Category: General interest

Tesco jim-jam ban

29-Jan-10 11:46

Ever popped down to Tesco's in your PJ's? No? Well it seems some people do. The Daily Mirror reports today that a Tesco store, which has implemented a ban on anyone entering the store in their nightwear, had to march out a mum who entered wearing her PJ's and slippers. She explains "I've got lovely pairs of pyjamas, with bears and penguins on them. I've worn my best ones today, just so I look tidy." Perhaps she thought that was enough to stop her being thrown out? It's always a controversial issue when it comes to organisations ‘banning' people wearing certain items of clothing, but I think a lot of us may turn our noses up to someone sporting a pair of PJ's whist riffling through the frozen food isle.

This kind of story always makes me chuckle, a bizarre moment in the midst of all the doom and gloom. But why do these stories have such appeal? Is it so we can just have a laugh, or perhaps take pity on the single mum, who apparently doesn't have enough time to get dressed in the morning and is completely happy to have a picture taken of herself sporting her penguin clad PJ's in a national newspaper? A pair of joggers and trainers (you could be excused) but come on, pyjamas, is there really any need?

The worrying thing is that the secret confessions of my PR colleagues reveals that at least 50 per cent of us have taken a step outside in their PJ's before (mostly to the local fast-food outlet!) - Although, most of the stories related to an incident during student days, so these could be forgiven!

Rachel

Guest blog: moving to the dark side

15-Dec-09 10:57

"Typical PR", my embittered news desk colleague would say, slamming down the phone, "Probably spends all day filing her nails and sending out one press release a week which is no good to us anyway. And probably gets paid more than us as well."

That may be a bit of an exaggeration but it's not that far from the scene that is played out on news desks up and down the country by journalists with a somewhat jaundiced view of the PR industry.

But now I have crossed the threshold and gone from being a journalist to freelance PR, or ‘moved to the dark side' as it is known, I have discovered an entirely new world which is a long way from the ill-informed stereotype that a lot of hacks hold to be true.

I left the roller-coaster world of newspapers in March this year, 09, after ten years at the print-face as it were, during which time I had some of the biggest laughs, encountered the worst kind of tragedy, met some amazing people and generally felt privileged to spend my time writing stories about Bristol and the South West while getting paid for it.

As a freelance working from home, now I find my days and weeks are just as unpredictable and challenging and this will come as no surprise to anybody reading this but to achieve a level of success at PR it takes bloody hard work.

Funnily enough I don't spend my days filing my nails (or the male equivalent) and knocking out a press release every couple of weeks. I spend my time working hard for the clients I do have, writing releases, coming up with campaign ideas and persuading over-worked and under-resourced news editors to look at the stories I'm pitching. As well as that I'm constantly looking ahead to where the next bit of business is coming from and whether I can resist having to fill out the Asda application job form for another six months.

I have worked for several agencies in the Bristol area now and taken on some fairly hefty one-off projects which have seen me working round the clock and even at weekends, which isn't something I was overly-inclined to do on the newspaper.

So it has been a refreshing change for me but one that I am enjoying immensely, not least because Bristol is such a fantastic place to live and work with a really vibrant media industry.

Simon Peevers, editorial consultant

 

 

Animals to the rescue

30-Jul-09 09:18

I was amazed reading the recent story about a beluga whale in a Chinese aquarium rescuing a drowning diver by pushing her out of the water.

How did the whale know she was drowning, could it sense her distress? From the picture you could be mistaken into thinking the whale is trying to eat her leg! But the story concludes that the whale did in fact save her life.
The diver had been taking part in a competition at the aquarium when she began suffering sudden cramps in her legs. I'm not quite sure why they would have a diving competition in an aquarium? Maybe the Whale just wanted the divers out of its aquarium and this particular one was hanging around a little too long?

Animal rescue stories always seem to make the headlines - a great human interest and photo story make for a winning combination. It seems ‘Lassie' has certainly set a president for the rest of the animal kingdom, but they have a lot to live up to.

Rachel

Finders keepers?

29-Jul-09 17:39

After reading the story on BBC News Online about the couple who have received a suspended sentence for cashing in a winning lottery ticket they found, it made me wonder what I would do in the same situation.

The couple, Amanda and Michael Stacey, had found the lottery ticket on a newsagent's shop floor and just thought they would try their luck. It turned out to be a winning ticket worth £30,000! Now I think most people out of pure curiosity would feel compelled to check the numbers, but the question is if it happened to be a winner would they keep the cash or hand it in?

When discussing this in the office we all agreed that if we found a purse on the floor we would hand it in, otherwise that would be stealing. However with the lottery ticket scenario, the opinions were far more mixed. I think before reading this story I would have been inclined to keep the money, following the playground rhyme ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers', although not now I have found out it is illegal to do so.

I don't believe that the couple took the ticket and spent the money out of malice, and perhaps you could say that the original owner should have taken better care of the ticket in the first place. Now it has been highlighted that by doing this the couple have committed a criminal offence, it makes me wonder what else people could be doing each day to unwittingly break the law?

Danni

Smile, and the world smiles with you

13-Jul-09 15:04

As the sunshine is forecasted to disappear and the weather is set to be wet, we start to feel a little downbeat and our smiling faces start to vanish. A Japanese rail firm has introduced a system to check that staff are smiling at all times. Computerised scanners will be placed in 15 Tokyo stations to measure smile curvature to make sure the smile is broad enough. Is this customer service/big brother going a little too far, or are they onto something?

People are naturally drawn to happy individuals, so when we smile, we appear more attractive. Smiling is contagious and changes your mood and the mood of others around you; smiling has also been proven to boost your immune system. On these findings, it could be assumed the Japanese are leading the way to become a happier society, but surely pushing someone to smile and measuring their smile curvature will create the ‘fake smile'. I consider a false smile to be rather offensive, but apparently we are generally bad at spotting the 'fake smile' even though they are forced rather than natural.

So whether fake or genuine, we all need to start smiling!

Hallane