It's gone viral...

I was in a Honda meeting in Kyiv... another Scotsman was present... the legendary G.D.Harper

He was an auditor... a detective of the defective & devious...a criminologist, sniffing for fiscal crimes

To begin our pitch Victor inserted a USB into their computer... Almost immediately their IT guy came screaming into the room... 

"You've sent a virus around our network ... remove that pen drive now!!!' 

Victory surrendered 

The meeting continued ... we pitched... we talked ... we discussed cars, engines, tyres... I was getting tired...

... & then they asked ...

"What experience do you have with viral marketing?"

G.D.Harper & I corpse'd 

That night we went to watch Scotland vs Ukraine ... we were in the Ukrainian end... & we stood together for Flower of Scotland.... surrounded by thousands of bemused, hostile Ukes... 

Glyn ... YNWA 

Heinz is a Yank...overpriced & over here

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/apr/09/spanish-writer-spills-beans-on-uks-saucy-secrets


Heinz shouldn't illustrate the above article..... but there were many things we thought were British growing up... that are actually American...

Ford cars, most game shows, the James Bond films... & recently Harry Potter

... & there are things that appear American but are actually British

Kraft A1 steak sauce, Charlie Chaplin, Hitchcock, Cary Grant... the movie Platoon by the pizda Putin stooge Stone .... & ... the fucking Muppets...

... & recently it's got more confusing; Guinness is British not Irish, Smirnoff is as Russian as Dame Helen Mirren, Rolls Royce & Bentley cars are owned by VW & BMW... the Mini is also Germ & originally designed by a Greek... probably why it always lost money... Land Rover & Jaguar are Indian...

Lea & Perrin's Worcester sauce was owned by Danone for a while, French's American mustard was British for a bit... Owned by Reckitt Colman ... who sold Colman's mustard to Unilever... Haagen Daz was American ... pretending to be Swedish... & owned by the Swiss for a time... meanwhile IKEA pretends to be Swedish, but is legally based in the Netherlands

... & Trump is a stupid Germ pretending to be American... while Boris Johnson is a Turk born in New York acting like an eccentric Etonian

When Nina couldn't get it up in Łazienki

The amazing Nina was always doing three things at once... Harlequin romance, the Financial Times, property investment... sometimes she even came to 101a for little light management

There was a great line in an interview with her in 1996... 'the meeting is interrupted while Nina tries to work out which one of her three mobiles is ringing'

Anyway... one warm summer evening Nina had organised an FT event at Belwedere... all the stars of Warszawa society were there... Mann i Materna maybe... Michnik possibly... Mike Murphy naturally ... & that's just the M&Ms.. Krzyśtof Quentin of course... the usual peacocks

... & to mark the occasion NKM even had the FT balloon... a Montgolfier moment was about to lift our spirits ... to reach for the sky... a lot of hot air was going to be wasted

But the damn thing wouldn't go up... I don't know the specifics, wrong brother ~ but I believe these contraptions work best in Spring & Fall... when the evening air is cold... & the heat allows them to elevate easily

Mike & I couldn't help notice ... that lying all pink & flaccid on the grass ... the poor balloon resembled a used condom.,,. some newspapers are tomorrow's fish & chip wrapping ... this one had been somewhere less savoury...

The Trojan War

I've met a few amazing marketing directors in my time... the best was probably Steve Watson at Nestle... I think he made 150 ads in 5 years in Russia. He understood the consumer & had great taste in ties...

But I also encountered a lot of idiots

In one Kimberley Clark/Huggies meeting this guy from London said ... 'Men use baby wipes in their cars ... to clean their hands... maybe we should advertise that...?'

