Mark Comments in the Press.
With a keen eye for cultural trends and a depth of insight honed through years of experience in the public eye, Mark stands as a beacon of clarity in a world often shrouded in confusion.
Mark’s commentary is both thought-provoking and incisive, inviting audiences to see beyond the surface and engage with the complexities of our times.
AN ENGLISHMAN’S CAR IS HIS CASTLE
Ken Livingstone intends to charge 4×4 drivers £25 a day to drive through London if he is re-elected as mayor. The Borkowski poet in residence takes a wry look at the phenomenon of the 4×4. An Englishman’s car is his castle. His home’s just a place where he lives. He may be microwaving the candle but he loves the feeling it gives when he drives half a mile to the schoolyard gates to drop off his child and hoot at his mates before gunning to work at 60 top whack then in a traffic jam lurk with the sun on…
Colonel Sanders goes stellar
Colonel Sanders goes stellar There seems to be a “mcflurry” of PR activity in the food and confectionary world. Burger King and Cadbury have both taken proactive steps to pull advertising and sponsorship. It is brilliant brand opportunism perhaps driven by the deep sense of paranoia that these respective industries are consumed by that has forced safety first action. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/stuntwatch/
BLACKMAIL
Britney Spears’ estranged husband Kevin Federline is reportedly threatening to sell a homemade sex video of the pair unless he receives £16 million and custody of their children. Kevin has allegedly vowed to sell the explicit four-hour tape to a company who want to post it on the internet unless Britney agrees to his demands. Blackmail – when your marriage is dying especially if you cheated and were constantly lying. Take what you can and head for Hollywood’s hills leave your ex-partner on a diet of pills If she doesn’t want the world to see her in the flesh get…
One of the joys of life for a humble publicist is to marvel at the poetry of pure propaganda.
One of the joys of life for a humble publicist is to marvel at the poetry of pure propaganda. Often when a pro-active campaign is shaped like the proverbial clay on the potters wheel, it is moulded by a ham-fisted half wit resulting in acres of print that work against the original aim. The new Britney Spears soap opera, centred on her marital problems, seems to be holding its own against the real news agenda as it contemplates the results of the U.S. congressional elections and the sacrifice of Donald Rumsfeld. Normally such a truly trivial story would be relegated…
THE BLISS ADDICTS
Words of warning from the Borkowski poet in residence to anyone not wishing to make the same mistakes as Paul McCartney, Britney Spears or Robbie Williams, all of whom have mistaken brief, random bliss for something lasting or satisfying. Bliss is short-lived a sun spot on a star’s eye a gutter-pressed candle stuttering out but the need for it asphyxiated romance years ago mutilated the long game the years of caring that underscore a marriage Bliss lives little longer than a mayfly It is a brief pout on lips closing like a letterbox but bliss, whilst it thrives, demands constant…
A Twist on Firestarters
It would seem that the great Harry Reichenbach invested a great deal of time building up relationships with various novice firemen in the early part of his career in New York. He spent time with the reluctant heroes, coaxing some fantastic tales out of them by persuading them to recount their experiences. Harry quickly built up a mental library of disaster stories that surrounded some of the more spectacular fires that they had to deal with. Harry later used this bank of tall tales when he had an established career in movies. Harry also encouraged a number of film makers…
ELECTIONEERING
Is it a coincidence that the verdict and sentencing to death of Saddam Hussein have arrived two days before the pivotal U.S. Congressional Elections? The Borkowski poet in residence wonders what George W. Bush might be thinking… Well we got him, he’s going. Saddam’s been shown the door I hope that you won’t think about the budget deficit no more. We’ve got a measure of justice for all those people that he killed. We’ll hang him by the neck to pay for all the blood he spilled, so now it’s safe to vote Republican in the midterms. Don’t be slack!…
THE FIRST CELEBRITY IN SPACE
Paris Hilton apparently wants to be the first celebrity to go into space. The hotel heiress plans to take her reality TV show The Simple Life into orbit and have cameras filming her as she trains to be the first celebrity astronaut. The Borkowski poet in residence imagines how she might react… You only get famous on Earth for being bored, rich and lonely as hell, with your face in the papers every day and only your good looks to sell. If you’re stuck in the celebrity rut there are brief specks of light in the dark but all you…
GOOD PARENTING
Kate Winslet will “knife” anyone who calls her a bad mother. The actress, who has a five-year-old daughter Mia and two-year-old son Joe, has warned people never to question her parenting skills. “People can throw anything they want at me, and be as mean as they like. But don’t mess with me as a mother, because I will get out a knife and come after you!” she said. I’m a very good mother and if you say I’m not I’ll stick a knife in your ribs and hope your blood doesn’t clot I’ll baste you and roast you in a…
Gluebound Glory
Jim Moran was sought out once again for his skills in publicising the most extraordinary of things. The Gluewise Company PLC in Boston found themselves at the bottom of the glue league tables, amidst a wash of other adhesive companies that had flooded the market. Moran set to work immediately and decided to join forces with the pilot and then owner of the plane City of Chicago. The pilot had once risked his own life in order to keep his plane in the air and was a well known figure in Massachusetts Moran thought it would be a great publicity…
THE HOWLING
A celebrity-driven Halloween fantasy by the Borkowski poet in residence. A loopy young celeb called Tom Cruise surfed sofas in search of his muse. He found her consuming a reporter called Blooming in search of some headline news. It was of course Halloween and Tom had been a year off the screen after the Paramount lot got decidedly hot, but he didn’t expect to see what he’d seen. That fame has a price we all know; only practices strange make it grow but Blooming was lunch because Tom’s muse had a hunch that she had that bit further to go….
