Marketing gold?!

Oh marketing people, bless your little cotton socks but you're a nasty lot. Did you ever consider us poor grocery-bound sub-editors when you named this new ice cream? Hmm? It's a Magnum. And it's gold. So to call it Magnum Gold would have been just fine. Just fine and dandy.*

So what was with the '?!', hmm? See, even just to write that sentence, I had to add a 'hmm' so that my question mark would not butt up against your crazy question-and-exclamation-mark combo (and still I sweated about the comma).

Anyone writing about this product looks damn crazy. Witness:

Unilever is combining a bit of rough with the smooth, as Wolfman star Benicio del Toro replaces Eva Longoria as the face – and eyebrows – of Magnum Gold?!

Yes, it looks as though the reporter either can't quite believe what he or she is writing, or is a little deranged. As a sub-editor, I just couldn't take it: this esteemed publication will be docking you of your '?!' in copy. Now I suggest [wagging finger] you go and have a long think about what you've done!

*Having just done a Google image search for 'Magnum Gold', I wonder if Unilever knew how outnumbered the ice cream would be by horses and guns...

The Craven

Once upon a Thursday dreary, press day making journos weary, Looming deadlines bringing holes in many stories to the fore, While I nodded, nearly napping, from behind there came some flapping, "What's going on here, what is happ'ning, happ'ning on this press day morn?" 'tis but muttering,' said I, `tis but stuttering - Only this, and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon page four. Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From photo library of sorrow - sorrow for the lost picture - Longed-for shot of Johnnie Walker that would make the story richer - Make it glow for evermore. At an hour before the deadline, subs were struggling for a headline With the copy they were meddling, over typos they did pore Vainly, deeply, did they wonder, why that face was set like thunder Had they made some grammar blunder on a page they saw before? “Christ, this really is a bore.” Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, 'Subs,' said I, 'and hacks, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is Chief was napping, you see his strength is sapping, At his keyboard he's not tapping, not tapping at his copy poor, To those deadlines please bid adieu' - here I opened wide the door; - 'Don't hold your breath for that page four'

Confessions of a sub-editor

I am a sub-editor and I love it. I love the spellings, the grammar and the punctuation - and nothing makes me laugh more than a damn good typo. Or the time my Japanese friend emailed me that his colleagues were giving him a shit.

This is a blog for my glamorous and esteemed colleagues Kit and The Bastard, and for anyone of an equally nerdy leaning.

Today I have only two offerings. The first, musings on love and its relationship with convenience retailing:

[Famous retail chain's] head of marketing support, [let's protect his name], says he now aims to build up a communications message as the shopper progresses through the store, a process that he likens to dating. “It starts with teasing and results, hopefully, in closure,” he says.

And the second, a crystal-clear conclusion:

With better research and more sophisticated techniques being applied by a greater range of companies, there are plenty of reasons to argue that price is far from the only trick left to distract the post-recession consumer focus on price.

Enjoy, if you dare.