Suitcase of my dreams

26/9/2013

Sitting over a flat white at the Costa Coffee in the departure lounge of Dubai International Airport the other day, not twenty-four hours after I'd visited the Waitrose in the main Dubai shopping mall (the one with the aquarium, in the financial district), I happened to notice, above my head, an ad for Samsonite luggage.
    In the picture, a woman with a couch behind her and her Samsonite hard-shell, four-wheeled carry-on bag beside her. She was wearing a long, one-piece item of clothing that perhaps she'd pulled on over her head after getting up off the couch. Standing in a white cube/bedroom/consulting room. About to step out into the rather more colourful world around her white space.
    Now, if I was a digital native, I would have snapped a pic and uploaded it here. But ads (still) need words, and the words were what got my attention, and I'm going to use words to zero in on that.
    The tagline for this ad was:
    < Step out. Listen to that inner voice. Follow your heart. Embrace every possibility. >
    With your Samsonite carry-on bag beside you.
    I like that the tag wasn't < Room for lots of socks > or < You can squeeze everything into this bag > or even < Cubic capacity: x litres > or whatever.
    I like the way that (some) advertising is flying free of whatever product is being advertised, and describing instead a (spiritual?) quest for some kind of self-actualisation. Follow your heart, et cetera. We should listen to these ad agencies. They seem to be onto something.
    But I'm not quite sure what to think about my early-morning visit to the Samsonite website. My bag will hold out for a few more possibility-embracing excursions yet.
    Although it isn't shiny-red. And it hasn't got four wheels.

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This site is updated weekly, usually on a Friday although I might change that (again). I write it because (1) I like writing it and (2) I like having a deadline. More often than not, it works out as a commentary on the week just passed*.
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Read My Shorts?

Here is yet another page of old blog posts and other writings. Sorry, but I need my metaphorical sock drawer for metaphorical socks. The link to the page is right at the end of the paragraph here.

A very green picture. I can't remember where I took this.

Roads without end

Here is a passage from a review of the book The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart. I haven't read the book (yet), but the collected reviews would make a worthwhile set of political arguments in their own right. More.

Also available in English. 'Can I Quote You on That?'

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Several commentators today saying that they've lost confidence in the US. Making their point by talking up the glories of the past. After two weeks of this administration, they're not going back.
Were they wrong, and they've seen the light? Or has the US changed? I guess the latter is the intended meaning. But we should at least acknowledge the possibility... More.

Categories
(Started 4th November 2017; forgotten shortly after that.)

Kitchen parenting

I have teenage children. When they're home, sooner or later one of them will come to me and say: "Dad! We're going to make a mess in the kitchen!
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Early morning, Church Street, Falmouth

Not available in Vietnamese. Sorry.

9th May 2014

On the day that I wrote this, the early news told us of a parade in Moscow to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Crimea remained annexed, and the Russia/Ukraine crisis was not resolved. At around half eight, the BBC’s reporter in Moscow was cut off in mid-sentence summarising the military display; the Today programme on Radio 4 cut to the sports news. More.

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