sales person wrapped my gift and exchanged small talk with another blonde. She stopped. There was a small conference. Wrong choice maybe? Had the Lady phoned in to warn them?
No. They were asking if I'd like 15% off that day if I signed up for their credit card today. I looked around - the Lady wasn't there to stop me applying for debt, and hell, one needs to build up one's credit rating in the US. Everyone knows that. "And I can spend the 15% up in the bag department?" I asked.
"Sure," the blode said. Bonus.Then her eyes lit up. "Oh we have a great selection of bags," she said in what I think was near-honesty. "Do me a favor will you?" she asked.
"Of course," I said trying to soften the blow if I was going to get rejected by the computer as she tapped in my details.
Then she called over her friends. Suddenly I was surrounded by some well made up, perma-tanned 35-45 year olds, many blonde. My blonde's hand swished my way and announced to her colleagues, "Here girls, is a real man. He knows what a woman wants." The other blondes were checking me out like a piece of forbidden spicy chicken sat in a barbecue bowl. "He just bought this perfume and now he's going to go up and buy his Lady a bag!"
The crowd looked on and cooed at the thought of me buying some glamorous hand bag for my girlfriend. For a moment, I felt the pressure and thought about upgrading my gift choice. Ands then I retracted that thought: I'd only choose the wrong one, spend too much money.
I'll just not tell these ladies the truth. I'll never see them after I get away from this desk anyway.
"Do us all a favor," my blonde asked me. "You're a man who gets it." The group of women nod and mutter in agreement. They may have taken a small step forward too - I don't know for sure - my vision was becoming blinkered. Red exit signs - where are they. "We want to know what a real man buys her girlfriend," she went on. "Do us all a favor and show us what you bought when you come back down."
Huh? (a) I wasn't planning going to be buying anything more than an overpriced toiletries bag on the next floor and (b) I now had the majority of sales staff on the ground floor awaiting for my purchase of some wonderful hand bag.
Oh my gawd.
They waved me off and as I arose on the escalator I looked around to see the blondes move around the cosmetics floor as if they were robotic sentries choreographed to intercept any fleeing fella.
Upstairs I dived for the first bag that looked like the right size, shape. I fumbled with it and fled towards the cashier desk. As I got there I looked at a little aisle at some plastic 'little brown bags' - they were cute for an out of towner, maybe something nice for my mum. I took them both. I hoped the girl would wrap them but she plonked them into my larger brown bag and waved me off.
I looked into the bag. A Kate Spade toiletries bag - expensive for what it was, but not a hand bag; and a tourist-trap brown paper bag that was plastic - I gulped. As I descended to the ground floor, I realised that I was going to let down a lot of sales staff: but then the great escape! There was a back escalator down to the basement/Men's department.
I had to sneak through the department, up the stairs at the front and rushed so quickly out of the front door, the security checked me out. Outside I panted and hurried along, unable to check if I had been seen. I just kept walking - I wouldn't have to see the southern blonde ever again, nor her horde of friends - but then it hit me....
What happens if I've got the wrong bag? I'd have to sneak back in! What happens if I got the wrong perfume?
Oh my gawd!
Posted by Guy Brighton at 8:44 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Tried a little recovering with a quick pint in the Passerby with Bill USA. I blame him for leaving me at the party last night. If he had stayed it would have been fine and I still wouldn't be in trouble with the Lady.
A few hours pass and the place is fun but I can't remember this happening!
Posted by Guy Brighton at 11:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Just to warn ya: You're going to start seeing some random looking posts because I have worked out how to post from my BlackBerry - so I am trying to send updates when I am out and about.
The problem lies in the fact that by pint three I forget all about it - hence yesterday's random posts. Was a very good night. Will update the story soon.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
So I wake up. The red lines look like 9.30am and the phone is ringing again. My arm leads to me to look over the bed. It's not in it's holder. I let out air and collapse down. I wish pillows felt this comfortable when I tried to go to sleep.
The phone rings again. I stumble out into the living room/area/kitchen and find the fkr. Back to bed, roll on, tap the button.
"Hello?"
"You don't sound too happy to hear from me!"
"Hey babe."
"So how was the party?"
"Can speak about this later?"
"Why can't we speak now?"
"What time is it?"
"I thought you were working today. You should be up."
"I've been up for hours!"
"So how was the party?"
