4 Fuks Saké

A Quality Newspaper.

An endearing Sun promo celebrating 40 years of the 'UK's favourite handheld,' with respect to Apple.

Social Media Guru

Courtesy of @FinchFactor and @matt_creamer (whoever they are). And why can't they spell their names properly?

Save Time & Money.

Here's an opportunity to give yourself a break filling your "packed" schedule of procrastination at conferences and seminars. Just watch this, and then go and do some real client work in social media for 6 months. It's all you need. They'll be another one in the spring.

Big Business

Big Brother "axed" says The Sun. Before you take the piss, was it your idea to knock up a portakabin and then make £25million a year? The format deserves to go down as one of the great business achievements in television history.

Channel 4 and Endemol deserve nothing but respect for devising a format that is commercially stupendous, and still looks ahead of its time, (even if the content it produces has become just a little predictable). Its simplicity is everything. Stick some people in a box, peer at them via your TV, mobile, computer or tabloid newspaper and then persuade people to spend more money sending texts, making calls, buying the sponsor's products. People do.

Endemol CEO Tim Hincks says Big Brother "is the only really convincing multiplatform idea and format in the UK". He could add the world - the format has been exported to over 70 countries. In reality, there are shit loads of them - but Hincks' people showed them the path to gold.

Can't wait to see the back of it myself. And that's nothing but pure jealousy.

Who Killed Summer?

People sat at desks near me have worked very hard to make something very cool.

Completely Irresponsible. Indignant With Rage.

One universal truth about UK kids  is that, by and large, they don't have much respect for their elders. At school, kids develop a canny ability to spot vulnerability in people who should have authority. A successful lesson meant driving a failing teacher to explode in rage, or erupt in tears of frustration via quality goading. They were supposed to be in charge. We brought them down. Result. Perhaps that behaviour explains why our English ancestors led the world in the establishment of liberal democracy. Who knows, and who cares? This blog is about how people sell shit.

Anyway, it's a link into a quality bit of work from EA today in the UK, who have used the same trick to sell a video game to kids. The authority this time, appears to be an "indignant with rage" MP, and a load more "angry residents," queuing to use words like "completely irresponsible." Mercenaries 2: World In Flames available now on Amazon for £24.99 on PS2 features "Venezuelan-style fuel riots." EA offered free fuel to people. It was over-subscribed massively. A "Venezuelan-style fuel riot" then takes place in Hornsey, North London - just like it was in the picture above. Except it wasn't really - it was a bit of a traffic jam. Coverage appears for the game on the front page of BBC Online. It'll be elsewhere too. Outstanding.

You Don't Get This Kind Of Stuff On ITV

BBC Sport have unveiled their Gorillaz work for the Beijing games. There's all sorts of widgets, gizmos and irritants around the main characters Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy.

Have a look at this though....the 2 minute movie that will form the basis of their opening titles for the Olympic Games.

15 days to go - personally, can't wait. The sanctimonious whining of anyone from Spielberg to Konnie Huq can be parked to one side. Seeing China have its well deserved moment in the sun will be captivating, breathtaking and awe-inspiring. Londoners are about to get a big wake-up call.

Chinese Facebooks

No Facebook yet in China, and it may be some time. Its pronunciation in Chinese sounds like 'Doomed To Die." Not to worry - in the country where there's a caring and sharing approach to idea generation, you can sign up to whichever clone you like. Mobinode points out U.discuz.net, Xiaonei or Yeejee which look comfortably familiar to a pair of Western middle class social networking eyes.

More importantly, kop a load of a bunch more 'China's massive' stats. In the last 6 months, 48 million more people tucked into the Internet, report Kaiser and China Web 2.0 Review. That means we're now up to a total of 210 million users - primarily well educated and city-based. However, 40% of that new 48 million are living out in the sticks. You can find a meaningless stat about China every day - but that's a significant one. Greater access to education and information is coming to the masses.

Why Viewing Loftus Road from 5,000 Feet Is So Important

I'm such a sad fuck. I can't seem to take my eyes off maps, things to do with travelling, journeys, countries and stuff.

I can gently and warmly spin a globe for ages, thinking about flights, time zones, terrains, climates and the restaurants I'll find when I get there.

I log onto Google Earth to look into sporting stadia  from the sky. 

I get mildly irritated if the Flight Tracker thing isn't working on the plane.

I'm genuinely interested when I ask people  what roads or trains they've taken on a journey, just to see if I could have done better.

That's why I love these.... With Dopplr, I can tell the world where I'm travelling to. With Plazes I can point you to a map and tell you exactly where I am and what I'm doing right now. On Facebook I blatantly show off all the countries I've visited. With OSX Planet my Mac desktop updates every 2 minutes with a live satellite shot of the whole fucking big blue planet.

No-one gives a fuck, but that doesn't matter. It just makes me feel 5% warmer inside.

A Few Things

Thinking is hard work on Saturday mornings, so here's a load of people who've done it for me already.

The music industry is on fire if you look in the right places, say Chris Anderson. Sales are up everywhere except for CDs. Stats and article here....

Everyone's talking about it. Nokia's doing it, by making a few quid in the developing world. Read all about it in the New York Times.

Here's my own flag. Make your own flag here.

This man was a genius.

I'm going for some more coffee and Soccer AM.