AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH. Your ego is getting in the way of legibility.

Dutch Colleague: We need to talk about your copywriting.

Me: What's wrong with the copy?

Dutch Colleague: This word is wrong... and this one... and this one.

Me: There's nothing wrong with it. (reading) It was written by an agency in the UK, I checked and corrected it, and had this checked by our boss... you know, the American one. He's approved this.

Dutch colleague: But shouldn't this word be in the past tense? I don't think it makes sense.

Me: Are you honestly asking me to correct my writing?

Dutch colleague: Well, I just want to know why you used this word instead of another one? It doesn't sound right.

Me: Is english your first language? Have you spoken it for the last 26 years and written it and earnt a business degree in it in the last, say 5 years?

Dutch colleague: umm...

Me: Right. I'll be at the coffee machine.

Gogh Crazy

sneaky picture taken by me inside the Van Gogh museum

After two years in Amsterdam, I finally made it to the Van Gogh Museum last Friday.

Initially I wanted to go because I had heard they have this special Friday night programme where bands and DJs play in the foyer.

I went with BFF Laura who who is an aspiring photographer and another friend, M, who is an animator. M has lived here all his life, and never been.

When I turned up a bit later than the others, I noticed the line was much shorter than I thought, but I got to skip it anyway because I have a Museum card (which gets me free entrance for any museum worth going to in the country for a one off purchase.)

We met inside at a one off exhibition they had created which was about Van Gogh's time in Antwerp and Paris. Then we went to get a drink, see the band, and then we went to the first floor where the normal gallery starts.

And we parted ways to explore...

An hour or so later, we met each other again downstairs and we were all visibly excited.

Each of us had never been because we all thought it was this over rated space that only tourists go to, but we all had the same eye-opening experience, on the same heightened level.

It was unanimous between us that Vincent Van Gogh was a genius.

We all had our favourite pieces, and favourite eras, but I was surprised to see that we all enjoyed it, and had the same sense of... enlightenment!

I only got to see the first floor and the basement, but I really need to go back and make an effort to see more of it next time.

Just do your job.

Forget the fact she wrote a hugely idealistic, overly commercial memoir that ends with finding her prince.... then sold the rights to the movie which was the biggest load of horse shit I have ever seen in my life....

The woman has a sense of humour, and I like the way she writes.

A nice little speech she gave at TED.

Songbird, you got tales to tell...

Somewhat torn between whether or not I am a creative, a project manager, or a strategist (I'm not bad at all three things, but not particularly excellent in any...), you might have guessed that I love ads. And communications. But mostly ads.

Commercial Art.

"Advertising is art with a deadline." ( And a lot of money and a lot of round table discussions to please a billion scared stakeholders.)

I live in Ad City. There are a LOT of ad agencies here, a lot of creatives, a lot of big brands, a lot of talent in the pool, a lot of blood sweat and tears, and possibly, a lot of lonely overworked people.It's a shame the industry doesn't like me, but that's another blog post.

Of course, like all things that aren't facts (physics, for example) ads are subjective. But the components of all good ads are well written (and then well executed) stories.

Human beings love a story. Helps them make sense of life (The Bible), helps them get distracted from reality (Entourage), helps them educate their society (Neolithic cave drawings).

I love stories. I am a story teller.

Here is one of my favourite ads, made by the creme de la creme of agencies in the world, Wieden + Kennedy (Amsterdam office)

And there are more tales to tell - besides the tv ad, Heineken also have a channel where you can get to know some of the characters a little better. View it here.

Here we go again

I live for the nights that I can’t remember,

with the people I won’t forget

spending all the money I just work my ass off

for doing things that I won't regret

"Show me a good time" - Drake

(Don't like the song, but the sentiment is spot on.)

Dilemma

What do you do when your day job is getting in the way of your ambition?

I eat my words.

**** Post Script to the last post I just wrote. *****

Apparently the answer is in here to the question "How to tell if a "dutch guy is interested." "

If you google it, this blog is one of two things that comes up.

And it leads to this old post.

But the answer isn't very good.

And I have no further insights.

I'm sorry for letting the team* down.

*The team being women everywhere around the world that might ever like a dutch guy. There would be a few of us on that team, I think.

I'm VERY sorry, the answer's not here. I wish it WAS.

I just did a google analytics report on this blog, just out of curiousity, where people are coming from, etc etc.

Then, I ran a report to see how people found this blog.

Here are a few keywords some people have been using:



Pay attention to the last key word search results:

I think it's hilarious that someone found this blog by using those key words. I didn't realise I had any content on here relevant to that topic.

I really don't mean to make an example out of whoever found this website using the keywords "How to tell if a "dutch guy is interested" " however, I have a message for this person.

If you had gone through the archives of this blog a little more, and gone through the history, you may discover that the answer is definitely not here.

And not likely to ever be here.

I am hopeless at that thing called dating. And even more so when it comes to dating dutch guys.

And, call me cynical but I don't think the answer to that is ever likely to be on the internet.

You'll have to work that one out yourself, like the rest of us.

However, when you do, feel free to drop me a comment, and tell us how you did it, and I'll publish it on here.

:)