Every now and then you see a piece of advertising genius. I know it’s not completely new, but I love the style and sentiment in this ad for Twinings Tea (I am clearly feeling soppy after a long day!):
arts
The stories in numbers
Last night I stumbled across one of the most inspirational and best-presented documentaries I’ve seen in years. Typically it was on in the middle of the night and a brief summary (a history of statistics presented by a Swedish professor) might make you think it was one from the early canon of Open University spectaculars.
However, Professor Hans Rosling is one of the most exciting and engaging presenters I’ve seen on television in a long time. After a long day in the office, his quirky, amusing and insightful jaunt through the past, present and possible future of statistics was gripping. If you missed it, you can look at The Joy of Statistics on BBC iPlayer.
One of the most engaging aspects was his demonstration of how the stories of numbers are often best told through visual depiction.
For instance, I had no idea that Florence Nightingale was a statistician. It was her meticulous record-keeping translated into startling pictures that drove the changes in nursing that she instituted:
Over a hundred years later, people like David Mccandless make their living finding ways to translate complex information into more readily understandable pictorial form. On his Information Is Beautiful blog he finds different and exciting visualisations of statistical data. The Billion-pound-o-gram is his way of making those mad, large numbers more comprehensible:
Perhaps the most spectacular use of animation was Professor Rosling’s depiction of the progress of countries in terms of their life expectancy and their income. His enthusiasm, love and knowledge are a real joy to behold. To really see a story told in numbers, watch this little snippet below:
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Poems, Prayers and Promises… Do they still write them like this?
I have an eclectic musical taste that roams the genres and I can find myself listening to anything from Finzi and Mozart, to Counting Crows, The Jayhawks, Guns N’Roses, Linkin Park and Sick Puppies, all via the Pet Shop Boys, “Ibiza dance” and Lady Ga Ga. Not forgetting of course Led Zeppelin, U2, Nightwish, The Village People etc etc…
Nothing gets to me though quite like John Denver and there is one album in particular that defines him for me: Poems, Prayers and Promises.
It was his fourth album and every song is an acoustic musical masterpiece (except “The Box”, Kendrew Lascelles’s stunning anti-war poem, read with genuine agony by Denver on the last track of side two). His beautiful tenor soars and swoops, occasionally tinged with a spine-tingling melancholy, and the lyrics are homely, humbling and thought-provoking without being trite.
Perhaps it is because it is the first non-classical record I heard Mum and Dad play that it means so much to me. Perhaps it is because it conjures safe memories of lying on the carpet in pools of dappled sunlight, thinking that days like that could never end. Perhaps it is because it has been the soundtrack to many a long car journey to Cornwall. Or perhaps it is because its calm simplicity lets me find my centre, even in the hardest times.
John Denver died in 1997. What a beautiful legacy to leave.
From “Poems, Prayers and Promises”
The days they pass so quickly now
Nights are seldom long
And time around me whispers when it’s cold
The changes somehow frighten me
Still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old
For though my life’s been good to me
There’s still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
I’d like to raise a family
I’d like to sail away
And dance across the mountains on the moon
I have to say it now
It’s been a good life all in all
It’s really fine
To have the chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and watch the sun go down
And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long it’s been since yesterday
What about tomorrow
What about our dreams
And all the memories we share
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Lego goes loco… Russian-style #lego
Lego was always a favourite toy.
Spaceships, towns, castles… But I never got quite as creative as the Russian who has mixed Lego with the online game Team Fortress 2 and stop-motion animation to create an ultra-violent tribute to one of gaming’s most popular online shooters.
As a gamer, a film enthusiast and a Lego lover of old, this is great. Complete with menacing Russian narration.
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The best children’s television programme in the world ever…? (Take 1) #tv
My future brother-in-law, Mr Bagnall, reminded me of one television programme that must be one of my all-time favourite childhood memories. Who could have thought that a five minute short animation of the simplest kind could create such a comforting sense of timelessness?
When so many of today’s children’s programmes are such a disruptive mess of loud music, rudeness, primary colours and inane bouncing around, the undramatic stories of The Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited, that recognise children are capable of being entertained in far quieter, more thoughtful ways, seem almost revolutionary.
