Mark My Words Blog
Welcome to ‘Mark My Words,’ the digital sanctuary where insight meets intrigue, and commentary sparks contemplation.
Delve into the dynamic world of PR maverick Mark Borkowski as he unravels the threads of media, culture, and communication. Mark’s blog is a treasure trove of industry wisdom, offering a backstage pass to the inner workings of publicity and the ever-evolving landscape of modern media.
The Best Gift
The Borkowski poet in residence imagines what Prince Charles would like for his birthday… I’d like tea with Lord Mountbatten I’d like a gin with dear old gran I’d like a brand new book by van der Post I’d like poetry to scan I’d like a son who didn’t dress up like Max Moseley just for fun and a chance to stop my sons’ lives from appearing in The Sun I’d like my plants to answer back for once and tell me what they feel I’d like houses built from Portland stone and not from glass and steel I’d like…
The re-branding of Prince Charles
What is the best present could Prince Charles hope to be unwrapping on his 60th birthday, today? He will get many, but I suspect that the period of calm that has prevailed at Clarence House over the last five years, interrupted occasionally by the binge drinking bouts and going-to-parties-dressed-in-Nazi-regalia adolescent antics of his 20-something sons, is the one he will be valuing most, as it will allow him to celebrate his birthday in relative peace. For decades, the Prince, as part of the Royal Family, one of the biggest brands going, has suffered the slings and arrows of outraged and outrageous press…
The Twitter Agenda
I’m intrigued to see that I have been placed in a poll of influential PR Twitterers, intrigued and a little surprised. This is because I didn’t join Twitter to become part of the PR churn that pings out statistics through the site; I joined more to allow anyone who might be interested an insight into my personal, internal workings. My Twitter is, essentially, there to allow me a space for offbeat ramblings, to give those following me an idea of what I’m reading, thinking and doing and to offer a wider understanding of what drives me. I don’t particularly want…
Selling Excess Daily Mail Style
The Daily Mail today extended their puritanical approach, newly fired up and raring to go in the wake the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand hoo-ha, to Carnage UK, a company which promotes themed pub crawls for students in university cities in which the students dress up in outrageous costumes, coat themselves in vulgar slogans and drink themselves insensible through a number of pubs. The Norwich event, which has evoked most ire in the paper, was in “Dirty Porn Star” fancy dress. The article, entitled Degrees of Excess, is long, outraged and thoroughly illustrated. Some will read it as an attack on the company, but others will see it as…
The Un-Spun Sarah Brown
The cynics are suggesting that Sarah Brown’s PR experience and guile was ably deployed to pilot her husband, Gordon Brown, through the rapids of a tricky by-election. OK, the first lady has a history of working in PR; in a previous life she was a capable operator in the art and publishing world. But she was never embraced the fluffy, air-kissing cliché side of the industry. She was quite old in PR years at 30 when she created a new ‘integrity PR’ business with her pal Julia Hobsbawm, handling clients such as the feminist organization Emily’s List. It wasn’t a…
Pissed Brummie or another fabulous nobody
Why You tube is a beautiful thing – the birth of another fabulous nobody
The Obama Project
When I first visited New York 32 years ago, I was strongly advised against walking through Harlem. 40 years ago, Martin Luther King was assassinated for daring to dream about racial integration. 13 years previous to that, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a bus and tipped the balance, beginning what has become, of late, an avalanche of change. Now, after decades of struggle, what was previously unthinkable – despite Jesse Jackson’s valiant attempts to stand for the presidency in the 1980s – has actually happened; a black man has been elected President…
I Don’t Want a White House
The Borkowski poet in residence’s reaction to the American election. I don’t want a White House, I want a light house, a right house. I don’t want a White House, I want a beacon ‘gainst the night house. I want a dream in every heart house, a no one kept apart house. I want a truth house, a youth house, an open not uncouth house. I want a hope house, a joy house, a no lies to deploy house. I want a trust house, a just house, a proactive and robust house. I don’t want a White House, I want…
What It Means For Talent
On Friday morning, hours after Lesley Douglas’s resignation, the controllers of all the BBC radio and television networks were called together, and asked to look carefully at everything they were broadcasting. “We’re all jumpy. We’ve not been told to change or become more conservative. But we are being encouraged to talk about any shows which seem to be borderline,” said one executive after a meeting with Jana Bennett. Some fear that this will make the BBC a less attractive place for comedy talent. “My fear is that the BBC will be stuck with a huge compliance procedure, as happened to…
More on Jonathan Ross and the BBC scandal
A couple of news snippets on YouTube in which I comment on the ongoing crisis at the BBC.
