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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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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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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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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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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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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The Prints of Darkness

Peter Mandelson's political memoirs, The Third Man, are shining a torch on to the divisions between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair when in government as New Labour, especially over the inference that Blair promised to hand over prime-ministerial power to Brown in 2003.

But whatever happened to Chatham House Rules? When is it a good time to publish political autobiographies? The best option is immediately after a general election loss, despite the risk of short-term damage. In this case, any furore will have died down by the September party conference, when a new leader will be chosen.

Presumably Lord Mandelson must feel his front-bench career is over to be quite so candid. Whether this is a wise decision or not will become clear in the next few years as the coalition will live or die by the outcomes of their draconian policies.


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Stepford spies

What could be more American than motherhood and Pavlova cake?

Richard and Cynthia Murphy, Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley (and six others) seemed to be regular citizens until busted by their incompetence days after an official visit to the US by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

It appears that the ten Russian spies were unmasked by the FBI finding a 27-letter password next to a computer disk belonging to one of the group during a secret raid. The FBI then sat back for years listening in to threads of emails and mountains of documents, detailing expense claims that would have given British MPs a run for their money.

And then the American authorities reeled them in, way before any damage was done. The SVR is no KGB.


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Auf Weidersehen, England

The Germans won again at the World Cup footie, but this time England weren't even good enough to merit going out on penalties. Where do they go from here? Here are some suggestions:

• Renegotiate the number of English-qualified players turning out for Premier League sides;
• Invite Stuart Pearce to be the England manager as he got the Under-21 side to the final of the European Championships;
• Thank 'thank very much' to a bunch of aging England football players (Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Matthew Upson, John Terry, David James, Emile Heskey)
• Select the nucleus of the new England team from the Under-21 side;
• Build a team around Wayne Rooney, but allow everyone in the team to play in their best positions.

Will this happen? Probably not. But if Fabio Capello continues, he will have to adapt and learn from his mistakes. Perhaps Stuart Pearce will get more of a say within the current regime.

Now for the European qualifiers.

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Frank Sidebottom: he did it his way

Chris Sievey had an unusual life. Quirkily successful, he died a pauper. He is the only performer I can think of who was much less well-known than his papier-mâché puppet alter ego: Frank Sidebottom.

Frank was way ahead of his time, celebrating the naffness and desperation of celebrity and over-promoting the banal: he, like me, was born and bred in Timperley, Cheshire, and name-dropped the place at every opportunity.

Mr Sievey's originality spawned the careers of Caroline Aherne (Mrs Merton made her debut on Radio Timperley and Frank's Fantastic Shed Show), Chris Evans (erstwhile Sidebottom roadie) and Jon Ronson, and influenced the likes of Graham Fellows and Mark Radcliffe.

News of his death kicked off a viral campaign to pay for the funeral. The tsunami of affection has created a campaign for a posthumous single release (perhaps the mock football anthem 'Three Shirts on my Line') and a possible movie.

If the film ever got made it would have the potential to be a quintessentially mad English indie sensation: 'Born in Timperley', indeed. Fantastic.


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England expected

For those of us working this afternoon, the experience was like operating in a ghost town. No phone calls, no faxes, no emails, and the occasional afternoon roar, specifically when Jermaine Defoe scored for England against Slovenia after twenty minutes.

The pubs were jammed packed with people spilling out on to the pavements. The shops were tuned to the television. The offices were empty.

Several people at my office took the day off, including staff with no interest in football. It will be interesting to see the cost to the British economy of this national, collective skive.

Perhaps the only people not to know the score in real time were the combatants John Isner and Nicolas Mahut in a record-breaking men's singles tie at Wimbledon: five sets, ten hours long and counting with the fifth set lasting around seven hours standing at 59 games all overnight ...


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Summer of discontent?

George Osborne is playing with political fire. The Budget will be tough this week, but will the country be able to stomach the medicine.

It's all horribly cyclical: history repeats itself as tragedy and then as farce.


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Solent sympathy

When does criticism of a business leader go too far? When the mob sense blood but go for the wrong target.

Tony Hayward, BP CEO, was photographed on his yacht at Cowes on the Isle of Wight taking part in the Round the Island race with his sons.

Yes, he was taking time off. Yes, he was enjoying himself. But surely he'll be all the more refreshed for taking time out before going back to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

And, anyway, Mr Hayward has delegated day-to-day responsibility for the disaster to an American called Robert Dudley, so maybe the US public may react differently to having a fellow countryman in charge of sorting out the mess.


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Billy Millionaire: the Olympic opener

London 2012 has just taken another decision. Danny Boyle and Stephen Daldry have been handed the reins of creation for the Olympics' opening ceremony.

Both directors have form. Danny Boyle's biggest success was the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire; Stephen Daldry was the creative force behind Billy Elliot.

So what can we expect? Something new, or a hybrid of previous projects: Indian boy makes good in his quest to be a Bollywood dancer?

Whatever results will be very different and presumably less expensive than the opening to the Beijing 2008 Olympics.


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