I waited in all day for the plumber. He (or she, you sexist) was meant to be arriving between midday and 3pm, but the appointed hours passed and still nobody came. Worse still nobody rang to warn me that nobody was going to come. It was mildly annoying, though I guessed that the weather had either made it difficult for plumbers and the staff at the centre to get to work, or had resulted in lots of emergency plumbing jobs that had taken precidency. Still it would have been nice to have been informed. I will, of course, blame whoever it was who recommended this company on Twitter (I can't remember who it was, so keep your head down).
I am probably also partly to blame as I had called them out to mend a toilet that has been playing up since July, (luckily I have other options in my house) so it was possibly foolish or short-sighted to suddenly spring into action in a week when the country and its pipes would be covered in snow. But it has been a while since I have had no pressing work or appointments so that I can guarantee that I will be in. This is a poor excuse. It takes a lot for me to build up the necessary momentum to get stuff like this done. Which is why, nearly 8 years after I bought this house, I have done next to nothing in terms of decorating or fixing or making it my own. The only upside of this is if I had done the place up when I moved in, it would probably need redecorating now. Better to live in old-fashioned squalor then try to keep up to date.
And there was plenty of jobs I could have done while I was waiting. But I just slouched around watching DVDs. My ambitions to get proactive seem to be coming to nothing just yet, but I can't knock myself too much. It's been a busy and productive year.
Inspired by Madmen (I worry about how many creative people will be tempted to go into advertising because of this amazing series) I came up with what I think might be quite a good anti-smoking campaign, although I fear I might just be remembering an old advertising campaign, which I have copied - though from my understanding of the advertising industry, copying stuff is actively encouraged. The problem, it seems to me, is that young and stupid people regard smoking as cool and rebellious and take it up, get hooked and can't stop. The truth is that smoking isn't cool, it's stupid, hazardous and probably demonstrates a certain insecurity in the smoker. Whilst biting your nails or sucking your thumb are uncool versions of insecurity, smoking is a cool one (just as in Peep Show tonight, Mark is uncool for playing with action figures, but Jeremy is cool for playing video games). But the cigarette, just like the sucked thumb, is largely a nipple substitute, reminding the smoker of the security and warmth of being a baby. Whilst an advert that showed smokers going around everywhere sucking on tits might send out the wrong message, what about an ad campaign showing people acting out a series of cool scenarios, movie scenes or whatever, smoking a cigarette, which then using film magic transforms into a baby's bottle or a dummy? Would they look as cool? No. Would this accurate depiction of what smokers are really doing turn kids off smoking? Probably not. Nothing seems to work. But if I was Don Draper (and God knows I want to be him) then that's what I would pitch to the anti-tobacco people.
And if you work in advertising and want to steal that idea, then please go ahead. I will give you a few for free if you promise not to rip off the other stuff that you seem to occasionally take without permission. How do you sleep at night? Comfortably on a mattress made of money. I have a feeling I might have appropriated that from an episode of the Simpsons. Hypocrite.
My toilet meanwhile remains unmended and my car is still without electricity and tonight I discovered that my video recorder won't charge up either. What's going on with electricity in Shepherd's Bush. Interestingly the last person to use two of the broken things was Chris Evans (not that one), so maybe it's his fault. Let's say it is.
