CopyGhosting.com launch

MalaPopulisms may have resembled a sleeping volcano, but I have not been dormant. The fruits of my labour have now been launched: CopyGhosting, a copywriting and ghostwriting service for projects of all sizes -- from CVs and slogans, to articles and manuscripts ... and everything in between.

I'm already busy with commissions, but please check out the site if you have a job you would like me to consider. Send me an email or call me to discuss your project and your budget.

High Fiverr: my recent absence explained

Although I've been offline at MalaPopulisms, it has not really been a sabbatical. I've been in huge demand in the last few months completing well-received 'gigs' at Fiverr.com (see also For five dollars more ...).

My offer to write sample slogans has been in play since April 2010, but the reality has been that I've written marketing copy, given SEO advice, edited web copy, composed voiceover scripts for videos and animations and suggested business strategy ideas for over thirty projects so far, the majority being commissioned since September this year. This explains the hiatus.

I've had 100 per cent positive feedback and plenty of enthusiastic reviews for my completed work.

The next step is to find client work at a commercial market rate. I am about to book my first project: a mixture of SEO advice, web copy writing and business mentoring.

I shall continue to post at MalaPopulisms, but my copywriting jobs will take precedence. If anyone reading this post is interested in hiring me for such work please don't hesitate to contact me by leaving your details in a Comment note. I'd be delighted to get back to you to discuss potential projects.


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50 ways to improve your website

I've just finished reading 50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Website, a recently published primer on how to organise your website so that Googlebots spot it more easily and that other websites realise they want to link to it, all in the name of getting fabulous page-ranking recognition when your killer keywords get typed into Google's search engine. If you run a website, market stuff over the web or engage in e-commerce, buy this book: it will change your understanding of what it takes to build a successful online presence.

I should declare a tangential interest. I am largely aware of the book as one of its authors, Steve Johnston, is a friend of mine; and I edited an early eBook version of the project hosted on Steve's company website. Many months down the line, the published edition has evolved out of all recognition from the early PDF format to the absolute benefit of the book.


50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Website lets digital media professionals and enthusiastic in on SEO secrets in seamless everyday language; the book must have been through several drafts and has profited from careful editing from Random House and various peer review critiques. It's an impressive achievement and deserves to clean up the competition within its niche.


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Separated at birth, stars with reasonably long haircuts

Incidentally, have you ever noticed how Stephen Fry and James May are never in the same studio. Stephen even drove the 'reasonably priced car' on Top Gear, while James outed himself (ironically) as The Stig.


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Ask Stephen: the virtual booktour

Only Stephen Fry could get away with this, yet he may be starting a trend: launching a book via Twitter, cinema, webcasts and, later, YouTube, no doubt. And The Fry Chronicles is available in five formats simultaneously: book, eBook, iBook, audiobook and iPhone app.

Mr Fry is launching the tome by appearing at the various UK theatres to do augmented book readings on successive evenings: the add-on part comes from interaction with audiences in the venue and at 60 cinemas with some of his 1.8 million Twitter followers.

Real-time Q and A, and the Twittersphere will send #recommendation tags to their exponential readers. Already the Chronicles has toppled Tony Blair's Journey from the top of Amazon's UK book chart. Very smart.

All this commercial success without stepping into a television or radio studio, chatting to features journalists (although Mr Fry is doing his bit the old-fashioned way, too), going 'on the road' past the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle, or getting your hair wet.

Where Stephen leads, other writers will follow, especially if they have a Twitter fan base.


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Separated at birth, go West young man

The passing of the baton, should Spaghetti Westerns ever make a comeback: for Clint Eastwood, read Hugh Jackman.


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Florida: Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 derived its title from the temperature at which paper burns. Florida is feeling the heat from around the world about the pastor Terry Jones on/off campaign to incinerate copies of the Koran at the Dove World Outreach.

This is the stuff of fatwa. You don't hear stories of people burning Bibles, Torahs or, to the frank, any kind of book (apart from the Nazis), so this proposed action is incendiary to the Muslim world.

The proposed compromise, to move the location of an Islamic Centre in Manhattan, is probably a non-starter in that the site is two blocks away from Ground Zero.

This row is dangerous and, whatever happens, Mr Jones has succeeded in strengthening the common stereotype of the United States as an arrogant, intolerant state. Although this is a simplistic and wrong-headed view, there are extremists in the country who play to the gallery.

Terrorism may increase in the short term, Osama bin Laden will probably release a video, and Mr Jones may need to employ enhanced security measures for himself and his church.


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A room of one's own: an unattainable dream?

Where there's an online product, you'll soon find a hacker or a pirate.

