But — if the people from Glasgow and Liverpool will bear with me just a moment — that’s because we’ve all been brainwashed into mindlessly accepting that places outside London don’t do “culture”. It’s not all flat caps, whippets, curly perms and deep fried mars bars north of Watford, you know.

The key thing to remember is that culture isn’t just what Brian Sewell says it is. It doesn’t have to be trendy; it doesn’t particularly have to be modern, but it should look to entertain and inform, rather than just being something utilitarian. For example, the BALTIC art gallery on Tyneside may fit the Sewell culture definition of ‘culture’ or ‘art’ — indeed he famously claimed that it was too good to waste on Northerners, but that’s his definition (and somewhat bigoted viewpoint).

My definition would also include things like the Millenium Bridge, the Angel of the North, St Mary’s Visitors Centre which provides a lot of information about the history of Gateshead. History. Museums. Art Galleries. Learning. Theatre. Film. Things to see and do that don’t just involve shopping. That’s culture.

So anyway, at the time I was local-authority employed, I was very keen on the idea that NewcastleGateshead would win the bid: I’ve got a fierce pride in the region, as I think it’s got a lot to be proud of (not that Liverpool, Bristol and the other bidders don’t have, but I’m not from there, so I’m biased). And I was invited to attend an event as one of the representatives of my department to celebrate, should NewcastleGateshead win the bid.

Unfortunately, it went to Liverpool and so as well as finding that the area of which I was so proud had lost out in the chance to become European City of Culture 2008, I was also done out of a free party. Now that’s a double blow by anyone’s standards.

To be honest, I don’t really know much about what Liverpool did to celebrate being City of Culture: I know there was stuff on, various Scouse bloggers (scloggers?) wrote about it, and I read quite a bit of it. But that was nearly two years ago, and not much of it fired my imagination, possibly partly ‘cos I was still in a huff about the party I was conned out of.

But there was one thing which caught my imagination. The superlambananas. Basically, a series of sculptures, shaped — as you may indeed have guessed — somewhat like a cross between a lamb and a banana. Entirely ridiculous, they have no utility value whatsoever beyond being something odd and quirky to look at. And thus for my mind, a fitting way for Liverpool to celebrate its City of Culture status. (Photo credit “Haversack”)

There’s quite a variety of stuff tagged superlambanana on flickr, and Lady Bracknell’s editor chronicled them somewhat on her blog.

Yes, interesting, quirky: I’m sure you agree. However, you’re probably wondering what the relevance to something that happened in the middle of last year in a different city is as we’re approaching the end of this year. And it’s simple. I just received a copy of the book today, so that has very much reminded me of the whole thing and I’m having fun flicking through the pictures.

Also it gives me the opportunity to thank Lady Bracknell’s editor for sending me the copy that I won in a competition on her website. I am delighted to own such a work representing as it does the best of Britain today: things done simply because they are quirky and fun, despite it being plainly obvious that they do not have any purpose. So thanks very much Lady B.

But by my reckoning, Liverpool still owes me a free party…

It said: “special treat for customers of Amazon.co.uk – £40 naked wines voucher”. It also said “claim your voucher online or by telephone”; “choose your wines from our delicious range”; “next day delivery to your doorstep”, and the thing which I think is key “claim your £40 gift today”.

Note that use of the word gift. Note also that while the voucher says you can use your voucher to buy 12 bottles of wine for only £39.99, it does not say that you must; indeed you are specifically advised to “choose your wines from our delicious range”:

Note also that when you do go online, you then see this, again emphasising the freeness of the wine in question:

So that when you do go online, and you look to pick up your gift of free wine, it turns out that you have to pay a minimum of £79.99 to qualify for this, which means that you’ve got to pay forty quid in order to get eighty quid’s worth of wine. Now I don’t call this free (at best, it’s half price), and I don’t call it a gift.

Nowhere on the voucher does it mention this.

In my opinion (which obviously does not carry any legal status), I have been misled by this advertising. I have been led to believe I can receive a gift of free wine, and when I go to claim it, I find out that they are not prepared to offer me a free gift at all, unless I’m willing to part with forty quid.

I for one will not be using their service. Partly because it’s not necessarily a brilliant deal, partly because their “comments from customers” do not include any negative responses (and I know I put one in) so they appear to be trying to whitewash this, partly because I don’t know whether the wines are actually worth the prices they quote (there doesn’t appear to be any way of comparing their prices to anyone else’s), partly because there are some major accessibility problems with their site — missing alt text on rather key things such as image links, parts of the site not working without javascript, and so on — and obviously partly because I’m a little unhappy about their voucher.

So since Naked Wines wanted to offer me something for free, it would be churlish of me not to return the favour. So I will offer them something for free (and by free I do mean free) — my qualified endorsement. If you want to support a company which makes it more difficult for disabled people to use their site, who tell you that they are offering you a gift of free wine which turns out to basically only be a money-off offer where you’ve got to pay a minimum of forty quid, and who don’t give you an opportunity to compare their wine prices with anyone else, then I’d urge you to buy stuff from Naked Wines.