I can't recollect a thing. Except the worst things. The night stared in Von - there was a girl in a wife-beater who looked so good it was if we were looking at her at the end of the night. Bill USA upset Adie when he found out he was losing his job. A week before Christmas, Geez. We crashed a party over near University Place. The host was glad to see the guests at her party double.
Bill USA and I make a quick excuse to get beers and head down Broadway to Daz Crawley's office party. Now it's getting difficult to remember. Daz Crawley found the office space below his work is empty, had broken in and decided to hold a party. From somewhere he's managed to get all the booze supplied for free. A coupla Djs on their little macs, a mixed crowd, dim lights, line for the bog - a good buzz - now this is more like it. Then, the Lady's friends arrived. Well, I was pleasant to Hassabi - no mention of her bottom. Where was I?
"So how was the party?" the Lady asks again.
"It was alright sweet heart."
"Ali says it was great. You all got fkd up."
"That's a bit strong."
Think Guy, Think.
"There was an open bar but I got home by 2"
"4"
"4? You're all the way in Philadelphia and you still know what time I got in!"
"Were you talking to Lianne."
"I said hello."
"And were you dancing with Lianne?"
"No, not at all."
That might have been to quick.
"Well go check your phone then."
Luckily it's in the corner where I threw it when the alarm woke me up. I look at it I check my last message to the Lady: HAVIN FUN. BEER. DANCING. LIANNE HERE. SAYS HI.
"And what 'bout Hew?"
"Who's he?"
"He was the film director you were talking too."
"Oh yeah. I thought his name was Tim."
It still is shady. I talked to a good few people - well, the wind was up - so I don't know what I was talking about with any of them. Not at 9.30am anyway.
"Babe, can we talk later?"
"You disappoint me, Guy."
Click.
Oh well one more person disappointed in the real Guy Brighton. I had let down Hew as well I reckoned. Somehow the fella had read all of this blog - when I met him, he couldn't believe it. "No, no, no," he said and checked me out. He was in shock. What did he expect a blonde with big tIts?
Posted by Guy Brighton at 9:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Bill USA just told Ali that he had been for interview for job at his place. Ali in tears. Bill going for Ali's job!
Hang on a second - everything is going blurry.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 7:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Phase 1. Von. Friday night with the boys and the barmaid looks like how she should look at the end of the night. Reports all night.
Yeah, Stella please
Posted by Guy Brighton at 7:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What the hell is that?
Posted by Guy Brighton at 11:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I am sat in the lobby at the Sheraton New York after a meeting here today - using their wireless and it looks like a hundred Singapore airline girls have just congregated before me. Very pretty. Almost heavenly situation - if only it was summer and they weren't wearing those big blue coats.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 6:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mate,
You get busy, mobility gets restricted, schedule a little less flexible. And that's just me. Before I worked I thought that having money would have more freedom to do what I wanted to do no longer would I be restricted because I don’t have the money (and surely I should be staying at home paying off my debts, paying her for rent before I should go out when I have no money). Now that I have a little money I am expected to spend that time that I thought would be free doing my best to make a home. This means I am restricted in my social life as I should be supposedly dedicating my funds to the upkeep of the apartment and one day this ring thing that her mother keeps talking about. And her grandmother, and her father, and her cousin. And my mother.
Does this desire for freedom just another expression of the human need for change? When I had no money, I wished for a job and for a decent living. Now I have a job and a decent living, I long for the time I had when I was out of work and the freedom I had when I last lived in London.
So analyzing this allows me to conclude that I should resign myself to the fact that today is the best it will ever get. Yesterday it was the day where it was the best it will ever get. Tomorrow is too.
Where does all this lead to? Don't ask me mate. I'm writing this on the 2.23 out of Grand Central to White Plains. If this is really as good as it's going to get the ticket collector would have been a gorgeous brunette with a saucy smile. Obviously the last para is a joke if my girlfriend ever reads it but if she doesn't then...
The poster on the station we have pulled up to beside me makes me laugh. A man and a woman pose on a couch for an ad for shoes. Someone's scrawled by the pretty man's mouth 'I am gay' and by the lonely woman's mouth 'I want dick'. I wonder how true that really was on the day of the shoot. Now, meeting her would have been a good day. Maybe not him. Unless he was the sort of guy with a credit card behind the bar. Now that would be a best day. Obviously the last para is a joke if my girlfriend ever reads it but if she doesn't then...
