Guernsey's catchphrase copyrighting plan is catching

Thoroughly applaud Guernsey’s plan to make itself the catchphrase and mannerism IP litigation capital of the world.



Being almost a household name myself (blog readership figures now exceed total number of blog entries, even allowing for Russian bot-generated statistics) I’ve done an audit to identify any marketable tics and trademark utterances of my own.
 Research consisted of asking my 17-year-old son, who is convinced that I am a truly unique individual in many ways. We finally ended up with this list:

• Unique expression of confusion when attempting any complicated manual task.

• Unique combination of profanities and expletives following the above (for decency’s sake, the exact wording will be entered in a separate appendix, named Catchphrase A).

• Unique expression directed at 17-year-old son intended to defer blame for manual-task-related mishap from self to said 17-year-old-son.

• Unique fashion style as worn on high street, restaurants, tennis court, etc, a fusion of styles from every decade going back to the early 70s and featuring significant amounts of perished elastic.

• Unique combination of profanities and expletives directed at other users of the roundabout closest to our home (as above, separate appendix B).

He had more, but they were, with due respect, less than respectful.

This fledgling personal-brand IP scheme, does, of course, rely on other people being familiar with and copying one’s own mannerisms. The first issue, familiarity, is, according to my son, not a problem, apparently my mannerisms are universally known. As for the second, he is adamant that only a stunned octopus would knowingly attempt any such mimicking behaviour and then only in the safety of its cave.


But that could just be adolescent cheek.

Italy's typeface: why they won't win the European Cup

Clearly a superior side, why did Italy need to go to penalties to beat a tired-looking England team? Why didn’t the pundits take them seriously before the game? And why won’t they win the competition?

Simple. A typeface. I mean, just look at the picture below:

Typeface translation: "Enough with the aggression already, let's hug."

What the name on the back of your shirt should be saying is: ‘I am almighty. Deal with it.’

Instead, Italy’s typeface is saying: ‘Er, excuse me, but don’t you think the groundsmen have done a lovely job of cutting nice broad stripes into the grass? Oh, you’d like the ball?’

(And when your players are called stuff like 'Donucci' it really is important to put some kind of aggressive spin on them.)

So instead of running around feeling intimidated like they usually do in quarterfinals, the England team actually made a really brave attempt to not lose. Which crumbled when they got to the final penalty shootout, where shirt backs don’t really come into play.

Now can you imagine how seriously the Germans are going to take that typeface? Bar an emergency font rethink, it’s all over for Italy.

Sun comes out for virtual diamond jubilee street party

My virtual street party concept for a social media pitch earlier this year (with art director Pete Vincent), sadly unsold:

Technically, it was conceived as a mash-up of Google Streetview and Facebook, with party-goers uploading party headwear for the big day. Note Princess Eugenie's hat six places back on the right...