I’ll even offer them a site audit at 10% off, if they want to address the accessibility problems and other concerns… (mind you, the costs for this do start somewhat above the forty quid mark) …seems fair?

If people are talking about you in a negative way, it can damage your brand. It can get worse than this too: if people identified as belonging to your company are talking about your company’s products, employees, customers or competitors in a negative way, this can be damaging to your brand and generate a whole pile of bad publicity as the Dixons Store Group found out…

Staff at shops owned by the Dixons Stores Group have been caught insulting customers on a social networking site.[...] In it staff, many of whom used their real name, post comments about encounters with members of the public, many of which heap insults on them. Among many different insults, customers are called “stupid”. One staffer at a store asked if it would be acceptable to use a cattle prod on customers who prove difficult to satisfy.BBC News: Gadget shoppers branded ‘stupid’

And it’s not that easy to remove this information either. After reading the article, I went along to this group on Facebook and managed to find a few different things which don’t sound too flattering for the group…

How often do you find that your customers (guests in the DSGi B&B) are taken aback by the costs of such things like Belkin cables, Norton 360, Office, tech guys services, even delivery and install charges? [...] Why? cos the company doesnt actually advertise the profit making items! all the adverts are product ONLY.Why are customers often surprised when we try to sell them add ons/essentials

So here you have someone self-identifying as a Dixons Store Group employee who is suggesting that the adverts don’t actually provide value to the customer, because they don’t actually tell customer the cost they will need to pay to get their item up and running…

Then there’s this one, which is even more damning:

Now we all know the delivery guys have never grasped the concept that they are an integral part of good customer service and conversely can in one fell swoop undermine all of our efforts with their incompetence, rudeness and inappropriateness with customers. That much is kinda expected. [...] I am therefore stunned and amazed at the lengths the company is prepared to go to piss off customers and sod them around over a piece of paperwork and an arse covering exercise.Efforts DGSi will go to to piss off customers in the name of service

And then of course, there’s the stuff they made the national media for — calling customers idiotic. But it’s not just Dixons Group, there are others out there — although briefly looking around I didn’t find any in the same league as the Dixons group employees for shooting themselves in the foot. Besides which, the Dixons Group employees who have posted this sort of thing will be in the shit anyway now it’s made the national media, and I didn’t want to drop anyone in the shit who wasn’t there already.

Obviously, some sets of employees are more sensible than others:

PLEASE NOTE -This group is just for fun – NOT to insult the company or customers! Any negative comments will be deleted! Any comments written on this group are done so at the individuals risk.TESCO employees

Please note, all Facebook quotes in this article were taken from Groups where you do not have to be a member in order to gain access to all of this information. All you need is a Facebook account…

There’s nothing complicated about what you have to do: if you are an employee of a company be careful about what you say about them online. Assume that anything you say online can — and will — be traced back to you and that everyone who knows you will know about it. And it might be worth checking exactly how public posts on a particular Facebook group are before you start ranting on it…

If you are an employer, make sure that your employees know what is expected from them when they use social media (in or out of work time) and ensure that you are monitoring what is said about you online.

Or you too might find yourself featured on the BBC…

Still, on the bright side, it appears that at least kids realise the importance of online privacy, even if the grown-ups don’t:

Of the 13 to 16 year olds 58% said that keeping personal information private was the subject in which they needed the most help and guidance. Children aged seven to 11 were not asked the question because of the high incidence of ‘don’t know’ as an answer in a pilot survey Ipsos MORI, the research company which conducted the study, said.

The second most common concern that young people had about going online was about the security of information. The survey found that 28% of 11 to 16 year olds said that they needed advice on keeping information secure

Out-Law.com: Young say they need help and guidance with online privacy

A gentleman on a bicycle was handing out fruit, and people were happily accepting it and wandering inside. Odd. So naturally curiosity forced me to investigate further and very shortly I was the proud owner of a rather manky looking pear.

A rather manky looking pear, that is, with a sticker on it which read “I ♥ Kopparberg”. The theory was that you eat the pear, then hand over the sticker to someone inside the bar, who would give you a plastic cup containing a small amount of Kopparberg in exchange for the sticker.

There were only two problems with this: firstly, they’d managed to get the most manky and unclean looking pears I’d seen for some time, so I didn’t really fancy eating ‘em (although the idea that these unpleasant looking pears might have been the ones used to make an alcoholic drink did not concern me in the slightest). And secondly, when they said a small glass, they did mean a small glass.

I mean, that must have been approaching almost a quarter of a pint. Could they not just have given you a free bottle? Having said that, it was quite a pleasant drink. I’ve had perry quite a few times before (normally at the Newcastle beer festival) so I have got stuff to compare it to, but it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t as strong (in an ‘amount of alcohol’ sense) as the beer festival standards, and it was maybe a bit fizzier than I would generally have gone for, but other than that, it was fine.