The Jonathan Ross Song
The Borkowski poet in residence’s take on Jonathan Ross’ part in the scandal currently consuming the press. Vocal rights for this podcast have been subcontracted to EDF. Jonathan Ross is, Jonathan Ross is a sacrificial lamb for the BBC bosses he may be cheeky, sweary and slick a gold plated carrot on the end of a stick but however many kids he got watching the box his stellar career is now on the rocks at least at the Beeb, where he’s put on ice for phoning up actors and not being nice but Jonathan Ross is, Jonathan Ross is perfectly…
Brand Banned
The Borkowski poet in residence reflects, in oblique headlines, on the part Russell Brand played in the affair currently consuming the front pages. Brand Banned Brand Gland Banned Brand Gland Hand Banned Brand Tanned Gland Hand Banned Brand Manned Tanned Gland Hand Banned Brand Banned Stand Brand Brand Stand By Banned Gland Brand Ban Planned By Bland Gland Brand’s Banned Gland Planned To Expand Brand Unmanned By Bland Gland Bland Gland Planned to catch Brand Strand In Hand Brand Banned Stand Brand See Bland Gland Unmanned
Pulling the pluggers
In these difficult times, spare a thought for the unsung victims of the media song and dance surrounding Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s prank calls to Andrew Sachs; the pluggers. Now that Ross’s shows have been cancelled for the foreseeable future, the pluggers for any number of stars are without two of the most popular shows on television and radio to promote whatever book, CD or film their charges have out at the moment. They will be forced to go cap in hand to the producers of The Paul O’Grady Show, This Morning, Loose Women and the like, hopeful that…
Where next for Brand and Ross?
The suspension of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand by the BBC over their boorish and lewd phone call to Andrew Sachs is a definite case of the BBC finally sitting back and taking a look at their media stock after a week of keeping its collective head in the sand, Suspension is the equivalent to the mediaeval practice of putting offenders in the stocks in a market place and letting passers by throw rotten fruit at them – the only difference being that the rotten fruit thrown is ink and pixel and the people throwing it are the media and…
The times they are a-changin'
The hoo-ha over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s pre-recorded assault on the answerphone of Andrew Sachs has spilled over into a debate in today’s Times about whether presenters will earn as much money in the predicted straitened times post credit crunch and the global impact of such anarchic behaviour in a more tight-fisted entertainment world. “Mark Borkowski, who represents Noel Edmonds, said: ‘We’ve just passed through the over-inflated times. Ross has a huge following and the audiences love him, but with controversy like this the commercial broadcasters don’t want to annoy their advertisers.’ “But any decision to try to drop…
Zen and the art of Russell Brand
If you are surrounded by the press, being bombarded by difficult questions about something you’ve done, something that you may or may not be ashamed of, but are definitely unwilling to talk about, there is a new model of zen-like avoidance technique, thanks to the ever-inventive Russell Brand. Click here to see Brand say absolutely nothing about his involvement in the abusive phone calls to Andrew Sachs. He speaks in a charming manner, using words that imply friendly (if somewhat zany) intentions yet which state nothing concrete at all. Russell Brand, PR fixers past and present would be proud of you!
Is all publicity good publicity?
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have sparked a lather of frothing outrage with their series of lewd messages on the answerphone of Andrew Sachs, who starred as Manuel in Fawlty Towers, detailing an alleged sexual liason between Brand and Sachs’ granddaughter Georgina Baille (click here to read the transcript). I feel some sympathy for Sachs and his granddaughter, but what do people expect when Brand and Ross get together? Brand makes a living from his controversial approach to sexuality and Ross caused a storm a while back by asking Conservative leader David Cameron if he had ever had teenage sexual fantasies…
Maynard Nottage in the digital collective consciousness
The press release put out by Nottage’s family last week has wandered through the internet like a virulent digital contagion. From Business First of Buffalo to the Earth Times, the Houston Chronicle to the Los Angeles Times, Soapdom.com to Inbox Robot, Reuters to Marketwatch, Maynard Nottage is pretty much everywhere in America’s digital collective consciousness. I found at least eighty different links to the press release on the web. There is still no response from the Times, however. Perhaps that’s because they failed to even report the conversation they had with Nottage’s great-grandson, whose disgruntlement with this treatment lead to…
The Good Ship Obama
The Borkowski poet in residence returns with some thoughts on the upcoming American election Sarah Palin’s impaled on a world that is failin’ Joe Biden is bidin’ his time. Old John McCain strives again and again to prove the economy’s fine. Barack Obama stands taller and calmer on the shoulders of Democrats past. He seems victory-bound, this statesmanlike charmer, but how long will the honeymoon last? Obama’s getting barracked ‘bout his colour and Iraq but still he don’t notice the knocks. The average Joe’s seen the economy slow, just wants a Prez who’ll take care of his stocks. The hottest…
With a Bang and a Wispa
Luckily, someone at the PR Week Awards was on hand with a camera to capture the Borkowski team’s exuberant stage invasion post the announcement of the team winning the Campaign of the Year Gold Award for the Cadbury’s Wispa campaign. The footage below proves beyond doubt that the only thing to go quietly to the stage was the Wispa itself. In the grainy film, one can see a clearly over-the-moon Larry Franks, Borkowski’s MD, arriving onstage and skidding to his knees at the feet of Bill Bailey, who gives him a hug, before he leaps up to clutch the award…