Meanwhile copies of many of our daily posts can be found on our marketing blog so if you are using the holiday period to mull over different ways of advertising that’s a good place to start.
But if you would like something different, here is a very silly story. It has no relevance to marketing to schools whatsoever, but some of my friends who know my addiction to the ludicrously crazy insisted that I wrote one, for old times sake.So here it is…
This week I went to the Great Oakley 21st century Poetry Society Christmas party, held as ever at the Toppled Bollard public house, situated as it is in our village’s western suburbs.
And as I might have guessed, for it is inevitably the case each year, at the party was a man who had the look of an ostrich that had swallowed a door knob.
He was standing by a collection of drinks, bold as brass, and without a word of introduction took it upon himself to offer me one. “As life goes on, don’t you find that all you need in the world is about two real friends, a regular supply of books, a cupboard full of sugar, and a whacking great win on the National Lottery?” he asked. I said that sounded about right.
We nodded together, realising we had found in each other a pair of kindred spirits, and as one, we moved into peaceful quiet contemplation of this deeper truth.
And yet as luck would have it, suddenly the drowsy stillness of the afternoon was shattered by what sounded to my strained senses like a Boris Johnson lookalike doll falling through a plate glass window onto a Mancunian Turkish Bath on a Wednesday.
And indeed so it turned out to be, for nothing else in the world can imitate such a sound. After a moment the doll got up, dusted itself down and moved menacingly towards two bonnie ladies at the far side of the room, with the mannequin looking for all the world as if he was going to start a fight right there in the sitting room – an increasingly common occurrence these days at poetry club meetings in the old East Mids, I regret to say.
Now many men in my position would have shrunk from diving in between the protagonists, arms akimbo (as it were), telling the party of the first part to lay off the party of the second part and vice versa. And I am most certainly one of many men.
For if the party of the first part wants to hit the party of the second part in the room of the party of the third part, and hence cause great damage to the property of the party of the fourth part, which will in due course have to be paid for via a party which other parties will have to attend at much cost, then let the party of the first part get on and do it, says I. The host gets some new whatnot, a spot of manly honour is restored, and everything it tickety boo at the party until it happens again.
But on this occasion at this Christmas Party, normal proceedings did not occur, for in came the hostess, calm as an extremely calm thing being especially calm on a calm day, and offered us all a calming drink. A Bacardi 151, I was told later.
For perhaps the split part of a second, nothing happened, as though all Nature waited breathless. Then, without warning the seven horsemen of the apocalypse sounded the advance and Judgement Day set in with extra aplomb.
Bonfires burst forth in all parts of my body. My head felt as if it were made of molten lava as a savage wind blew across my ears and a steam hammer hammered the back of my neck. Four horsemen approached and the wind began to howl.
But, just as I felt it was time to ring my solicitor and make sure all was in order with the old personal affairs, the sounds dropped, eyes cleared, and birds chirruped happily in the trees as the sun rose over the horizon with a jerk and a brass band (from Hunstanton I fancy although I could be mistaken) played a merry jig.
I noted a number of guests laying prone on the floor, as through the window the jaunty sound of emergency services approaching could clearly be heard.
“Did you like that?” asked the host.
“What is it, that thing. A French drink?”
“Calvados?” replied he.
“No – that journey they go on,” said I.
“Journey?” he queried
“Journey say quar,” said I, attempting to be clear.
I think it was at this point that he hit me and I felt the need to lay prone on the floor as passing angels administered to my whims, but that perhaps is another story.
So Happy Christmas to you, and if the new year makes as little sense as the old year did, I shall by and large remain quite content. After all, no one ever said you had to understand the world in order to enjoy it. And vice versa.
