Round in circles

I’m sitting. I’m waiting. I’m quiet. I’m talking. I’m drinking. I’m nervous.

“Two minutes” a voice cries out and I’m nervous. The staff are all around, cleaning quietly, quickly. Acting as if nothings going on. We prepare ourselves. We make outlandish statements supporting one action or another, depending on what is about to come.

And then we hear it. A rumbling. A contained roar. An excitable drumming. And voices, way too many voices. It arrives and the doors open, but instead of people spilling out of the carriages, bottles fly out. A cacophony of broken glass drowned out by the sudden mob screaming at us to join them. Champagne and sick covering the floors. Guy Fawkes masks covering the troublesome ones and the out of place.

We step on, into the sweat and the sound. Into the cheering and jeering and steamed up windows. Cameras are everywhere, but everything is a blur. A kid stands in front of me and hears about drink and drugs and swearing and the police. We feel bad for those just going home. We feel bad for those still at work, in this….mess.

Suddenly we stop. The line is dead due to trouble ahead. The crowd goes one way, after making a stand against nothing but a disembodied voice, and we go the other. Phew.

For the last time, phew.

Dear Frank

02/04/08

Dear Frank,

Let me begin by saying that I am a fan of the style of your advertising campaigns as they seem to cut straight to the heart of the matter, and will perhaps get through to your target audience.

However, I was just wondering why you think it's ok to pick on cannabis users with your current advertising campaign? Coke-heads are the worst people out there, but I don't think I have ever seen any anti-coke ads run by you. Is that because you are afraid of the backlash that would occur from the media if you did take a stand, as most of the media are coke fans?

Coke ruins lives and peoples health, costs loads of money and the effects are to make you an arrogant asshole and then after prolonged use, paranoid. Cannabis makes you lose some of your ambition, and perhaps become paranoid (to a much lesser extent than coke) and that's about it. The reports of it causing schizophrenia are unsubstantiated to say the least (read Bad Science).

I think it is appalling that a service that is supposed to be helping young people away from drugs is simply following the political fad to continuously reclassify cannabis (so as to make a show that the Government is doing something about drugs) rather than taking a stand against a drug that is equally, if not more prevalent than cannabis, and yet seemingly considered acceptable by most adults.

Your organization is in a particularly strong position to make a difference to peoples opinion of coke, but instead you appear to be taking the easier route of attacking a less dangerous, yet more visible drug.

Yours disappointed,
Swan

03/04/08

Hi Swan.

Thank you for your e-mail.

FRANK is a new drugs campaign, which aims to give information and help
to anyone who is affected by or wants to know about drugs. This is not a
debating arena. Your comments have been noted.

You may wish to search for free local help via the following link :
http://www.talktofrank.com/multimap.aspx?id=278

If you want to know any more, or would like to talk to one of our
advisors about this, call 0800 77 66 00 and tell them you've been asked
to ring for more information. Alternatively, you can get more
information at www.talktofrank.com

Hope to talk to you again soon.

FRANK

20/05/08

Cocaine at centre of government's Frank anti-drugs drive

LONDON - The government is to focus on showing 15- to 18-year-olds the ugly consequences behind the glamour of cocaine, the price of which is at an all-time low, in the next phase of its Frank drugs awareness campaign.

The £1m cross-media campaign will be announced today by drugs minister Vernon Coaker as part of a new crackdown on cocaine, which the government claims is the only drug that has risen in use since 1998.

The price of cocaine in the UK has fallen to an all time low and can be bought for as little as £30 a gram, making it easily available to young people and students.

The campaign will use a range of media including online advertising, as well as leaflets aimed at young people and drugs workers.

Today's announcement will be made at a summit being attended by the Columbian vice-president Francisco Santos Calderon, in an attempt to highlight cocaine's impact on the people of his country.

The UK government has joined the Columbian government's "Shared responsibility" campaign, which focuses on the global consequences of cocaine use.

Tomorrow, Coaker, Calderon and former Blur bassist Alex James, will attend a Trafalgar Square exhibition illustrating the environmental and social destruction caused by the drug.

The Frank campaign began five year ago this Friday. The digital account is currently with Profero and the advertising account is with Mother.

