Phil Turner

The Dylan waterproof ... obviously

Phil Turner — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:49:00 GMT

I'm delighted to see that Regatta - they who make waterproofs for ramblers - are teaming up with Bob Dylan to launch the Regatta Bob Dylan soft shell jacket.

Apparently "the black jacket features a Dylan logo on the chest, and a classic print of the singer across the back".

Awesome.

One new year's eve I went to the offie to buy a bottle of whisky and a camera film for the evening's festivities. Brilliantly, that night Bells whisky were giving away a free Kodak film with every bottle.

Yesterday I went into Massimo Dutti to buy a shirt, and I bought a shirt and .... a motorcycle helmet. (They assure me it passes all official safety tests).

Let's see. What else is an obvious match?

Tap set to reform (again)

Phil Turner — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:41:00 GMT

I read in the Times that now-legendary rock band Spinal Tap will reform for the Live Earth gigs.

I saw Tap at Wembley in ’92 when they reformed for the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Their equipment packed in. So they told jokes to the 72,000-strong crowd and proclaimed that: “Freddie would’ve been alright if only he’d double-bagged it.”

They were promoting new single “The Majesty of Rock” (second line: the Mystery of Roll).

However, a revised plan called for them to cut their set short by 25 songs, to just one. Bassist Derek Smalls said: "We believe Freddie would have wanted it this way."

I’m also amused by this classic Tap clip, remade in lego.

My favourite One Sentence story for the day

Phil Turner — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:40:00 GMT

"I knew I was out of my league when she used 'summer' as a verb."

It reminds me of something the 17-year-old son-of-a-rich-bloke intern we had here once said. She was born and brought up in Harvey Nichols territory.

I was talking about selling up in London and moving to the country. She said:

"Oh you must keep a property in town."

Well I'll try, I said.

My wife used to say things like that too. But if Hill & Knowlton has taught me one thing useful, it's how to manage expectations.

I got another Bob Dylan for my birthday

Phil Turner — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:09:00 GMT

My friends have bought me this wonderful Bob Dylan print. His face is made up from the lyrics to Like a Rolling Stone.

It doesn't get any better than this.

But it gives my wife another dilemma. Does she continue with her French country house decor scheme, or cave in to my proliferation of Bob Dylan pop art? (This isn't the only Bob Dylan pic I received...)

Rock n'roll blogging

Phil Turner — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:55:00 GMT

Change & Internal Comms went en masse to the Melcrum social media conference today. David and I spoke. I think I got carried away with rock n'roll stories and comparing blogs to pubs, but we might have got away with it.

There were some fascinating presentations.

Sinking a few beers afterwards I had discussions about rock n'roll blogging and the best rock tribute band names (my favourite being the Blondie act "Once More Into The Bleach").

Now that's what networking's all about.

And they're lovely at Melcrum. They gave me a box of chocolates (wife is eating them on the sofa as I write) and they gave me David's box of chocolates too (wife about to set about them also).

Guitar quiz

Phil Turner — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:49:00 GMT

Friday fun. Name these 50 guitar heroes.

I got Bob Dylan for my birthday

Phil Turner — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:06:00 GMT

My sister bought me this picture of Bob Dylan for my my birthday.

I think it should go above the fireplace. My wife disagrees.

Reflections on getting old

Phil Turner — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:58:00 GMT

I'm 30 today. Those of you who know me personally will also know that mentally, if not physically, I passed the 30 mark many years ago. So today's shift from a youthful 20-something to ageing 30-something hasn't been too big a leap.

Nevertheless, today is a day for reflection. I reflect that

George Harrison was still only 27 when the Beatles broke up
Hemingway was 27 when he wrote The Sun Also Rises
Keats had written his entire body of work by the age of 26, when he died

I'm not going to beat myself up too much about this, because

I'm alive
I'm healthy
I've got a blog. So that's one up on Keats and Hem

So on that positive note, if you bump into me tonight (The Leather Bottle, Garratt Lane) I'll buy you a beer to celebrate.

What music do you play - in a word

Phil Turner — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:37:00 GMT

This business of being able to describe what you do in a word. I had my thinking challenged by a rock band last night. Well I say rock band, but I'm not sure what they were, and that's my point.

The Bees were at the London Astoria. After a shaky start they started to sound like a rock band. The next song they became a country band. Then a pop band. They proceeded to sound a bit ska, a bit reggae, a bit funky, before coming back for their encore and sounding like a Motown act!

What were they?

Dunno. I can't describe their sound in a word.

I once had the privilege of listening to Norman Mailer speak. He was talking about a bunch of stuff, but I remember something he said about the dangers of trying to explain too much in too little a space.

