In the weeks before she gave birth, Vanessa drew every breath of life from out of her visitors. Friends, relatives and medical personnel all had to leave some vital part of themselves with her, as though the viability of her pregnancy depended upon gifting her with a soul piece.

In return she gave nothing.

No joy for the grandparents, no insight to her twin nieces, Janie and Olivia whose young minds were eager to learn what the expanding bulge Vanessa carried felt like. More likely they would have liked to know what the baby would mean for them; specifically the frequent cinema visits they had enjoyed up until a month ago and which were, like everything else, cut short.

Nobody had thought to explain things to them. Nobody considered, they supposed, that cinema visits were important. The towering adults just passed them in the corridor, their sombre figures shrinking into her room with increasing regularity.

That room swallowed everything. The twins had listened, once, at its olive drab door and heard nothing. They had expected to hear plans which they wouldn’t understand. They had expected to hear their aunt, bedridden as she was, asking their uncle how they were. That had been, after all, what they had heard the last time she had fallen sick and they had waited at the top of their grandmother’s staircase.

Instead they were gifted with the silence and the flow of visitors towards the horizon of this most recent event.

It was only after the birth, after that vortex of life finally spat out the wailing child that the twins heard voices once more. They heard of plans and practicalities as the family were, finally, irrevocably freed from Vanessa’s all-consuming situation.

The child would grow and their aunt would be put to rest.

Two old people are chatting in the bathroom whilst outside the sun throws itself uselessly at the net curtains.

“Why can’t you leave me to pee in peace?”

“I’m just talking. What’s wrong with talking?”

“I need to pee. Can’t you give me a moment just to finish off? It always takes longer with you hovering there.”

“You always go off right in the middle of the conversation. I wasn’t finished.”

“I haven’t even started.”

“You know what I mean. You ask a question and then just as I’m giving you my opinion suddenly your bladder fills up or gives way.”

Outside a noise like concrete dragged over gravel shakes the house.

“Ah.”

“What? Did you hear that?”

“You miss him. You get like this when he goes.”

“He’s not… I don’t… I just wanted. He’ll be back by winter.”

“If he can get a flight.”

“Yes. Maybe we should have gone with him.”

“We would never be allowed fuel. Besides, we’d just weigh him down.”

“Would we? He could carry on as though we weren’t there. We don’t need entertaining.”

“Without him? What would be the point? We might get stranded out there. Then what would happen?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“We can try if you really want to.”

“No. You’re right. It’s warm in here. Shall I open the window?”

“No. I can’t bear the noise. I’m nearly finished anyway.”

“Then we can sit downstairs again. Noise? What noise?”

“The balloons. They’re coming home.”

View over Troutbeck, Cumbria

First up was The Informant. Stephen Soderbergh, when he has something to say, can be brilliant. When he doesn’t (which seems to be most of the time these days) he’s just unbearable. The Informant does, on the surface, appear to be the former.

Next I took a glance at Public Enemies. I’ve been seeing the advertising for it for the past week or two and I have to admit to liking Johnny Depp. Maybe he just reminds me of myself Normally Michael Mann films get on my nerves. They are always beautifully shot but somehow the style overtakes the substance. Miami Vice was tedious, Collateral was mostly engrossing and Heat (despite having great moments) just seemed to run away with itself. The PE trailer was lovely. I liked that it didn’t feel like a period drama but that it captured what felt like the mood of the time. Not being nearly a hundred, however, I’ll just own up to being taken along with the mood.

Whilst browsing I saw a poster for The Time Traveller’s Wife. Now this really could be a piece of shit in the vein of The Lake House. I loved the book. It was inventive and emotional. But somehow, put these concepts on to the screen and all you get is the superficial love story with few of the observations.

Zombieland was a title I’d never heard of. Pity it didn’t stay that way. Woody. What. The. Fuck?

One thing I thought worth sharing today is an article about Douglas Rushkoff’s new book, Life, Inc. Here’s a man I was reading back at college and his ideas were stimulating in the early days of the internet and now he’s back, writing about something much, much bigger than the internet. But you guessed that by the book title, right?

So that’s another book to add to my list. I need my train journeys to get longer – which they might if I keep getting the wrong one like I did Monday night.

But that’s another story.

Earlier this year I took on more responsibilities and so decided to start a company blog. That’s right – I’ve been using all my words for another site. They were all going to waste anyway, what with my laziness and all. I did start off with great intentions to write about the books I read but, well, I was too busy reading. I’m not even going to say I’ll start up again. It’s hard enough focussing on a company blog and making sure it’s relevant and interesting. And then I have to make sure people actually read it which means doing a lot of twittering, posting and shouting in public places. The plan next to knock on doors and hand people a Kindle with which to read the wise words therein.