The latest examples that confirm the human urge to scream 'Mine' very loudly are Andy Coulson's tenure as editor of the News of the World (phone hacking has been alleged by, most recently, the New York Times) and hacker success in distributing popular ebooks for free.

Even the unveiling of the Stig's identity on Top Gear smacks of the school playground bully, tearing off the wings of a butterfly.

At stake, personal and professional privacy, and the right to make money from electronic products.

This is a gold rush in reverse where, in a landscape where information wants to be free, no one is allowed to make money. This spells disaster to conventional business models for creative companies. The globalisation effects of YouTube, home recording and back-bedroom piracy will propel the media into a dangerous Wild West outlaw world where copyright is seen as red tape and creatives won't be able to earn a crust. The new billionaires will be the sharp-elbowed owners of the speakeasies at the edge of the law and beyond.

The likes of Mick Jagger, J K Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Dan Brown represent the last of a dying breed: stars who get rich through their imaginations.


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Pulling a rabbit out of the hat: The Illusionist review

Fabulous movies don't have to be plot-filled. And great scripts can be stuck in development hell for fifty years.

Jacques Tati wrote the screenplay for The Illusionist back in 1956 as a way of trying to re-establish a relationship with his estranged late daughter, Sophie (see also Edinbourg rendez-vous? Yes, please)

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The Tati Estate has been very cautious about anyone producing the story, so Sylvain Chomet (the maker of the classic Belleville Rendez-Vous) needed the tact of a fox to convince the family to let him loose on the crown jewels as a feature-length animation.

And to persuade them to let him reset the movie largely in Edinburgh and the Highlands of Scotland.

Big on atmosphere, father-daughter relationships and the disappointment of fading dreams, The Illusionist is a period costume piece without nostalgia. It's a rites of passage story about growing up and growing old, sad without being tragic and with a strange nobility invested in the central character: Tati himself as the illusionist.

Almost a silent film, the movie has a great chance of an Oscar next year as Best Foreign Picture. Go see it for yourselves.


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The people's pin-up

The limits of trademarking are sometimes all too obvious. Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a firm of Chinese lingerie retailers has chosen to run a campaign using a Di lookalike to flog its merchandise. (Their Diana website has gone missing as I write.)

Taking the company to court would be counterproductive. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund spent a fortune combating Franklin Mint in the States where copyright is respected; fighting dodgy traders in China would empty the coffers into a black hole.

Other than tasteless publicity on a sad anniversary, the Fund should use unofficial channels to explore ways of shutting down the trade. A trademark infringement case, should it go wrong, would simply open the floodgates to products seeking their main chance.


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Notting Hill: the people's carnival

Fans of Notting Hill the movie would be forgiven in thinking the avoid was devoid of black culture. The film, however, was an airbrushed version of the vibrant reality. Not so much Hugh Grant as Eddy Grant; not Julia Roberts, more Robert Nesta Marley, universally known as Bob.

At Notting Hill Carnival time, the ethnic diversity of the area is celebrated with music, costume, Caribbean food and joie de vivre (not to mention truckloads of Red Stripe lager). The floats started their parade at around noon, and the crowds promised had not reached bone-crushing, pickpocket-cruising levels at the time. The volume of the music was less ear-splitting than feared (maybe Kensington and Chelsea borough council whispered in the organisers' shell-like ear, after last year's sound systems would have given a Jumbo jet a run for its money). The food was reasonably priced (jerk chicken and a beef pattie for £6.50). And there were surprising pockets of calm, with jewellery stalls, face-painting opportunities, and vuvuzela sellers dotted around.

The police were everywhere without being obtrusive. I only saw one cannabis dealer and one guy offering laughing gas to an unsuspecting public, both plying their wares at a mobile disco where nubile young things were writhing to the ragga on the back of a specially customised lorry.

All in all, a joyous day, wrapped up with a warming-down walk through Kensington Gardens and a read  of the paper next to the Serpentine.


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Live from Easter Road: Thompson 1 Murdoch 1

At the Edinburgh television festival's MacTaggart lecture, the BBC director general, Mark Thompson ordered a dish of hot revenge from the media menu. His target was James Murdoch, Sky's chairman, who roasted the BBC during the event's speech last year.

What would be more impressive than the knockabout jousting would be a smidgen of mea culpa. But media moguls are politicians these days and have to be seen to avoid Gerald Ratner-style 'crap' gaffes. You can't admit to naffness without adversely affecting the next BBC licence-fee settlement or the next morning's Sky share price.


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Sean Connery at 80

Shaken, not stirred, perhaps to have reached such a milestone, the Scottish icon is still semi-active as an actor. A voiceover for the animation, Sir Billi, is in post-production.

