Rochester, Darcy or Heathcliffe? That is a question…

Whether it’s Mr Darcy who swoons your socks off or whether it’s the brute that is Mr Rochester apparently us modern day gals are working harder, getting further and looking for more in our romantic literature.

 

We’ve been working with the Stratford Literary Festival for some months now, building the profile of the festival that’s in its fourth year and lucky old me got to spend the afternoon with three lovely ladies talking about romance. 

The trio comprised of Gloucestershire women’s author Katie Fforde, well-known novelist Mavis Cheek and the infamous actress Harriet Walter or should I say, Fanny Dashwood (for any other Austen geeks like me). Where they chatted around the subject of romance, age and what women ‘really’ want from their man. 

What struck me, as one of the ‘younger’ ladies in the audience was that we have no modern day heros, no men that stand out from our literature as icons for the age but characters like Mr Darcy seem timeless – so how can we still be into our romantic fiction?

 Ok, Colin Firth’s character in the Bridget Jones version is a sort-of more modern day Darcy, but we don’t have any that really stand out.

Funnily enough, my dissertation at University was positioned around the concept of the ‘female gaze’ particularly in advertising and media but could be referenced to literature and answering that forever mysterious question of ‘what women really want.’

 Do we have a set gaze and is it typically the man with wealth, power and control or are we a little more sophisticated and perhaps a little closer to real-life? 

We’re all different I suppose but the Rise and Rise of Romance event at Stratford Literary Festival certainly did get me thinking…

 

Another Royal Wedding blogpost…

OK so, we’re adding to everything else themed Kate and Will’s with this blogpost… 

With all the hype gearing up to the event of the century it’s not surprising that a programme called ‘Meet the Middletons’ graced our screens this week, in preparation of getting ‘under the skin’ of the future queen.

I’m going to admit it, I did watch some of it but just to see how awful it was going to be… honest.

The programme toured the country, meeting the most extended; twice removed relatives of Kate Middleton, scanning their living rooms for the most tacky furniture in sight and making sure that any ‘common’ objects were forefront of our screens, telling the story of our fellow ‘commoner’ Kate.

Most of the relatives were actually from Kate’s mother’s side and so were not Middleton’s at all – making the programme seem somewhat even more bizarre, as an attempt to highlight how as a nation we’re all obsessed by class divides.

Think what you may about that, but the programme painted a very biased picture of a family desperately clutching to their distant shot at fame – was quite sad really, as I’m sure for many of them that’s not the case.

The rest of this week will no doubt be filled with other ‘serious’ programmes about the couple and hey, maybe we will get chance to see ‘Kate and Will’s’ the movie. Oh yes, there is a movie.

And with the palace announcing today that its keeping up with the times for the Royal Wedding with live streaming on Youtube and coverage by the second on Facebook and Twitter – will people really will be using social media to watch the event or whether the ‘good old fashioned’ TV will be back in its place.

I shall probably be sneaking a quick glimpse – just so I can have a look at the dress, of course.

Settling in… by resident plate smasher Lizzie Murrie

So, after the palaver, entertainment and not to mention embarrassment caused during the office move – and may I add my first week – I have managed to refrain from doing any further damage. Pretty good achievement considering today is April Fools Day.

Talking of fools, we had two in the office this morning who were taken in by a headline in today’s Inside Housing, “Housing Minister releases charity CD with The Clash.” Please tell me this is a fool? www.insidehousing.co.uk

Over the past few months I have learnt, researched, drafted and communicated. I have experienced a media training day with three truly interesting and inspiring hacks and spent a day at an incredible house in Warwickshire on a product photo shoot for Husky.

Outside work, came an achievement of another sort. A colossal 60^th birthday cake for my dad. Jaime and I spent two nights, and a lot of eggs, baking and decorating a huge book shaped cake.

On its pages we painted an iconic scene, drawn in the style of the original Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations, and the very garbled birthday message from Owl to Eeyore. It had the desired effect and went down a treat…phew!

My next challenge, the Hereford half marathon – I shall keep you posted.

Budget day – the good, the bad and the, er, miracle egg!

Who’d have thought it?

When Chancellor George Osborne – that’s Osborne without a ‘u’, as I have to correct myself every time I write it – promised money off fuel duty, he evidently meant everywhere except Worcestershire,

where fuel-related hyperinflation still seems to be the economic norm.

While I was blithely filling up my car after last week’s Budget (and before I choked on realising I had broken the £70-per-tank barrier for the first time) I was able to reflect on a highly satisfying day of agency PR.

Budget day is always a strange one, with Twitter going mad, dozens of expert bloggers and commentators to follow and newsrooms like ghost towns as reporters across the country watch the latest from Westminster. Generally it’s a tough time to try and have a good chat with a journalist about the latest news from your clients.