I appreciate the concern about the Lady. Don’t worry: she asked me, again, to leave the apartment and find a place to stay last night. And work? Somedays I walk around with the impression all of my ideas are wrong. Then I find out I am wrong for no longer expressing my ideas. I have no idea why. Bosses and girlfriends. I am reminded about that poster on the platform of that long departed station.
Tuckahoe. Where's that? I hope they have an ATM at the station at White Plains.
So - enough. I love your friendship and I love your life. Man, imagine having a baby girl. Wow.
And to sign off: my current most favorite line from a movie - Dazed & Confused. Pink tells his old friends gathered for one last blow out: "I don’t want to wake up one day to find that these were the best days of my life."
GB
Posted by Guy Brighton at 5:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Today I felt that cold that reminded me how cold the winter’s going to be. You pop out to grab a coffee and you realize your jeans are no good for the cold. Nor the light shirt on your back.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Saw The Pixies. Everyone loved them. I recognized one song. Where was I when everyone was into this music? Oh yeah!
Ensured we all went for a pint in a dodgy Irish bar full of off duty Fire Fighters and/or 18 year old girls. The Tempest I think. Quite releaving to find a bar so busy on a Monday night.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 12:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I tried to make it up with the Lady by taking her to some dance. Well... I thought tha some culture that she would never associate me with might put me in her good books. The response was so-so as she loved the idea but was a little horrified that we were in the front row: "How will we be able to take it all in?" she asked.
"Baby," I replied. "We're going to be so close we can smell the sweat!"
She was nonplussed.
We went and saw Dead Is Dead by Maria Hassabi and gang. Dressed by that curly haired chap I have seen around (with a funny moon shaped handbag), As Four (mainly in the Passer By), the troupe jumped up and down, screamed, sang, yelped, danced to disco. I think Bjork was sat at the back. The Lady was enjoying it and Hussabi and co seemed to be hell bent on wiggling their bottoms in my face.
At face value it was amazing - what it was about, I decided not to speculate. Teh Lady was happy and I even convinced her that Bjork couldn't have had a better view. Well, of Hassabi's bottom anyway.
1
Posted by Guy Brighton at 12:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
To try to patch things up with the Lady I took her to a new pizza place just round the corner from ours (Gioia) on Friday night. She had been looking thru the window for a few weeks waiting for it to open. Just what we need in the area, she said.
It wasn;t very planned. I was on the way home wondering what I was goign to do to cheer the Lady up when I walked past and saw it heaving. So I call her from outside and agreed to meet her there.
As I waited unattended I realized it was the opening night. That would be a treat, I thought.
The Lady turns up and is greeted well by the very friendly manager who has ignored me until this point. There are no seats available and he sits us down at the bar by the kitchen with a bottle of red wine which was a little pricey for house.
She sits and is excited. Meanwhile the kitchen is in chaos: the senior chef is taking over the sous chef's dishes and the the sous chef is checking to see if there are any mushrooms left. What, no mushrooms at a pizza place on Friday night?
I tell the Lady she has nothing to worry about as three couples who have just walked in get seated. I point at the stone oven to distract the Lady. Oooh, fire.
Whn we get seated the manager’s Italian American mates turn up and mob the place, it takes 30 minutes to give an order. The pizzas come pretty quickly but I watch the sous chef cover my pizza with masses of rocket/arugala to hide the charring. Every mouthful I smile at the Lady and confess how great the pizza is whilst the black soot crumbles down my throat.
Her food comes tepid but she can;t ask anybody about it becuase the staff are snapping at each other. It's chaos.
I dread her reaction....
She loves it. She loves the anarchy, the craziness, the drama, the people. Maybe she'll open up Cafe Ayotolla after all! It seams so easy!
Maybe it's the red wine, I think thankfully.
She still hasn't forgiven me though, she reminds me as she skips home, her arm through mine.
The dread returns....
Posted by Guy Brighton at 6:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
After a while your laughter will turn to tears: http://www.toplookalikes.co.uk/index.htm
Posted by Guy Brighton at 11:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Some days I seem to be always in trouble. I can’t put a foot forward, keep my shoes on in the apartment, forget to clean the sink, leave the bathroom lights on, let her fall asleep though a film, lose my keys, buy an overpriced pair of jeans/shirt/sneakers without the Lady going ballistic.
She spends more time telling me off than she does being in a huff with me. Now that’s serious.
She also got upset with me because I spoiled a ‘date’ with her tonight. We organized this date to try to overcome this upset she has with me. We/she decided that the latest Almodavar flick would be perfect. Perfect penance.