He said one problem with the Bush administration is that they want to explain huge complexity and hundreds of years of history in a soundbite.

So the Bees and Norman Mailer remind me that, sometimes, simplicity won't do.

Can you tell me what you do - in a word?

Phil Turner — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:37:00 GMT

My brother’s been out in the rain all day, herding his sheep so he can scan the ewes for the number of lambs they’re carrying.

He then labels the ewes carrying two or three young, so he knows to give them extra food.

He’s a farmer.

I don’t tell him what I do. He wouldn’t understand and he wouldn’t care.

My colleague Mark says you should have a job that you can describe in one word.

Farmer
Lawyer
Writer
Nurse
Hairdresser

What am I?

Consultant

Hmmm. Once (when I was ‘writer’) I would have shivered at the thought. But you know, I’m inspired – not a lot – but inspired nonetheless by David’s defence of consultants.

The greatest singer of all time

Phil Turner — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:50:00 GMT

Elvis Presley is the greatest singer of all time, or so says Q magazine. Here's their top ten in full:

1. Elvis Presley

2. Aretha Franklin

3. Frank Sinatra

4. Otis Redding

5. John Lennon

6. Marvin Gaye

7. Kurt Cobain

8. Robert Plant

9. Mick Jagger

10. Jeff Buckley

This is inarguably a very good list. Here's my alternative ten:

1. Nat King Cole

2. Van Morrison

3. Kate Rusby

4. James Taylor

5. Sandy Denny

6. Bon Scott

7. Roy Orbison

8. Richard Manuel

9. Sam Cooke

10. Ray Lamontagne

Who am I missing?

When you catch an adjective, kill it!

Phil Turner — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:30:00 GMT

"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; and don't let the fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.

"When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when close together. They give strength when they are wide apart."

Mark Twain, in a letter to a 12-year-old boy.

Some of my least favourite adjectives:

Key
Considerable
Substantial
Significant
Vital

And my least favourite adverbs:

Very
Recently

Dylan stories

Phil Turner — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:52:00 GMT

Columbia Records are collecting people's stories about Bob Dylan. I'm working with my client to collect their people's stories about their organisation. So one's more glamorous than the other, but we're both using the good old story to make sense of something.

Columbia and me are even using a similar online tool to do it.

Anyway, here's the Dylan story I've just submitted.

I'd been a Dylan fan since my schooldays. But it was the summer of 1998, two years into university, that he became a part of my life.

I was living in a caravan in the Lake District with my best friend. We explored the Lakes in the days, worked in the local pub in the evenings, and played Risk and drank whisky through the nights.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend spent the summer in the south of France.

I'd just discovered Blood on the Tracks and Desire. And these songs about Bob and Sara Dylan struck me, like they have so many others, in a very personal way. The intensity of their love, the hurt they caused each other: the joy and the loss. Especially the song Sara. It still brings me to tears.

I guess I missed my girl. Anyway, she came home and I gave her this album Blood on the Tracks. She loved it. Still does. She's my wife now and it's the only Dylan album she likes me to play.

This is one of many Dylan stories I could have told. I would love to hear others, if you have them and want to share.

Test the readability of your writing

Phil Turner — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 11:45:00 GMT

In a previous post I suggested a simple tool for improving the writing in your organisation. Here’s another one, designed to test the readability of the writing.

The Flesch reading ease test scores your writing based on average words per sentence and syllables per word. The higher the score, the easier the text is to read.

As a guideline, online copy should have a Flesch reading ease score of 60-80.

Reader's Digest magazine scores about 65, in the same bracket as The Sun and Mirror newspapers. Time magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a readability score in the low 30s.

If you’ve got a passage of text you want to test just cut and paste it here. Alternatively you can do it in Microsoft Word. Select 'show readability statistics' under the Spelling and Grammar options.

Writers in my team find this especially useful. We write a lot of copy for online publications in complex, multi-national companies.

Each of these factors is important:

Online copy is more difficult to read. It had better be simpler.
Complexity is often exacerbated by imprecise language and over-use of jargon.
Multi-national readerships have various levels of understanding. Why not make it easier for everyone by making the copy more readable? This is not ‘dumbing down’.

Moustaches

Phil Turner — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:04:00 GMT

David and I are playing blog tennis today. We share an interest in the facial hair debate.

I had a moustache when I was 24. Yes, I know that's far too young to have a moustache, but I was inspired by my Dad's Mo and by the 24-year-old bloke at work who smoked a pipe without embarassment.

Perhaps if there's enough demand we could put an H&K contingent into the 2007 Tacheback or maybe Movember. Both events involve making a fool of yourself for a good cause.

p.s. a prize to the first person to name the moustached band pictured