Which is why I’d like to take an opportunity to thank two business correspondents in particular – Graeme at The Birmingham Post and Louise at The Stoke Sentinel (I’m hardly protecting their anonymity but I won’t embarrass them by using full names!).

It can be pretty rare on a quiet news day for a business reporter to spend time chatting about ‘what exactly makes your client a social enterprise’ or ‘what precisely are your client’s business growth plans for the coming years’ but doubly so on Budget day.

That they bothered to take the time to put each story in their proper context despite the amount of other news flying in from the House of Commons is a real endorsement of the quality of the traditional regional media that’s out there – and it also made me rather nostalgic for my journalism days.

Well, that and this headline, from today’s Nottingham Post: ‘Family’s joy as Allah appears in Arabic on ‘miracle’ egg shell’. Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/69lohfw.

Brilliant.

Very taxing… the art of good communication

The Quicksilver PR team had quite a chuckle over this – a genuine letter reply from the Inland Revenue.  The Guardian needed special permission to print it. 

Dear Mr Addison

I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise.  I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a “begging letter”.  It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a “tax demand”.  This is how we at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the “endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat” has been noted.  However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously suggest that their being from “pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers” might indicate that your decision to “file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies” is at best a little ill-advised.   

In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a “lackwit bumpkin” or, come to that, a “sodding charity”.  More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole. 

Which brings me to my next point.  Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay  “go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services”, a moment’s rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to “stump up for the whole damned party” yourself. 

The estimates you provide for the Chancellor’s disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark.  Less than you seem to imagine is spent on “junkets for Bunterish lickspittles” and “dancing whores” whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, “that box-ticking facade of a university system”.

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:
1. The reason we don’t simply write “Muggins” on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system

2. You can rest assured that “sucking the very marrow of those with nothing else to give” has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn’t render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable

I trust this has helped.  In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to “give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India” you would still owe us the money.

Please send it to us by Friday.

Yours sincerely,

H J Lee
Customer Relations
Inland Revenue

We wish we could see the content of the letter sent to the Tax Office which prompted this reply!

Read the Guardian story here: http://tinyurl.com/6rof3s

 

Wonder wall

A few months back, I was a willing volunteer at a beginner’s weekend course learning to re-build a dry stone wall.

Why did I do it?  Well, I suppose I just wanted to do something a different.  A couple of days out of the office in beautiful Wye Valley countryside, learning a new skill, and making something bad…well, look good. 

I’d encourage anyone to have a go.  It doesn’t have to be walling, it could be hedge laying or thatching, rural skills that are fast disappearing. 

Trying something new opened a whole new world of ‘things I didn’t know’.  I’ve made new business contacts and gained a real sense of achievement.  

From my weekend of walling, I’ve uncovered the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain www.dswa.org.uk, that you can gain a Level 1, 2 and 3 vocational qualification www.lantra-awards.co.uk, and that dry stone walling is an ancient craft with the earliest walls located at Skara Brae in the Orkney’s built 3,500 years ago.  No-one is sure which month. 

I’m told that in the 14^th century, waste ground was increasingly reclaimed and enclosed with stone walls to create fields.  These had a beautiful reverse ‘S’ configuration within the boundary walls as they followed the old strip farming system that was ploughed by four pairs of oxen.  Apparently the animals could not turn in a straight line and so each ‘strip’ formed a reverse ‘S’ at each end. 

Most of the walls you see today were built following the Enclosure Act in the 1740s.  They were built in straight lines and the fields were more square than oblong. 

Dry stone walls don’t only keep animals from wandering all over the countryside they also provide a home for lots of smaller animals, birds and insects. 

They’re also important habitats for mosses, lichens, ferns, ivy and other plants. 

I’m hooked, though my kids don’t quite get my enthusiasm.  Their eyes roll when I mention Sheep Creeps, Badger Smoots and Pinfolds.  I know…I need to get out more.  But there’s the rub, I’m beginning to and I now look at walls in a very different way!  A fresh perspective if you like.  In business, it’s a good thing.

 Check out the National Stone Centre too, www.nationalstonecentre.org.uk and thanks also to my weekend instructor Chris Hodges.  If ever there was an enthusiast for dry stone walls, it’s Chris www.drystonewaller.co.uk

 So what next for this blogger? Well, this weekend I begin my Level 1 course and I’m counting down the stones.  

Back to the day job in the meantime. 

PS I do think the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain needs to up its PR!

Stratford Literary Festival

We’ve been working with the Stratford Literary Festival for this year and we thought it would be worth a little note on their poetry competition.

Whether you’re something of an expert at sonnets and haikus or just have a knack for stringing words together, this year’s Stratford Literary Festival Poetry Competition is one not to be missed.

 Whatever your literary style or age, the competition is open to everyone. All you need to do is write a poem with the subject of ‘My Home’, using a maximum of 600 words.

The poems will be judged in three age categories: seven to 10, 11 to 16 and 17 years and over, with the winning entries published and available to buy at the Festival.

