This is the modern age, the age of the super-injunction, the age when celebrities want to keep their dirty laundry in bomb- and journalist-proof cages so that not even the slightest whiff of scandal can escape. Of course, it’s just not as easy as that, as the furore over someone posting information on Twitter about…
I’ve been in and out of the papers this month, commenting on a number of subjects, from the perils of PR spin on behalf of dictators to Sarah Ferguson’s latest misadventures by way of the redemption of Chris Brown and, since I’ve been in Poland, as mentioned in my previous blog, I hope you’ll pardon…
It was fascinating, on Wednesday, to watch the streets of London step back 20 years in time to the sort of violent protests that marked the anti Poll Tax movement. I admire the energy and the zeal of the students but, in an age where everything is being re-drafted, reinvented, challenged and overturned, I wonder…
This Sunday is the season finale of series four of Mad Men, and the web is alive with the sound of tributes and ‘best of the series’ video clips, including spoilers if you’ve not seen the entire run yet. Unless you’re in the UK, that is, in which case you’ll be watching episode seven of…
Bo Burnham’s been making up for the PR slip that saw him – or possibly his PR company – reject his nomination for the Malcolm Hardee ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award. And he’s been doing it with grace. It’s hard to tell if it’s his PR doing it or if –…
I’m up in Edinburgh at the moment, watching the excitement at the Fringe’s street level crank up several notches as the performers prepare for a multitude of launch parties. Whilst it’s great to see all these performers building themselves up into a state of anticipatory frenzy, I am left wondering why the Scottish media aren’t…
All brands in this new age require a long-term strategic overview of every potential threat. The corporate vicissitudes being thrown up by the 21st century means that communication and PR skills must be, of necessity, embedded in the captains of industry. After all they are the brand custodians. But looking at BP, and Tony Hayward…
I went to supper at the small but deliciously formed Texture restaurant in Portman Street last night with our clients, the government of South Australia, hosted by the Agent General, Bill Muirhead, to celebrate the First Family of Australian wine production. I sat next to Robert Hill Smith, who runs the Yalumba winery. Yalumba is…
When I was 19, the publicist Theo Cowan – this country’s first pro celebrity PR wrangler, who created the Rank Charm School, an acting school run the Rank Film company that brought the world Roger Moore, Joan Collins, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors and more – granted me an audience in Poland Street. “Keep your clients’…
What a depressing week for lovers of football. What a sorry, sad, insane mess played out by fools and halfwits. Ordinarily, the focus would have been on the big game, Arsenal v. Chelsea. Instead, this weekend, our interest in the game will be for all the wrong reasons. So, instead, I have decided to focus…