FAIR* - Ethical Creative Consultancy

Yep -as you may have noticed this blog has sort of gone quiet… again…

This is a for a couple of reasons:

1) We’ve been very busy on Fairbrand work and blogging has slipped down the list… sorry!
2) We’re both now working some of the time as planners for different companies. This is giving us a great insight into stuff that we wouldn’t usually be party to, and conversly we’re getting to try and change big corporations from the inside out which is nice.

We are writing other blogs at the moment - Marks is here, and Rory’s is here (and will be linked soon.)

We kept these separate as they’re not dedicated to ethics (but obviously touch on them) and thus they’re not on behalf of Fairbrand - but on behalf of us as individuals.

Our new blogs are updated much more regularly than this one so get them into your feeds and keep looking!

But not on the right thing.

Far too often I’m sat with my organic mug of cocoa being forced by Mrs. FAIR* to watch some turgid nonsense like The X Factor, or Dancing with the stars or other acts against humanity. Now, believe it or not, this has got me thinking about something interesting.

Constantly throughout these shows you hear the same phrase used from both sides - the people trying to live our their dream, and from the judges pushing them on. There’s no doubting that everyone says they’re “working hard”, and that they need to “keep on working hard”. If everyone keeps on working hard then everything will be ok.

Actually, I think this says a lot about the mentality of the people on these shows, because working hard isn’t good enough.

In the educational system here in the UK, working hard is applauded, but achievement is rewarded. Certainly in the Higher Educational system I’m part of, working hard is expected as a prerequisite. It means pretty much nothing. What is important is making the right choices. If you choose well, if you make the right choices on where you’re going to apply that effort then you’re on the right path. Simply working hard is not good enough.

Maybe I’m thinking too much into it - I probably am - but I think that this mindset needs to change. If we presume that the majority of the viewers for these shows will be younger people (not all, but the majority), then I think there’s actually an obligation on the makers to make it explicit that working hard isn’t enough, and that a level above that needs to be achieved in order to strive towards their goal.

For me it’s the same argument as knowledge and intelligence. Anyone can learn stuff, anyone can take information in and store it, but it’s the application of that knowledge at the right time that leads to intelligence… in my eyes at least. What we’ll end up with if the educational system was based on The X Factor would be a society full of surface learners, when what we’re looking for is a society full of deep learners.

We can discuss the merits of rewarding effort over rewarding achievement (and trust me, I’ve discussed it a lot), but the fact remains that hard work doesn’t make you brilliant at anything. Knowing what to work hard on does.

Whilst watching the brilliant No Reservations the other day, Anthony Bourdain said something that has been bouncing around my head for a few days… in western society, we don’t like gelatinous foods too much, and we prefer a crispy, fried texture.

Now whilst the second part of that sentence is (in my mind anyway) obviously true - the first part has got me thinking: what foods do we eat that are actually gelatinous?

The obvious one is jelly (or jell-o to our US reading people), and I’d say there’s not much besides that? Have a think and let us know which foods you can think of that are gelatinous. We’ve not googled it - we just thought we’d throw it out there. As an aside - how many of these gelatinous things are natural? And, what is it that has given us this general dislike for the texture?
Our list so far:

Savoury: Jellied eels, pork pie jelly, tofu (when cooked in something like miso soup), ?
Sweet: Jelly, blancmange

We’ve all got one in the cupboard near the stairs, and it’s probably green and grey. I use mine rarely but when I do it gives me that feeling of when I used to go on school trips. There’s still a certain amount of child in everyone and when you get into your sleeping bag it comes to the fore. Maybe it’s because laying in a sleeping bag makes you want to lay in the foetal position to warm up?

It’d be really interesting to see a graph of average sleeping bag use throughout the lifetime of someone. No use in the initial years, a steep rise from about 10 years old, and then a step dip from about 15? Add in the occasional weekend away or trip around Europe and I should think it’d look something like this.

I’ve attempted to visit The Magpie Cafe in Whitby a few times in the past. You see, I only usually visit Whitby during the summer months. I’ve been told about The Magpie Cafe many times but whenever I used to turn up there was a queue the length of the Great Wall of China. Being up in Whitby in November, however, means there are less tourists and I grasped the chance to get in.

I’m no Giles Coren, but to be honest I sort of wish I was when I visit places like this. The food was magnificent, the prices were northern and the service was non-London unpretentious. It was well worth the wait.

It makes the most of what its got and doesn’t play on anything it isn’t – a lesson London could learn from, I reckon. This was the end of November and the weather was miserable, but there was still a queue waiting when I left.

These photographs were taken when I visited my dad.

