Balloon Dog

A Christmas Carol...

’Twas a cold, misty night just before Christmas and the Norwich Park & Ride was lonelier than King’s Lynn’s Facebook page. 

I was returning from an exhausting day marketing cars, insurance and batteries via social media and, having staggered off the bus, I Ioped back to where my trusty Renault Lagu a lay waiting. Reaching it I pulled out my key only to find said Lagu a strangely unresponsive.  It remained shrouded in darkness, cold to the touch and unmoved by my increasingly colourful urgings.  

A quick technical investigation (repeatedly trying the doors and shouting F**K!) led me to the sage conclusion that I was locked out.  Undeterred, I deployed my Ray Mears' survival skills and did what any stranded adventurer would do:  I called my wife, Carol.  Spontaneously she delivered a cunning plan to solve my problem and with help only from her, my iPhone and Google I released the key from the fob and I was in!  

'Hurrah!'  I delighted, but my joy was short-lived for no sooner had I placed the key in the ignition than the @^*()(! alarm screeched its banshee wail to the trickle of passing commuters.  Cunningly I panicked, scrambled out and slammed the door with furious force.  Silence again filled the air.  Relieved, I stepped forward and pulled the handle hoping for a quiet sit and a ponder, but it was not to be.  The door was locked…

Umbrage now turned to anger and seething accusations regarding the car’s parentage and in particular the nocturnal activities of its mother; I hatched my second cunning plan of the evening and phoned Carol.

From her packed train she advised I call the RAC, an idea I questioned, stating, 'I don't have their f&&king number, do I…!'  A deus ex machina then entered the scene as I did as advised, checked my wallet and found my membership card.

A phone call later and all I had to do was stand and wait for the orange cavalry to arrive.  It was as I was scanning the horizon that my hopes took another battering: I remembered that the gates to the Park & Ride closed at 7.30 prompt – a deadline my would-be saviour was, I feared, destined to miss.

The next couple of minutes will not rank amongst my most dignified and to any unnerved witnesses I can only apologise.  At the time though, acting out a tableau I have subsequently named 'Malcolm Tucker after he’s caught his unmentionables in the Daily Mail’s revolving door', seemed eminently justified.    

Soon after though, running wonderfully ahead of schedule, the RAC van crossed the horizon and slipped through the gates. ‘Hello,' chirruped Graham, my knight in orange armour, and before I could say, ‘I saw that on Top Gear once…’ he set about besting our indolent French opponent.  

For an hour he wrestled with it, aided only by a piece of wire and an idiot but in the end we had to admit temporary defeat, his observation that all would’ve been well had I not locked the key inside coming without a hint of the welter of scorn it so richly deserved. It was then I had my third cunning idea of the night, and I rang my Carol.  

Ten minutes, and one devastated study later, she'd taken to the road with the spare key and promises that she wasn't going to do me what God did to the Sodomites.  In the meantime I sat with my new best friend and talked of music, cars and the supper he'd now missed by being an hour late clocking off.

50 minutes later Carol drew up to the now closed gate, passed me the key and wished me luck as she waved me goodbye... at least I think it was a wave...  

In a flash Graham had the car open; the bonnet up and the engine purring like a very old and extremely asthmatic cat. The hour was now 9.15 and with a new chum, a cold bum and dreams of warming rum (alright, gin!) I headed back into the Norwich night.

The moral of this tale is a familiar one:  don't buy your father's 03 Lagu a without RAC cover… and leaving your side lights on all day isn't ideal either!

Giles Luckett - Senior Digital Strategist

Barrels of flaming fun

We’re a nation not adverse to some odd traditions. Risking broken bones and dislocated joints to chase wheels of cheese down hills or welcoming New Year with a dip in the North Sea. A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to survive witnessing one such tradition, the famous Tar Barrels of Ottery St Mary.

The premise is simple – take a large wooden barrel, stuff it with material dipped in tar, set it on fire then run it round a small village on the shoulders of the local inhabitants, doing your best to avoid burning the spectators. Importantly, only those born in Ottery St Mary are allowed to participate, though I’m not sure they’d have too many people signing up even if this wasn’t the case. How the tradition was established is unknown but presumably it was a rite of passage that marked the transition from boyhood to manhood.

"Well, son, it’s time to become a man. Here’s a flaming barrel – get running."

Any forward-thinking protests about the activity clearly never gathered sufficient support and so it is that the tradition still happens every year on the 5^th November. 

We arrived around 9pm so we’d already missed the children’s event (apparently the youngest victim/entrant was 11) and the women’s event but we were just in time for the men’s. The narrow streets of this small village were swollen with 27,000 people, wrapped up against the November night. iPhones, cameras and video cameras were all held aloft, trying to capture images of the action happening in the distance.

 

The imminent arrival of a barrel is marked by a plume of thick black smoke blotting out the street lights and a cheer from the crowd that radiates out like ripples in a pond. Then, suddenly, flames start dancing forward and the crowd does its best to part to allow the barrel and its carrier through. There are no lines to stand behind, no safe distance at which to witness the event – it’s a simple case of getting out of the way as much as the throngs of people behind you will allow. In a time when Health & Safety is king, how an event like this takes place is astonishing. The advice to the crowd coming through the PA was brief – ‘Lean back to allow the barrel through and please don’t sit on people’s shoulders’; the officials in their fluorescent jackets were not there for crowd safety but to ensure that the barrels carried sufficient fuel to remain balls of fire for as long as possible. It’s a mad and crazy (and utterly dangerous) tradition but without doubt the most memorable celebration of the 5^th November. If you ever get the chance to go, do - before the Health & Safety bods get their fun-sapping hands on it.

Will Cole - Senior Activity Director

Movember campaign

The talk in the office recently has been about Movember and some of the gents are sporting some very impressive (some not so impressive!) moustaches. We came across this great US advertising campaign promoting Movember:

Our very own Andy Lee thought he'd get in on the act!

 

balloon dog cocks its leg at...Bruno Mars

So you liked "Grenade" and we know you liked "Forget you", which he co-wrote, and everyone liked "Runaway" and "The Lazy Song" and ....but don't you see? Has there ever been a more cynically commercial artist than Bruno Mars?

Ever?

In the history of the world?

Even the ubiquitous David Guetta, Ri-Ri, Gaga and Black Eyed Peas bow in deference to the shock and awe assault on our sonic landscape of the Man from Mars.

Take "Lighters" - a song specifically written to make Bruno fans fire up their zippos at stadiums across the world and create the very occasion the song seeks to celebrate: its self-fulfilling prophecy in song.

Or how about his magnum opus: "Marry you". It even has church bells on it! Can you imagine the high-concept management brainstorm that led to that one? "We need a song that will get played at every wedding in the Western world for eternity, across all demographics. Bruno, any ideas?" "Um, yeah, how about *sings* 'Hey baby...think I'm gonna marry you' and I'll put some cute church bells on it?" "Brilliant! Can we pre-sell the syndication rights for a cross-collateralised merchandise tie-in on wedding apparel? And get it on the soundtrack of Bridesmaids II!"

So what next for the man whose blatant commercial transparency makes Simon Cowell look like Leonard Cohen? We're betting on a dance song. Like Agadoo, The Birdy Song or The Hokey Cokey (ft Pitbull & Nicki Minaj). Perfect for weddings, barmitzvas, funerals, playgrounds etc. He'll make it catchy and cool and he'll have zero shame in singing it on Letterman, watching everyone do the moves. And as J-Lo memorably put it, he'll just "watch the amounts roll in".

Resistance is futile.

We're all living on Mars now.