It was available in the bar in two varieties: normal and red. The ‘normal’ one I tried was presumably the Kopparberg Pear, and from looking at their site, I guess the read one had to be Kopparberg Mixed Fruit (apple cider with raspberries and blackcurrant added).

I ended up having only three free drinks of Kopparberg (two pear, one mixed fruit). I’m guessing I was only supposed to have one, but as I’d quite enjoyed it, I wandered over to ask them how much it actually cost, contemplating purchasing a bottle, but was told that it was free. So I said ‘well can I have one of each, then?’. Shy bairns get no sweets, as they say…

I can’t honestly say that the mixed fruit one would appeal, but as I’m quite fond of a perry, I’d be tempted to try it again some time. I’d be even more tempted if they could make it a bit more ‘real perry’ (knock the ABV up a bit, take out some of the fizz, and so on) as opposed to something seemingly more pitched at the Woodpecker/Strongbow fizzy cider kind of the market. As obviously, similarly to liking real ale, I also like real cider.

But while it might not be one that I’d take as a regular tipple, I’d certainly suggest to people — particularly people who I think are likely to like it — so if you’ve not already tried it @ciderlass, you might want to give it a go.

And obviously Kopparberg have got themselves a Facebook presence: seemingly whenever you’re promoting anything, you need to be doing it on Facebook as well as on the web generally. People are going to talk about you on Facebook, so you might as well be there where you can listen and contribute to the conversation.

However, there are three things that they could — and in my opinion should be doing as well.

1. They’re asking people which is their favourite. This would be an ideal opportunity for a competition. The best description of why you like a particular one gets you sent 8 bottles of it — one winner every day for a week or something?
2. They don’t appear to be on twitter. For someone launching a campaign which is taking in social media, it seems to be a bit of a miss
3. Most importantly, they have not sent me a great big box of their ciders to, ahem, review. This is obviously a simple oversight on their part…

Particularly that last point…

Paula the Cow was a man (or possibly woman) dressed up in a cow suit, along with some bloke dressed up as Farmer Peter, with thick round glasses and a pipe. This was a branding exercise to go with the launch of a new Dr. Oetker product for some sort of mousse type of thing with vanilla and chocolate flavours…

Paula is a cow who does more than just moo
she makes a tasty treat that has cool splodges tooPaula’s Theme Song

Paula already has a website, which relies very much on Flash — there doesn’t seem to be an HTML version so far as I can see — but the interesting thing for me was trying to determine how the whole thing came about.

I spoke to one of Paula’s farmyard assistants about the branding exercise and it was quite interesting to see how Paula the Cow had come about. The whole ‘Paula the cow’, the associated tour, the theme song and so on was part of a pitch that the brand agency had made to Dr. Oetker. Unfortunately, the person I was speaking to then actually had to go and do some proper work, because I was left with one unanswered question…

If the whole Paula the Cow thing was a branding pitch, then how did the Paula ‘splodge’ dessert come about? The splodge pattern looks vaguely like cow markings, so what I was wondering is whether Dr. Oetker already had the ‘splodginess’ in the original desserts and this inspired the appropriate branding pitch, or whether Dr. Oetker were simply looking to market chocolate and vanilla desserts, and the ‘splodges’ and the like was part of the original pitch?

Obviously, the things which are interesting to me aren’t just the initial branding, but how they have used the internet and social media to launch Paula (I already had an interest of course, but now with the launch of TPis I’m looking into these sorts of things in more detail!). There are already a frightening number of facebook groups set up which relate to Paula the Cow — from the Paula the Cow appreciation society, filed under “Religion and Spirituality”, no less, through to I hate Dr. Oetker and that shitty Paula the Cow advert.

However, what’s surprising is that I can’t find any which are official: all the ones I’ve seen seem to have been set up by people either for or against the product, none of whom have given what I have seen as the contact email for Paula from her site. In today’s internet led world, it seems a surprise that Paula’s not yet got an official Facebook presence nor a twitter account, which is surely necessary to get the viral success that Alexandr Orlov, the erm… meerkat behind the “Compare the Meerkat” campaign had: after all, he’s not just got the website, he’s got the official Facebook thingy and even a twitter account.

Another reason for Paula wanting a Facebook presence of course is that without one — and if it wasn’t for people like me blogging about this kind of thing — Dr. Oetker might end up completely unaware of the negative publicity being generated by the anti-Paula Facebook groups out there. You simply cannot afford to ignore social networks…

So come on Paula, pull your … hoof … out, let’s get to grips with this social media thing, eh?

However, to give appropriate credit to Paula and Dr. Oetker, my kids tried one of the free desserts and they seemed to like them (the ‘vanilla one with chocolate splodges’ being preferred to the one the other way round), so they’ve succeeded in one of the key points at least — because if the dessert was unpleasant, all the social media hype in the world wouldn’t get you repeat business.