Please give a big hand for Ivor the Engine.
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More violent food stuff advertising – this time with muppets
You could be forgiven for thinking that part of the appeal of “Never say ‘No’ to Panda” is the peculiar novelty of seeing pretend animals acting in unexpectedly violent ways. However, I was shocked to discover possible antecedents in the early work of Jim Henson and an era of “muppet ultraviolence” that hitherto had passed me by.
In 1957, Henson was contacted by Washington DC-based Wilkins Coffee. They asked him to produce a series of 10 second adverts for local tv stations. Between 1957 and 1961 he made – according to the Muppet Wiki – 179 ads, in which Kermit-forerunner Wilkins, the Wilkins Coffee-lover, attacks Wontkins, the Wilkins Coffee-hater, in varyingly violent ways.
The question I have is… Whatever happened to Wilkins Coffee?
Surprisingly, there’s very little information out there, even in the vast cyber-wilderness of the Internet. According to a poster on Michael Procopio’s blog Food for the Thoughtless:
Wilkins sold the roasting plant to The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company in 1970 and continued to distribute Wilkins Coffee from Landover, Maryland. Halco, a public company, purchased Wilkins in 1974 and the division was called Halco/Wilkins Food Service. Wilkins was once again separated and sold in 1982.
There the trail seems to go cold and there are few if any references to what happened to Wilkins Coffee. A second poster on the same site reports that the name was bought by Royal Cup Coffee but notes that there are no products sold with that branding.
Frustratingly, there appears to be very little information available about Wilkins Coffee before its murderous muppet adventures. The only thing I could find is a tantalising early reference in this list of radio programmes which details a 15 minute transmission on WRC (National Broadcasting Co.) at 6.30pm EST on Friday 3rd October 1930 by the Wilkins Coffee Orchestra.
I wonder how big a phenomena that was? I wonder how proud the members of this now-forgotten ensemble must have felt to hear themselves broadcast over the airwaves?
There must have been countless numbers of similar artistic ventures sponsored by companies that are now barely footnotes in our global industrial history. Wilkins Coffee, boasting advertising budgets that could fund hundreds of television ads, now really only survives in the global consciousness as an interesting chapter in the early history of the lunatic puppets created by Jim Henson.
If you can cope with the undoing of happy childhood memories of Kermit’s nephew Robin singing “Halfway Down The Stairs”, take a look at the clips below.
For those that missed it… “Never say ‘No’ to Panda”
I am not in any way claiming an original discovery here, not with 6,000,000+ views on You Tube. However, there is something darkly satisfying about the humour in this ad campaign by Egyptian company Advantage Marketing and Advertising/Elephant Cairo, the first Middle Eastern company to win a Cannes Lion Award. Created on behalf of Arab Dairy, “Never say ‘No’ to Panda” took a Silver Lion in 2010, as well as a Gold Award at Epica 2010
This series of adverts for Panda Cheese combines humour, subtle menace and explosive violence in a manner not normally associated with pandas. Images of the silent panda-suited star, juxtaposed with the cheerful twang of Buddy Holly’s True Love Ways, creates a sense of the surreal more redolent of Donnie Darko than your average cheese advert.
Dairy Lea it is not!
More than anything, though, it catches that moment in every day when there is nothing else to do but unleash your inner panda…
The weekend of the “super moon” in pictures
Sometimes an event defies description. Sometimes only pictures can capture something that touches people in different ways around the world.
Below is a series of pictures taken from different sources showing the drama and beauty of the weekend’s “super moon”.
Credit given wherever information available.
Some techno-optical illusions for a Sunday morning
Bit risky this for a Sunday morning, bearing in mind what folks may have been up to the night before. But anyway… Found these brain-bendingly fun. I’ve always been a sucker for an optical illusion.
Ellie and Myth do The Passion – in Port Talbot
My sister, Ellie Williams, has gotten involved with another fantastic project, this time in Port Talbot in Wales. Once again she’s working with her flatmate, Myrddin Wannell, and the international theatre company Wildworks, this time for the National Theatre for Wales. Driven by the actor Michael Sheen, The Passion is a piece of community theatre taking place over three days (22-24 April). Read more about it below!
Fragments and Reflections 