Just before I leave work I accidentally ask the partner from the LA office what he's doing tonight. I only asked as a courtesy as he just got off the plane and he says 'Let's have a beer!' What do you do? The Lady said she understood. Nice red wine in this tower looking over central park at the Mandarin Oriental… when I walked into the lobby you should have seen the doorman block me. He positioned himself in such a way that it wasn’t rude, but that I knew he was stopping my entry.
When I returned to the apartment I found myself locked out (see loss of keys problem above) and I can't reach the Lady so I had to camp out at the Brass Monkey. Ah. Nothing like a quiet pint on your own when you're in the dog house served by chatty Essex and Irish girls.
At about 1am she calls me - she went to the late showing of the film. I get back in and make tail-between-legs like posture as I ask how the film was. She slept through it! Guess whose fault that was?
Posted by Guy Brighton at 11:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sometimes I wish I could have read this article in the UK's Independent before I came here ;)
British admen learn fast in America. They learn that advertising's an altogether different game, not just a vastly bigger one - actually not a game at all, nor a branch of arts and entertainment, but a business, almost as mainstream as, say, accountancy.
and
Viewed from commercial America, British advertising looks like something bent out of shape by a culture so consumed with embarrassment it can't look a salesman in the eye when he's making a pitch, particularly if that pitch is laden shoulder high with emotion - love of country, family or God. From a mainstream US perspective our quirky elliptical leave-them-guessing advertising approach is kind of charming, but kind of unworkable too in America, with its fragmented audiences and ethnicities, its raging sensitivities and, above all, its huge risks. American advertising is risk averse because there's so much at stake with those huge clients and their mega-spends. It means everything is researched to death so all backs are covered.
and
The style and culture of advertising agencies themselves - and particularly the giant Madison Avenue houses - are very different too. There's size for a start. A major like Ogilvy and Mather will have 3,000-plus people working in its New York office. At that scale the whole thing has to be run in a very grown-up way, and the "suits" (client handlers) dress very sensibly indeed. It's more ... businesslike. Everything seems older too. The big agencies have senior statesmen who are practically Blake Carrington, whereas we know that in London agencies the over-50s are quietly defenestrated in favour of children with spiked hair and drop-crotch jeans.
In Britain, advertising and its people are socially smart in the wider world in direct ratio to their distance from hard selling and their resemblance to the arts and entertainment. And advertising people definitely take their place in our great world.
and
In America, advertising isn't that socially glamorous - they've got Hollywood after all - and its practitioners aren't so famous, but they make millions and it's an acceptable career choice for a decent MBA graduate who thinks creativity is something best left to window-dressers.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 4:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I've talked about it before, now Gawker confirms my suspicions: http://www.gawker.com/news/culture/meatpacking/index.php#gawker-walker-tour-the-horror-of-the-meatpacking-district-026990
Posted by Guy Brighton at 3:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
So I hit Chicago. Well I jumped in a taxi outside the W and was amazed how far everything is spread out. Chicago is a big city - neighbourhoods spread out like London. The taxi runs and runs and he finally drops me off on N Damen. I read about it somewhere. I walk north, cut back down Milwhaukee then up to West Division Street.
I decided to head for Smoke Daddy - to see some blues and eat some Chicago bar food - but I stopped in the wrong bar. I didn;t realise at first - I thought the Blues had been given the night off and that the kids were allowes a 'Battle Of The Bands' night. Grungy folk applauded each other. I drank a beer and then notcied the bar's name was the Phyllis Musical Inn. Well I was hungry so I headed down for some Blues.
I walk in, sit down and order a pulled chicken dish and there's a man dressed like a cowboy ten feet infront of me. Not quite like a cowboy - he's in a red outfit with tassles and checks. Like a 30s cowboy might have dressed. He's on stage with a group singing sad country. Sad country? Well that's one way to get the Chicago Blues.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 1:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted by Guy Brighton at 8:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Everything I say to my boss, my girlfriend, her parents, the guy at the deli, the barman in the hotel last night.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 8:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
One trend none of us pays enough attention: As one blogger puts it, "AIDS doesn't care what age, religion, race or gender you are, whether you are famous, beautiful, or seemingly indestructible."
See worldaidsday.org and the UN site for more information on the issue of AIDS and AIDS Day events.
Posted by Guy Brighton at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack





