Do you Buy it?

On my way into work this morning, as I passed Moorfields station entrance, I was confronted by two individuals dressed as, what looked like, some sort of pink blancmange henceforth referred to as the 'Blobs'.

The Blobs sported some sort of body suit of a distastefully, pink colour reminiscent of a hospital ward that had been decorated some years ago at a time of severe budget restrictions; they were revealing only spindly arms and legs, the main bulk of the Blobs was some sort of vague triangle shape with a protrusion at the front. They were rounded, which put me in mind of one of those rubbers (erasers!) that you had as a kid that started out somewhat 'amusingly' looking like a wedge of cheese but after some strenuous use destroying what your classmates had sneakily scrawled on the inside cover of your chemistry homework book (in pencil thankfully) involving the teacher and the hose from a bunsen burner, looked more like, well one of these Blobs.

Not wishing to stop and get the attention of these individuals I kept walking and then noticed the people on the periphery of the Blobs wearing luminous vests normally associated with either fire wardens or someone working for Railtrack in inclement weather. As the weather was light drizzle and cold, they also bore the same drab expressions Railtrack workers also bear, along with the disconsolate look of someone with the happiness beaten out of them.

Most of them were none too cheerfully handing out small packages but the two near me were talking about the forthcoming 'chocolate muffin' stunt they intended to pull outside a coffee house. These two were no doubt the orchestrators of the 'stunt' however given the fact that their sole contribution to advertising so far was dressing people up in very poor costumes, I did not hold up much hope for the success of the coffee house project if the chocolate muffin costumes were on a par with the Blobs. They may be better off trying to promote the opening of the Prosnicky Sewage Plant.

Then I saw one of the packages on the floor, a complementary tissue that was apparently different to all other tissues in the known world as it had some sort of decongestant balm laced into it. Not that this strikes me as odd as I distinctly recall this being on our household shopping list when all of us had colds and the accompanying increased mucus production it entails.

On that note, it is incredible how kids can produce so much snot, and even worse, have the ability to sneeze it across vast distances just after you have wiped their nose for them. I speak from experience and no doubt so do many others.

Ah, then it struck me, (not some wayward mucus from a passing child) I knew what they were. The Blobs were in fact noses; a quick sideways glance at the closest managed to get a glimpse of a vague set of nostrils albeit without what one would have expected from a nose supposedly beset with a cold; either a dangling dewdrop or a stream of green ichor.

So I had stumbled upon some advertising stunt for the sale of some new and revolutionary tissue with stuff in it to help keep the bane of the British worker at bay.

Now, I will admit to not being fully au fait with the trends in the 21st centuries advertising techniques, but I cannot come to grips with how on earth getting two drama students (and I guess they were drama students as they would be the only people who would even want to be associated with this sort of thing) to put on bad outfits and stand waving at people at the start of the onlookers' day at work, in the light drizzle of a darkened winter morning is going to convince anyone that they really ought to buy this product or even give it a second thought?

Some amongst you may even ponder on whether it has served its purpose by at least one person writing about it, i.e. me, however having completely failed to pass on any details about what the product is called or who makes it (a fairly fundamental point in advertising methinks) I consider the whole operation a complete failure.

As would the fine people of Liverpool charged with cleaning the streets, who will be faced with the task of cleaning up the myriad dropped leaflets that had been thrust at unwanted hands, and the tissues that had been wafted around to try to get people to get a whiff of the pungent decongestant the magical properties of the tissue were so firmly dependant upon and promptly dropped on the floor.

Now as I have to try to find some sort of game related link in everything I write, having set myself this task in order to add some sort of continuity to proceedings, I cannot for one moment imagine anyone who has engaged in any reasonable amount of role playing games coming up with such a basically inept advertising campaign as the one experienced this morning.

For a start, people in nose costumes are not going to attract much attention as exhibited by the pathetic exercise witnessed by yours truly. However, if the idea is to prevent colds and mucus related embarrassment then your focus for attention grabbing stunts should be the target of the whole operation mucus or more correctly, its removal and/or prevention.

In the vast majority of role playing games there is some sort of opposition to be fought and/or eradicated. Goblins, anti-heroes, evil robots, cthuloid extra dimensional madness inducing monsters, the list is near endless (not this particular list as it was actually quite short but I like to think that you get the idea). Therefore to add shock and drama at least one person should have been dressed as the mucus or snot.

It could be in the form of some gelatinous entity similar to a large jelly, or Armus in the Star Trek: TNG episode 'Skin of Evil', or some menacing bad guy armed with a bin full of lime jelly or even better, a lime jelly projecting device; a converted fire extinguisher or suchlike.

From there, someone dressed as a tissue or tissue based superhero, preferably armed with some sort of decongestant weaponry, could have disposed of the Snot entity. This would have been much more of a spectacle and would have caused people to actually take notice of what was going on.

Have some suitably prompt examples handed out after the climactic battle (ending just outside Costa cofee as quite a few people were gathered under the awning drinking a final wake me up before the drudgery began) and a bloke with a megaphone shouting the name of the product very loudly and some catchphrase or other and when people got to work they would no doubt chat with their colleagues about the marvellous sight they beheld as Captain Tissue destroyed the Snot Invader from Planet Mucus using 'Snotgon' tissues, or something.

I cannot imagine what sort of budget these people had to do the advertising stunt I witnessed, but if a bunch of gamers had been given the same funds the result would have been a lot more impressive and considerably more worth watching. I have no doubt that part of the budget would have gone on an initial brainstorming session drinking Wobbly Bob up in The Swan, or some similar establishment, but the results would have been just as effective.

And think of the change in established adverts; ladies would not just be able to play tennis at certain lunar based events, they would be able to wield flamethrowers, chainsaws and rocket launchers. The honey monster would actually eat kids if they didn't eat their cereal and the flake adverts, well they would probably stay the same or at least change somewhat after the watershed.

I don't know if there are any gamers in advertising, but I think there should be.

My First Blog - what to expect...

I have the strong suspicion that I am going have to exert great control in all my Blogs to prevent them from becoming angry rants, or a place to vent my ire at anything from global events, national disgraces or people that get on the bus and proceed to spend 5 minutes getting their bag, looking for their purse, sorting through half a ton of shrapnel before promptly dropping said ton of shrapnel on the floor and then spending another 5 minutes picking it up and trying desperately to find the 20p piece that they were sure had been in the purse but then suddenly remembered giving it to their friend to buy a paper earlier that mroning, before getting their ticket (having asked the bus driver to rip it from the machine for fear of a paper cut) THEN without moving from the spot right in front of the driver thus preventing the long queue of people still waiting to get on the bus most of them being stuck out in the raid,taking time to put the change back in their purse, the purse is then put in the bag, the bag placed on their arm, followed by a compulsory straightening of their coat and then moving off down the bus to find a seat next to someone so they can complain why the buses are always so late!

See, done it already, looks like this is going to be the trend for the future; expect nothing less reader.

I am going to take this opportunity to thank Steve and Mark, whose Blogs have inspired me to start my own. As a result I insist that they read them.

I cannot hope to match the sheer political eloquence and poignancy of Steve Tierney or the camp, animal loving abandon of Mark Adams, however what I can do is my own thing, influenced by many things...

I have passed the tender age of 40, and though I still have the thoughts and, thank the Gods, the faculties (mostly) of my youth, I have the wisdom or more accurately the hindsight of age.

I have a job, I have a wonderful wife and 2 (mostly) fantastic children and a roof over our heads.

And I love games, more specifically role playing games, be they online, live role playing or whetever, I am a fan of the worlds of goblins and trolls. I'd say elves but I spent most of my early role playing days killing them not being them although I soon realised that being a nasty, megalomaniacal, murdering character was not as much fun in the long run and made things difficult socially.

So my view on life comes from a career in the law, a borderline mis-spent youth and all things dice related.

I have widened my areas of interest to include a great number of things, two of them being beer and cooking; usually at the same time. So don't be surprised if they play a big part in the blogs as both are my mental therapy.

So be prepared for, well I am not sure actually, and thank you for using some precious moments of your life reading my drivel; there will be more to come.

TAG (The Ageing Gamer)