THE HIRST BUBBLE
Brit artist Damien Hirst has been accused of plagiarizing a design by Robert Dixon. The Borkowski poet in residence has suffered similar difficulties… “The problem is not Damian Hirst’s borrowing from others, but his own loss of originality,” Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, Wednesday October 25 This poem has been copied by Damien Hirst. It’s been forged, faked and framed, then been dispersed as the genuine article although not one single particle was versed by Damien first. This poem has been copied by Damien Hirst and there’s no hope the poet will be reimbursed. It’s the lot of a poet to…
The Original Dog Wedding
I had a letter from a Mrs Alan Gilzean, I suspect no relation to the Tottenham and England footballer, who said that her uncle, back in 1949 staged the original dog wedding, (which we recently staged for Harrods) which caused outrage in his Parish Church, St Peter’s in London.
THE E.T. CAFE
Destination Moon, directed by Irving Pichel was released in 1950. Its claim to fame was that it starred Grace Stafford who was better known as the voice of Woody Woodpecker. It was a low budget movie where you could see all the studio lights reflected in the visors of the actors helmets, but despite this, it still won an Oscar for the best special effects which were devised by Lee Zavitz, who later went on to work on the Pink Panthar. It had a poor reception in the U.S. and Jim Moran was hired to make it a success in…
WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO KNOW
Sir Paul McCartney has furiously refuted allegations by his estranged wife Heather Mills that he was physically abusive towards her. The former Beatle is furious over the claims made by Heather in leaked divorce documents, and has vowed to “vigorously” contest the allegations in court. What we really want to know is that money got the better of both of them What we really want to know is that the breakdown of the marriage was Yoko Ono’s fault What we really want to know is that Paul McCartney after years of thumb-raising cheeriness finally lost his rag tore off Heather’s…
THE BABY IN THE BASKET
“Whatever Madonna’s original motives were for adopting 13 month old David Banda, from the mission run Home of Hope orphanage in Malawi, are now irrelevant. The backlash has suffocated the original motivation.” The baby in the basket the mother in the press the father back in Africa the balance to redress. The baby in the basket the quality of spin the torn veil of secrecy the good name wearing thin. The poverty, the emptiness in Africa and the West everyone is desperate and doing their selfish best. The paucity of charity the inability to mask it the general lack of…
Celebrity Pride, Followed By A Fall
Top PR’s View’s on Madonna The London Paper: Wednesday 18th October 2006 by Mark Borkowski It appears she has broken every rule in the PR book, every rule in the bible of of dos and don’ts built up over decades of celebrity disasters.
All over bar the shooting
In 1925, the German government issued an order that all police officers in Berlin should wear bulletproof vests in the city. This was not a welcomed decision as the police felt it would increase insecurity amongst existing officers and any would be potential converts to the force. In an attempt to avert argument, the government brought in none other than Jim Moran to create a publicity drive to turn the unwelcome decision around. Moran, in his inimitable style, came up with a stunt that both stunned and entertained not only Berlin, but the whole of Germany. The German manufacturer of…
CHAMELEON BOY
The Madness of Boy George, a documentary following the mercurial ex-front man of Culture Club through his period of community service for drug-related offences, airs on Channel 4 tonight. The Borkowski poet in residence marks the occasion with a poem… Chameleon boy is happy and sad a twisted, curmudgeonly acid-mouthed cad or joyful and spirited, loving and kind depending on how he has altered his mind. Chameleon boy keeps karma in check by living his life like a train set to wreck whilst slagging of rivals with happy abandon. If he’s falling he’s hoping it’s them that he’ll land on….
Jean Philippe de Bologne's ski tunnels
In 1962, Jean Philippe de Bologne, on the back of his success with the French bicycle company in Deauville, was approached by the chairman of the winter Olympics for Oslo. Jean Philippe took on the job to bolster the publicity for the games by creating a number of aerodynamic cabinets across France. A wind generator was installed in each glass cabinet, capable of simulating winds up to 50 miles per hour, and the cabinets themselves were kept one degree below freezing and filled with ice and snow. In each town, an Olympic skiing contestant would demonstrate skiing skills inside each…