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April 2009 Blog Archive
It's that of time of month again when Ellie puts her feet up (not literally - she does have other responsibilities, she makes a great cuppa!) and someone else from Rapport HQ takes pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and makes interesting - termed loosely - observations on the what's been going on during the past week and what lies ahead in the week to come.
You don't need me to tell you how much the economic downturn is affecting the world at the moment. You only have to take a walk around Manchester City Centre at lunchtime to notice subtle differences in the place to what it was this time last year. The absence of the Manchester Evening News newspaper vendors is the first thing. Last month the 'free' edition of the paper was reduced from five days a week to just the two. There's also the empty shop units which can be found dotted around the city. However, this week Manchester was also treated to another unusual spectacle courtesy of the recession. Batman, yes even Batman! has been crunched by the credit crunch. He's been spotted walking solemnly around the gardens of Piccadilly wearing a sandwich board selling his services as a IT Manager! clearly the market for super heroes is not holding up so well in these unstable times!
Talking of grown men wearing silly costumes in public places, this Sunday morning - whilst most of us will be drowning in a sea of duvets and rueing that "last" pint - 35,000 runners will take to the streets of our nation's capital for this year's London Marathon. Amongst the established athletes taking to the tarmac, will be those wearing anything from a bright yellow chicken outfit to a full body gorilla costume all in the name of charity.
Below, I've done some scouring in search of some of my favorites from previous races...
Yep, they got married on the marathon... I guess you could say it was a marry-thon!
PacMan and the testicles wasn't in London but they deserve to be included anyway!
PS Before I go, i must post this one last thing. As a designer I often search the web for inspiration during many a 'creative-block'. This week I came across the following; a pop-up book displaying each letter of the alphabet in a unique and clever way... genius!
The excitement induced by the Easter weekend never fails to amaze me, the holiday, in its entirety is only only 2 days off work, yet I remember receiving the first email discussing preliminary activity ideas from excited friends way back in February! I have my own theories as to why 'The Quad' as it was affectionally called in my Uni days (as you had to go out 4 nights in a row) captures the nations hearts every year:
1. A celebration revolving (amongst other things!) around Chocolate and rabbits. In Australia, however there is a movement calling for the Easter bunny to be scrapped in favour of the slightly less well-known and loved 'Bilby', an endangered marsupial (pictured) which lives in the dessert.
2. The mystery of what weekend it will fall on. The fact that Easter does not have a set yearly date makes the holiday all the more exciting, come January 2nd Google is inundated with a search for 'what date does Easter falls on this year?'. In fact Easter does not even fall on the same date in all the Christian denominations; Orthodox Christians will be celebrating Eater Sunday on the 19th April this year.
3. It marks the start of the summer bank holiday season, from here on out you can only expect to work 92% of Mondays over the summer (it always seems so much more in your head!).
4. Unlike Christmas, at Easter the majority of us are not tied to any boring family obligations and you don't have to buy anyone any presents (unfortunately this means you are also unlikely to receive any).
If, like us here at Rapport, you receive your post from the Royal Mail bundled together with the red elastic band you should be able to relate to the grueling decision of what to do with them. As chief mail opener at Rapport I come up against this agonizing decision daily, for reasons I will never know it is against the rules to throw away elastic bands, after all 'you never know when you might need them', to me it seems never! We do, however have a rather sturdy elastic band ball floating (or rolling!!) around, which unfortunately I cannot take credit for. So I was very pleased to read that the BBC have provided some useful tips of what to do with them.
Some of my particular favourites are...
i. Wear it around your wrist to protect you from 'evil eye'. According to Kabbalah this refers to the unkind glances and mean stares apparently people around us give us all the time. The red string to make a real Kabbalah band will set you back $26.
ii. Drop the bands sporadically around the office and consider the bending down and picking them up as an inventive 'easy to do anywhere' exercise. This can idea can also be transported outside, where discarded Royal Mail bands can be found on any street in the UK (I would stick to just picking up the bands here, however as picking things up from the street is not generally advised).
iii. Use them at your next political rally to flick into the air and demonstrate support for the Labour Party.
I will never dread the sound of the postman's knock again!
Obviously still feeling bad for neglecting his blogging duties a couple of weeks ago, Paul has strangely asked me to make this contribution for him to this weeks blog...
3 April 2009 Change is inevitable - Except from a vending machine
What's that saying? 'if you want something doing...'?
To many the first of April marks the start of spring; the season of change and new beginnings, this theme seems to be reflected all around us too. I have taken the liberty of compiling a list of drastic changes to come, don't say I didn't warn you...
1. 1980's favourite Vimto's new look bottle as the brand try to become 'cool' once more.
2. Fern Britton's departure from This Morning.
3. Sir Alan Sugar is to attempt to be funny.
4. The Queen is now allowing people to touch her, Michelle Obama being the pioneer.
5. From now on we should no longer aim for Happy Endings.
Things will never be the same again!
But to the slightly rebellious amongst us the 1st April means so much more, its the day when you are allowed to play jokes on anyone you want and get away with it (until midday anyway). Having had my fair share of being the instigator of April Fools that have gone/almost gone horribly wrong 'it seemed like a really good idea at the time...' I am nevertheless egar to keep this tradition alive. It is thought that the idea started in 16th century France when the calendar was changed to fit with the rest of Europe, meaning the new year's eve was now celebrated at the end of December instead of the end of March. From then on anyone who continued to celebrate the new year on the first of April was deemed a poissons d'Avri (April Fish). Apparently the 'no pranks after midday' rule has no historical relevance so must have been made up by people who want to make the potential to be humiliated by their peers as short as possible - spoilsports!
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