It's amazing that Sir Sean was still playing action heroes in 2003. Given audience expections, you can't imagine Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft at 73, unless the franchise spins out to the Tomb Raider's granddaughter.

Movies are strange beasts that don't reflect society. Perhaps we are more reluctant to let go of action heroes? Maybe things won't change until women get action franchises as the lead protagonists ... and this has not happened often in a century of commercial film-making.


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Who do you think you are? Royalty?

Actually, in the cases of Matthew Pinsent and Alexander Armstrong the answer is 'Yes'.

Alexander Armstrong traced his ancestry back to William the Conqueror and Matthew Pinsent was related to God, via Edward the Confessor.

There seems to be one episode every series that deals with a celebrity's distant relationship to the English aristocracy and, in Boris Johnson's case, the European monarchies.

The other staple is the Holocaust story: such as Stephen Fry, Jerry Springer, and Esther Rantzen (the family that got away)

The producers must approach about twenty celebrities per series to work out which stories are the most interesting.

Perhaps the groundwork is done before filming starts. Rumour has it that an episode featuring Michael Parkinson was canned on account of Mr Parkinson being the most interesting person in his own family.


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The art of East London: beyond Banksy

'How can you tell me you're lonely
And say, for you, that the sun don't shine
Let me take you by the hand
And lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind'

Ralph McTell might have been singing about isolation in the big city, but Hookedblog.co.uk's blogger and street sherpa, Mark, took a group of individuals at a loose end last Sunday on a tour around the ever-changing surfaces of parts of Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets.


This urban jungle safari brought out an abundance of sightings of work by the likes of Roa, Invader, Eine, D*face and the Toasters: many of which would be missed by the untrained eye. Mark's tracker skills in the wilder streets proved invaluable. Everyone caught the moments with their cameras, while trophy hunters were discouraged.


And were the walk to be repeated in a few weeks time, the images captured would be different; shifted by the passage of time, the councils' clean-up teams, gallery commissions, opportunistic collectors and street-art politics.



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Overnet stardom

The mechanisms of making a name for oneself are changing. Wither music went, comedy follows. Bo Burnham has gone from gigging in his bedroom to the Edinburgh Fringe, with a stratospheric fan base shift from 1 (his Mum) to 59 million.

What's next? Playwrights: front room to Royal Court? Actors showreels: no need for auditions? Television presenters/hosts: cut out the expensive Stage School fees?

But in this wired world of celebrity meteors, will fame burn brightly but fade quickly? It would be interesting to learn current hit stats for Susan Boyle YouTube videos and websites.


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A Chelsea morning

Chelsea Clinton got her wish to have a high-profile, low-profile wedding to her investment banker, Marc Mezvinsky. Commentators were saying that the nuptials were an American equivalent of a royal wedding, although the highest profile celebrity to attend was Ted Danson.

So, who's next in line? Of the Bush twins, Jenna is already married and rumours of a Barbara wedding proved false. And it'll be a long wait for the Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha, who are at least a decade away from naming the day.

The US media will have to hope they get a bit closer to the action next time ...


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Wikileaks: the new Amnesty

The USA hierarchy is steaming about the Afghan papers put up on the web by Wikileaks. Where Amnesty International trod by raising publicity about whistleblowers and democrats held in prison and/or being tortured, Wikileaks has posted classified information from the aggressor's mouth.

This is The Bourne Identity for real. What price for the US secret services persuing the Wikileaks board and information moles with every thing they have got. Welcome to spying in the 21st century.


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Dogs' dinners

A dog-friendly pub chain is trying out a new idea: providing meals for dogs while owners scoff their own food. A doggy menu will be provided.

The Brakspear pubs in the trial are the Five Alls near Lechlade, Gloucestershire and the Catherine Wheel in Goring-on-Thames, Berkshire.

What next? Bringing a horse to a watering-hole? Taking an old bull to the Bush? Inviting a cat to the Rat and Parrot? We'll see. It'll depend if the dogs woof the dinners down.


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Don't believe the type

Primary Care Trusts are due to be abolished, according to a White Paper publishing by the Government and the fall-out commentary in the media.

Not so fast. At a barbecue last night I met a senior LibDem policy wonk who said there were communications issues to be ironed out with the Conservatives, included the supposed demise of the PCTs. Apparently White Papers are little more than a first draft.

Hmm. Either this means there'll be a big fight on this or that the PCT proposal will be kicked into the long grass, beyond the timeframe of the coalition.

In the meanwhile, here's an idea for recycling the White Paper ...


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