Having said that, I am looking forward to just picking up a book of short stories (probably either The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God or Tuesday Nights and Wednesday Mornings). I think I have that scheduled in for sometime in 2010…

Anyway, today I be mostly reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I’m up to book 2 (The Fall Of Hyperion) which just goes to show that I’m actually enjoying the hefty monster. It was a birthday present and a daunting one given that I don’t tend to go in for such high falutin space opera stuff. The first few pages made me groan under the weight of artificial constructs but then it all clicked into place and I was hooked.

More as it happens…

OK? Good.

Setting aside the fact that this entire article is an excuse to advertise the Blogging4Business conference and that the conference itself is probably three years too late we are left with a number of claims that are just delicious.

The first (and favourite) quote comes from Matthew Yeomans:

“Even the mainstream media is having trouble keeping up with what is going on, so what chance does a corporate communications officer in a FTSE 100 or FTSE 250 company or an account director at a marketing services or PR agency have?”

What chance indeed? How can someone whose sole responsibility it is to gauge and oversee communication strategy possibly know more than the mainstream media? It seems incredible but thankfully Mr Yeomans is at hand to shut the stable door for us. And we have Anthony Mayfield who pipes up with the startling claim that:

“Everything is changing about how media works…”.

Amazing. This “media” thing must have been a static entity up until now. And the well of thought does not dry up there either:

“What living in an online world is all about is living in networks. I do not mean MySpace but living within networks of inter-related sites…”.

Networks eh? Gosh. That sounds impressive and a bit technical. Maybe I should hire an agency to consult on how to navigate networks. Thank god that Mr Mayfield’s agency is on hand to provide such a tool because only last week they launched a tool to track brands across these networks. Google are no doubt wishing they’d thought of the idea first.

Another quote for us to enjoy (Mr Mayfield is on a roll in this article – give him some Google points):

“People have built their entire careers on assumptions and learned models and strategies that have been successful and now the fundamentals of how it all works – how content is created and distributed – has changed and we are living through a revolution,” said Mr Mayfield. “I don’t think there is any hyperbole in that.”

That’s right. There is no hyperbole if we can ignore the meaning of the word. “Revolution”? Please. Since when has word of mouth (sorry, networks) been a revolutionary idea? This must surely be a sign of what could happen if schools were to stop teaching history.

The author feels the need to pull in some heavyweights now just in case the steaming opinions so far have not managed to choke the reader. Step to the front Mr Elliott from Jupiter Research who tells us:

“If you have a crap product it is a lot harder.”

Well. Jot that one down.

The answers to the ‘challenge’ of this “revolution” are a little mundane. The people behind the publicity for Spiderman 3 allow people to post the trailers on their own sites. At first I thought I’d read that people could create their own trailers but no, just embed the trailers on their pages. That’s novel.

At least Jupiter’s Mr Elliott tells us that:

“Creative use of social networks for brands and products that are good is relatively straightforward.”

Obviously. And hence the highlighting of the difficulties faced by crap products.

So, to sum up. Word of mouth and a clearly defined message is as important in the “new” world of online media as it was when you were hoping people would travel for miles to get to your market. If you have a good product, people will buy it and spread the word. If you have a crap product then people won’t buy it unless you manage to be really creative and convince them otherwise. In this new and revolutionary world we could coin a term: “selling ice to eskimos”. Oh, wait, no. That one is donkey’s years old.

Sony’s presence in the high street and on the television appears to run counter to their claims that this console is something new, something amazing. The in-store presence is made up of lacklustre black boxes with an overly techy message – something clearly designed to aim straight for the early adopter (not a bad idea in itself given the exceptionaly high price point). If it were Sony launching into an empty field this would be the sensible message. The TV ads are typically off-the-wall – again, designed for the style-conscious out there. It all smacks of two things: 1) a closed club to which the general public is just not invited and 2) the same approach Sony took for mark 1 and 2 of the PlayStation brand. And it may have even worked again if it weren’t for the fact that gaming has grown up. Not just with the mass-market Nintendo Wii and it’s images of ordinary people holding on to their Wii-motes for dear life but also through the XBox 360 and it’s PC style gaming for the home user. Gaming has moved on in other ways also. Technology is becoming more veiled, shy of the throbbing beat of its Harley Davidson heart. Graphics are amazing all around and new advances, whilst applauded and even celebrated, are less of a pull (I venture to suggest) than in previous years.

As befits any wise old person, it’s experience that counts these days and Wii (with its unique take on control methods) and 360 (with its online connectivity and downloadable content) have beaten the PS3 to the spot by the fire. Sure, the PS3 is bigger but it’s not always a good thing when a fat lad sits in front of the telly.