Fuck you London.

Fuck you Evening Standard. Fuck you free papers. Fuck you David Cameron. Fuck you tories. Fuck you electioneering. Fuck you Have I Got News For You. Fuck you short attention span. Fuck you Boris

and good luck

A vote for Boris is a vote for America

So on Friday night I took a drunken straw poll of vague strangers and I was surprised to learn that Boris Johnson is much more popular than I would have thought. Now, as much as anyone else, I thought he was a comic legend on Have I Got News For You, but when I watched it, I always had the niggling thought in the back of my head – “Who voted for him? How is he an MP? What trickery did he pull to make him seem like a viable candidate?” I always assumed there was some convoluted, yet amusing tale of his rise to power out there just waiting to be discovered, but alas, I guess not.

If people in London are willing to vote for him because he’s funny to look at, then I guess that must have been what happened before. So it seems that for all our mighty snooty British superiority over the intellect of the Americans – “They voted in Arnold Schwarzenegger, those guys are so easily led by TV”, “They voted in Bush, those guys are so easily fooled by rich people politicking” – we are in fact much worse. Because at least Arnie had a successful career as an actor, and at least Bush has an MBA from Harvard. Boris? He’s got messy blonde hair and is easily made fun of by comedians when appearing on TV. It’s like they’re being tricked by Vogue magazine and we’re being tricked by OK!

So if you vote for Boris Johnson, please keep in mind that you are actually in fact also voting for the idea that Americans are smarter than the British. And I know you hate that.

Not 19 Forever

Old is, as old does
So I sit around
And rub my face fuzz

Bitter Victory

The first guy who put vinegar on food… he was a brave guy right? I mean maybe he had a bottle of wine kicking about for too long and he was going to cook with it, but left it too late and thought fuck it and put it on anyway. Maybe if he was lucky it was chips he ate that first night. Maybe a salad even. But what if it was cake? What if he was planning on making some sorta old school trifle and he messed up?

Even if it wasn’t, with no prior knowledge of the stuff, you can assume things turned out bad. I wonder how he carried on after that first attempt. Did he try to hide his shame and his breath, and all the vomiting he did from the world and never mention it again? Or did he try again with a different food? And again. And again. Until he finally moved to the seaside to recover from his worsening health and struck upon something special.

I can only assume it was the latter, so I just want to say thank you for your perseverance Vinegar Man, whoever you were, and thanks to your little sidekick too, Balsamic Boy. You two sure did make a random little difference to this world.

I always was a fool

“I always was a fool” said the old man into his drink, “it made no difference to me whether I was drunk or not whether I would get things right. I ran as many reds when I was bleary as when I was sane, I ate as many apples that were ripe as were wrong and there’s not much I can do about it now”. He sighed and swayed and sat still and everyone ignored him except the bartender.

“Another one for the road?” the man in the apron quietly enquired.

“People like you are exactly my problem. You know I want another one. You know I shouldn’t have one for the road, yet you offer me the devils cup and you don’t think twice about me drinking from it”.

“Jesus buddy, I’m just doing my job, don’t blame your life on me” the bartender replied as he wiped his way down to the other end of the bar to serve the new entrants.

The old man was alone now, but he kept talking “I always was a fool” he muttered “I remember when I fell down those stairs chasing my wife. I got hurt real bad, and what did I do? I went to a bar instead of a hospital. I went to a bar instead of going after her. And now look at us, she’s happy and I’m drunk. Same as it ever was”.

The beer nuts looked at him. They didn’t look impressed with his self loathing, but they thought nothing of it, nothing at all.

“I think maybe it’s time I get going.” He said as he put his tab on the bar. He got his shit together, fell off the bar stool and out onto the street. It was windy, and it was raining and he was only wearing a t-shirt. “Shit” fell out of his mouth as he stumbled into the road. “Shit” fell out of his brain as he stumbled onto the pavement. “Thank fuck” fell out of his smile as he entered the hall. AA was still on. His salvation was here at last, and for once, he was here too.

“Not for you buddy, you can’t come in here drunk” a well dressed but obviously haggered young man said politely but firmly.

“I always was a fool” said the old man, as he went back out into the rain. “I always was.”