He’s in the middle of renovating his house. I just love looking at things when they’re out of context. We view them and their relationship with different things in a completely new way than if we viewed them in their natural habitat. Their shape takes on a new dimension, the colours contrast with other objects and their very use changes. I love it. The next time I see Minute Maid advertised I want to see it in a situation like this. What is it there to do!?

Did the packaging company that designed the Minute Maid bottle ever envisage that their creation would ever be used like this? If not, why not?

I think this will (and should) be a big trend for next year – reusing things in different situations. It’s a natural progression from Reduce. We already Recycle a lot more than we used to, but I think we still fall down on how much we Reuse things, and I think part of the problem is that we design things with one purpose. It has a life cycle of being that object, then we assume it’ll be recycled or put into the bin. I think we should design things that have a dual purpose, and pro actively promote the second use of the object. That way we’re doubling the useful life of the product and thus creating less stuff.

I said much the same over on John Grant’s blog here.

This is a photo of the workbench that my dad uses.

He’s a carpenter and needs to hold various things (of various sizes) at different angles and with different degrees of pressure so he can cut them in half, plane them, hammer them, screw into them and loads of other things that I try to do but end up looking like Mr. Bean.

Of course for him it’s childs play – he needs to be able to do it easily and quickly – it’s what he’s spent the best part of 40 years doing.

Whilst the workbench may look unremarkable, it really isn’t when you delve deeper. It has saw cuts through it, drill holes in it and the odd little nail sticking out. All of them are the inevitable scars from the construction of something new or the refurbishment of something old. Oil of Olay can’t hide these signs of ageing…

I told him that it reminded me of the one he used to use when I was a kid when I used to play about on site with him. He said it’s the very same one and that he’s had it for over 20 years, uses it most days and if we were to examine it we’d find bits of skin, blood and sweat mixed in with the wood. I tried to think of something that I’ve had for 20 years and use on most days. I couldn’t – can you? When I mentioned to him that it looks like it’s on its last legs and he should think about replacing it he simply said “Why? it still works.” He should work for Howies.

… completely Northern.

We haven’t started live blogging here in FAIR* HQ yet, so over the next few days we’re going to give you a little taster of the few days away we’ve just experienced. We’re no Ewan McGregor or Charley Boorman, and we’ve only been to the North East of England but it did make us think about things that we don’t usually think about in London. Enjoy.

Over here at FAIR* HQ, we read a lot of what other people write, and top of the tree has to be Russell Davies’ blog. We love to read about his Egg, Bacon Chips and Beans, some really useful stuff about planning… but we also love his Nice Cup of Tea blog. We can associate with it 100%.

A funny thing happened when we were enjoying a nice quiet cup of tea yesterday and we thought we’d share it. We came up with an idea, and one that seems to be original. We have thought that before over here, so we thought we’d share the idea to find out if it’s been done before, and - if not - how we can all go about setting the wheels in motion.

Where, in London, can you go for a nice quiet pint, and know that’s what you’re going to get?

We couldn’t think of anywhere. Think of it: A place where you know it’s not going to be too busy, it’ll have a nice ambiance, there won’t be any stag or hen parties, there’ll be a table for you and maybe even a bit of black pudding and cubed cheddar on the bar?

The idea for this struck us when we were discussing the fact that we wanted a nice bar to go for a quiet pint so we could discuss some work and have a generally low key evening. We agreed that a lovely country pub would be ideal - but couldn’t think of anywhere in London. Surely there’s scope for some kind of bar that has these attributes? Of course the biggest decision is the ‘quiet’ bit. How can a bar stop people from coming in, from being too loud and from turning the quiet pint into a loud night out? Well, we’re sure there are ways - maybe a membership system or something.

We thought we’d post this to find out if there’s anywhere out there that fulfills our needs? If there is, get in touch!

Here at FAIR* HQ we were chatting about our daily commutes and comparing notes, so here goes…

This morning as I was walking from Highgate to Archway tube I saw a McDonald’s sign on a lamp-post, one of those flag type ones, that said - “McDonald’s breakfast, 2 minutes straight ahead!”

How crude, to take advantage of me like that at 6:15 am. This got me thinking that when I walk along the river in Marlow (where I sometimes work) there are no signs, just rivers, and trees, and cows. And the juxtaposition struck a chord, all those years of being advertised burgers had made me disassociate them with cows - even though we all know where they come from, and we’ve all read Fast Food Nation.

I guess it goes to show that you need to do something to understand it, you need to get involved and experience it, not just read about it or skim it via RSS. It’s like a broken heart - you can read about how it made people feel, great people - people that are a whole lot better at writing than me, but nothing can prepare you for the event itself. I can happily say i wont be eating McDonald’s breakfast again.