 Not only will the winning entries from this year’s competition receive a £50 prize but they will also be published in the Festival Book – being sold to book lovers expected to attend the week long event (25^th April to 2^nd May).

 This year’s headline speakers from the Festival include Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter, the inimitable Patricia Routledge, actor Larry Lamb, Today programme presenter John Humphrys, comedy actress Celia Imrie, bestselling crime writer Sophie Hannah, Whitbread winner Justin Cartwright, Baroness Shirley Williams, comedian Arthur Smith and DJ Mark Radcliffe.

Festival goers can also meet Molly Parkin, novelists Katie Fforde, Esther Freud and Barbara Trapido, and enjoy writing workshops, including a day with the editor of the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbooks and Midlands poetry group Nine Arches Poets.

The deadline for entries will be 4pm on Friday, 18^th March 2011, and entries can be submitted online by emailing them to: info@stratfordliteraryfestival.co.uk or handwritten and delivered to the event sponsor: Victoria Jeffs Estate Agents, 35-36 Guild Street, Stratford Upon Avon.

Stratford Literary Festival 2011 is working in partnership with The Week Magazine. Its ever-growing schools programme, supported by Stratford Town Trust, Arts Council and an intergenerational community project will be announced shortly.

 The full terms and conditions and the Festival programme can be found on the website www.stratfordliteraryfestival.co.uk. Tickets are now available by calling 01789 207100 or online at www.civichall.co.uk.

Can you help us?

It’s been an exciting month at Quicksilver PR including some new account wins, fresh faces and of course, our shiny new office space.

Within this time of change we are looking for students or graduates to come and join us, working across our broad portfolio of clients.

This role will require; social media skills, writing skills, confidence and a general interest within PR. (We promise you won’t just be making the tea!)

Do you have what it takes to join us? If you think so… please send your CV and covering letter to: j.futers@quicksilverpr.co.uk

Crash, bang, wallop! – The big move…

The day started with a crash and ended with a glass or two of ‘wallop’ in the new local, but other than that, Moving Day for Quicksilver PR went with a bit of a bang.

Lizzie supplied the crash.

Having emptied the cupboards of glass and china in the old place, she picked up the cardboard box by the sides and … well, of course it was inevitable. The bottom fell out of her world, with shards everywhere.

Meanwhile, ‘white van’ men Simon and Mark busied themselves doing what white van men do – going at it full tilt and doing the bulk of the heavy lifting (for which many thanks).

In fact it was all a little on the hectic side, but well worth the trouble. Our former offices in Knowle were nice enough, but nothing like as picturesque as the roomy edifice we now call home.

A mixture of ancient and modern, Abbeygate, Evesham, boasts stained glass mosaic windows, views over a pretty courtyard garden in which stand graceful examples of ecclesiastical architecture from bygone centuries (any estate agents out there needing PR?)

It even included a ready-made website – full of dead spiders, and one living Mother Of All Arachnids that one of the guys from Pink Connect saddled up and rode around the office.

Re-wind that: That one of the guys from Pink Connect allowed to run up and down his arm.

That’s the sort of memory that can only be dulled with alcohol in the time-honoured tradition which saw the whole shattered crew – communications director Mark, accompanied by the physically shattered team of Dan, Jaime and Lizzie repair to the Red Horse Inn for what we in the PR game call ‘a drink.’

And a well earned one, too.

From classroom to boardroom

By Sophie Upton, work experience student, Arden School, Knowle

Every year my school holds a work experience week for year 10 students.

When it was my turn I was very pleased. It would certainly make an excellent change to complicated math equations, or ridiculous science experiments!

So, I wrote a letter to four different consultancies enquiring about the possibility of a week of learning at their work place, and Quicksilver PR were the only ones to get back to me – and within three days.

I arrive at the Quicksilver PR office six months later, pen in hand. I was not at all disappointed by the amount of work and preparation that had gone into my schedule for the week.

From the beginning ‘til the end, I was deeply involved in PR activities; I was made to feel like a colleague – not just a fifteen year old student.  And the tea wasn’t half bad either.

I was extremely satisfied by the end of my placement. I feel like I have learnt a lot thanks to the Quicksilver PR team.

Work experience can be a good thing for a consultancy as well as the student, as it gives firms a chance to let different people in to their working environment and provides an insight into their perceptions and everyday experiences.

However, I believe that work experience is most beneficial for a student.

As a student it can all get very confusing when there are all sorts of ideas flying around your head, trying to suss what career to pursue, what A-levels will benefit you most, how you can get the best out school – and what to have for tea tonight.

But the team at Quicksilver PR answered all of those questions for me (except the last one!) and for this I thank them. I thank them for an insightful week into the world of spin. I also thank them for a better work experience than I expected.

I’m not saying I definitely want to work in PR, but my ideas have been shaped thanks to my week at Quicksilver PR.