I replied "Teenage boys buy condoms... fill them with water... & throw them off the roof ... but I don't think it's a USP durex should waste money on"

Furious on Foksal

Must apologise to DBZ ... Kat was saying she was wonderful... & I said that she could be difficult & demanding at work... good qualities in pilots... not as much fun when you are only selling toothpaste ~ I may have implied that she was the No.1 Drama Queen on Mad Men ulica 101a ... which is preposterous... that honour belongs to the magnificent MC

A dragon so fiery that we eventually fired her...

The most frightened I've ever been ... & I've dealt with the Russian Mafia with a smile ...presented to Rashid Rashid of the Mubarak regime... & met Kat at an airport... was waiting in a bar on Foksal.... Y&R Wigilia party... Having promoted the Aniolem Wegierek... Knowing that Diablo Crusher Crash was coming... You could hear the distant thunder... She flew in... a raging storm of hair & teeth... not curious about my toothpaste situation any more..

"Why did you promote that bitch & not me... ? I could purchase you & your family & your future offspring Brown"

DBZ added this ...

"That evening Of the Promotion Commotion ... I drove her home. You do not want to know what she was screaming. Next morning my husband told me that had an idea of driving her not to Rakowiec ... but to Szczecin"

Which is especially ironic ... as Blank is from Szczecin... & he'd deliver the whirling dervish... the Tasmanian Devil... the Warszawa wonder Witch back to my door for Christmas....

DBZ ... You're No.2 ... Just like Mez & Kat

This is the story of a Hurricane

Better record this before Alzheimer's claims my grey matter.... this is poetry

Like Jerry Lee Lewis, Higgins took an instrument crafted for the genteel bourgeoise & annexed it to his own berserk low life agenda

Higgins occupies 2/3 of the WPBSA disciplinary records ... including putting his hand up an old man's dhoti while on a tour of India.... & verbal abuse of Miss Port Vale F.C.

Here there is a slight discrepancy between events ... Higgins claims he said "well done Stephen... you were a little bit lucky" while Hendry says it was "Up your arse you cunt"

Mirror Image Moscow

We had two major clients in Moscow... Unilever & Nestle

They make similar products

Similar average ice cream

The same sugary drinks

The same stock cubes

Similar stock market value

Their offices were even in the same part of Moscow

Some days we had a meeting with one in the morning.... & the other in the afternoon

Must have been 1999... when a sister appeared a Riverside Towers schlepping Magnum & her doppelgänger arrived at Paveletskaya flogging Maggi

Both companies were tardy about meeting times... so we'd loiter in their reception.  I'd take The Economist... Kirill probably had War & Peace or some similar slim Slavic literature

I mentioned to KK the coincidence of the twins at twin companies... he didn't think it remarkable

I used repetition to make my point until he twigged... The fantasy of the facsimile... copulation with copies

Numero Uno w Madalinskiego 101a

Monika was the most beautiful girl in our buiro

So Rafal Arpad came to me & said ... "Do you appreciate Monika's beauty....?"

Ja mowic "Tak"

So Rafal picked up my phone & called her ... "Direktor Mediow Pan Gareth wants to speak to you" 

I didn't know what the fuck to say... I had about three minutes to sink of something 

Monika arrived ... a vision of pienkna ... all wolosy i teeth

"Err ... Mmmmnnn ..... Monika ... jak Y&R....?" 

Wyszko ok...? 

Rafal ... Go fuck yersel... YNWA 

Coincidence in Life ... not in fiction

At Palma airport for half term... left my beer with a lovely couple while I smoked

On my return we got talking ... after my usual bullshit I admitted that I was a Mad Man. She worked at Saatchi in their pomp

"Do you know Claire Myerscough?"

She was my first boss at Zenith where I met the wonderful Erol Mekhmet Mustafa Emirali.  Erol has a fantastic filthy story about Bill Muirhead... I have another unprintable one, but this lady topped them all

There was a problem with expenses at Saatchi.  They were drinking the profits... A meeting was convened "Muirhead ... you're the worst... what do you suggest we do about it...?"

"Let's go for lunch... open a nice bottle of wine... & discuss it"