deea // supermagnet

Nabokov nominated Ulysses as his novel of the century, but he described Finnegans Wake as, variously, "formless and dull", "a cold pudding of a book", "a tragic failure" and "a frightful bore"

Most brand comms is played out like a series; a series of mini campaigns, each of which is quickly forgotten. Long term value is ignored in favour of short term results. Even “big ideas” are ditched for a new “big idea” very quickly. The reasons for doing this are clear. I’m more interested in the reasons for not doing it.

While it may suit some brands/companies to operate in this snacky way, many would be well advised to think in terms of serials, not series. That is, if genuine ‘meaning’ is more important than simply treading water. Just ask yourself, would you rather people flicked over to your brand like they do with the Simpsons, or would you rather they mourned your absence, like the Wire?

It's not easy to make up your mind when your mind consists of so many competing parts. This is why being sure about something can be such a relief. The default state of the brain is indecisive disagreement… certainty imposes consensus on the inner cacophony.. Being certain means you're not worried about being wrong.

"Looking on the bright side…Every Dail Mail front page will be a good news story to start the day with a smile on our faces." LOL

California is cracking down on big flat-screen televisions because of energy usage. But has the super-size TV set become an object of vulgarity?

Governments can only spend what they tax or borrow. They can only tax a share of what we, the public, already have. So it helps to know what share they want and then how they plan to share that out between all the things they want to do. Note that we're talking shares here, or proportions. Not billions.

By February of this year, authorities had already found 3,000 abandoned cars at the airport. Many were top-of-the-range, almost-new. Some had maxed-out credit cards in their gloveboxes. Others had notes taped to the windshield, apologising for, y’know, fleeing the country with massive debts and all that.

"Well," I said. "I now know all about him. And he now knows all about me. And I now know that he agrees with almost everything I say. And he knows that about me. We have roughly the same taste in books, music, politics, food and holiday resorts. We are – there's no other word for it – empathic."

"Yes," said my partner. "Go on." "And," I said. "It was the most boring evening I've ever had in my entire life. I've always thought how marvellous it would be to have friends who asked me about myself. But now when I hear what I have to say I know why I always chose the present crowd."

But why, despite my decent financial record, am I a particularly bad candidate for a credit card? I've got no credit history.

Smoking, they discovered, also appeared to spread socially — in fact, a friend taking up smoking increased your chance of lighting up by 36 percent, and if you had a three-degrees-removed friend who started smoking, you were 11 percent more likely to do the same. Drinking spread socially, as did happiness and even loneliness. And in each case one’s individual influence stretched out three degrees before it faded out. They termed this the “three degrees of influence” rule about human behavior: We are tied not just to those around us, but to others in a web that stretches farther than we know.