Four day weeks and other capers

I am SO glad I asked for tomorrow off. I have been plagued with uninspired plodding tendencies this week, which have meant that I have done a lot of "research" in to Twitter, and how it might work for us, and very little else. At some point, someone is going to ask me for something solid, and I'm not going to have anything to produce. That point has yet to arrive.

Lunchtime was spent celebrating some momentous news that I'm not allowed to share, as it isn't my secret, and doesn't really impact my life at all, other than being happy for my friend. I bought her lunch, and we headed off to a lovely new restaurant called Florian in the Gate Village, next to Zuma which is tres swish... and it was a complete let down. Gorgeous decor, but we then waited about 40mins for our food, our starters and mains arrived together, the starter was inedible, and my nicoise salad was something you could have picked up in a motorway service station. Not terribly impressed, to say the least.

Last night saw the Dubai Lynx awards "rock" the world of marketing in the GCC. Sorry, let me correct that, they "rocked" the worlds of advertising, online and buying agencies. The rest of us - what - there are other people in marketing? - watched with an air of resignation, amusement and slight disdain from the sidelines. Amusingly, Adnation picked up the list of winners at lunchtime on the day of the event, but sportingly didn't release them to the ad community.

In the event, one agency swept the board, as always seems to happen, but with a different agency each year. Even more amusingly, prior to the event, one of the judges let rip on his blog about the appalling quality of the event. He called the awards naive, platitudinous and vulgar... don't hold back there! It is true that a lot of creative coming out of the region is trite, derivative and slap-me-in-the-face-with-a-fish obvious, and ads make me cross rather than making me want to rush out and buy something - we have a long way to go. Yet there are some examples of quality, and there are people who should be congratulated - so long may the likes of Adnation continue to fulfil this role.

Small rants:
1. Why do people wait until the answer phone bleeps, to put the phone down? If you put the phone down before the bleep, it doesn't record a message. It isn't rocket science.
2. What is the point of "Baby on Board" signs? Oh, because NOW I won't cannon in to the back of your car like I was intending to, because of that small pink sign that I can't actually read until I'm an indecently close distance from your rear windscreen. Which genius thought those up then? Ah... Hallmark...

And on that note I'm off.