I think it’s good that Australia is the third least likely country to bribe someone, following such excellent company as Switzerland and Norway.
Now here’s a job!
A thought! Perhaps the English guy looking for work could apply to London 2012 as a brand manager.
London 2012’s crappy logo
There really isn’t a polite way of putting it, is there? This new branding for London 2012 (formerly known as the Olympic Games) is a shocker. How did they manage to get it so wrong?
The Sydney Morning Herald headlined their story Olympic logo gets the thumbs down and referred to comparisons with “a disfigured swastika”.
But the Wikipedia entry has the best material so far. A reader of free newspaper London Lite pointed out a resemblance to Lisa Simpson performing oral sex.
A segment of animated footage released at the same time as the logo triggered seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. London 2012 removed the offending footage from its website.
How about you start?
I saw a guy’s profile online just now: “29 english need cash/work — ideas appreciated.” Well, mate, what do you think you can do that’s of value to someone else? Give us a clue! “Work” doesn’t just flutter down from heaven, not even under a Coalition government.
Broken formatting
I’m exhausted. I’ve just finished dealing with some major systems crises, and at the end of it I’m left with broken formatting on this website. Some of the text looks funny. Oh well it can wait… I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.
It’s the little details which matter…
This cheap but moderately decorative light fitting in an inner-city toilet symbolises the difference between a well-run business and a bad one.
This toilet is in a restaurant — a Thai restaurant on George Street, Sydney, called Crocodile Senior. No website, but great food, fast and efficient service and Thai pop music DVDs on screen. Nicely fitted out too.
Many restaurant toilets seem to come from a forgotten land. Bare bulbs hang from dust-covered fittings. Soiled paper towels overflow the rarely-emptied bin — when towels haven’t run out, that is. There’s a brown stain under every tap — and yes, that is urine you can smell. As you dry your hands on the back of your pants, you wonder where else they’re skimping on the cleanliness.
Did that kitchenhand actually wash his hands after he took a slash?
Green salad, anyone?
You finish your meal. It tasted OK, and next morning you’re moderately certain that your upset stomach is about the eight glasses of red you downed, not the chicken. But Doubt niggles at the back of your mind, and that restaurant drops silently off your list.
Crocodile Senior’s toilet, on the other hand, is fresh and clean. The flowers are artificial, but their colours are bright and there’s no layer of dust. This cheap light fitting creates a little bit of sparkle that helps convey the message: this is a nice place to be.
So many businesses seem to be like the Toilets from a Forgotten Land.
Some businesses piss away three days deciding the colour of the stationery, and $200k fitting out the spectacularly fashionable foyer. The salesman — sorry, “Business Development Manager” — has a PowerPoint presentation with 3D animation and sound effects. But the back office staff struggle because the computers are riddled with spyware and no-one’s paying attention. The driver reckons the truck really should be serviced, but nothing gets done and of course it breaks down the very day of The Important Delivery.
It’s like the slum-lord’s apartment, where wallpaper literally papers over the structural cracks. It’s the aged whore, well past her use-by date, whose sedimentary layers of pancake make-up distract you from the fissures and pustules beneath.
Sooner or later, there’s going to be leakage. And it won’t be pretty.