Off the wall marketing

I would say that, after catching John Otway disease the evening before and trying too hard to ward it off with beer and wine, I was not at my best yesterday as I boarded the train from London Victoria. What made it worse was that Otway was on the phone as soon as I got back home to Arundel to see what progress I had made in entering Otway The Movie into the Cannes Film Festival. Yes,
The symptoms of Otway disease have, as usual, blossomed with alarming speed. Those who missed yesterday’s column (Why? Not good enough, see me afterwards) may not be aware of this disease which seizes people close to the great man and National Treasure and causes them, often under the influence of alcohol, to volunteer to involve themselves in his grandiose guerrilla marketing schemes.
There is no cure until that scheme has run its course. Also, it will cost me money, it always does. There is already talk of chartering coaches or even planes to ensure Cannes is overrun by Otway fans should I manage to get the film shown during the festival. In john’s mind, it will happen but the logistics of housing several hundred Otway fans in a town brim full of film starlets and hopefuls has been brushed aside as not a problem, yet.

Talking of unusual marketing campaigns, there is a pub in Chester called Off The Wall but what I like about this picture is that some of the letters spelling its name have obviously fallen off the wall, unless it is a fiendishly cunning marketing ploy for which I have fallen?

The letter of the law

There is no point in giving house room to that nice lady decorator unless she lives up to her name and decorates. One might think that allowing her to get on with whatever she wants to decorate would be a recipe for a quiet life, but the whole exercise is awash with danger for a suspecting husband who just wants a quiet life. Accept, like I do, that I have absolutely no eye for a house design idea, colours, textures or indeed any ability to project what something might look like when it is finished. Thus I am absolutely the worst person in the world to ask to pass judgement on something that is not finished. The problem arises when I get that poison chalice, the question that shakes me to the depths of my soul “what do you think?”. There is of course no escape. To venture an opinion, unless that opinion is a mirror image of what that nice lady decorator thinks is to court disaster. Although I know that to be the case, and although I know that any wavering from the official line of being an utter yes man is besieged with danger, somehow my mouth takes over from my brain and I can hear an opinion, apparently mine, flow forth.

The worst one is. “What for you think of that colour?”. It is uncanny but a response of “I like it” is met with the retort “it’s all wrong”. Equally the opposite is true; “what do you think of the green door frame?” The correct response was not “is that not just the undercoat?”.

The weather forecast today is for it to be fine but as I look out of my window and see grey skies and damp I think I shall delay my morning cycle until it brightens up. Should be sometime around next April. No social occasion tonight is something of a relief for this tiring socialite so I will prepare for lunch tomorrow in Chiddingfold with old pal, great musician and pure eccentric Wild Willy Barrett. He does not know it yet but he needs Currencies Direct in his life

Chris France
@Valbonne_News