No one was leaving Copenhagen before a deal was struck

Well, we may only just be leaving the recession and job opportunities are still rarer than working trains in the Eurotunnel, but that hasn’t stopped an unknown producer from Uruguay, who uploaded a short film to YouTube in November, being offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film.

Fede Alvarez’s short film “Ataque de Panico!” (Panic Attack!) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. At just under five minutes long and made on a budget of $300 (£186), it has already seen more than 1.5 million views on YouTube.

“I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,” he told the BBC’s Latin American service BBC Mundo.

Mr Alvarez has now been asked to produce is a sci-fi film to be shot in Latin America, but he will be developing an entirely new story for the project.

“If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it,” he added.

Taking a look at the film makes us think otherwise.

I’ve just read an interesting story on CNET US that is discussing the news that the state of Maine is deciding to put warning stickers on all mobile phones to be sold in shops across the state.

The story leads with this paragraph, which, effectively, sums up the whole piece: “Although there is no conclusive proof that mobile phones cause cancer, a Maine legislator wants to require all mobile phones sold in the state to carry warnings that say mobile phones may do so”. “Although there is no conclusive proof” – so WHY do it then?!

I find this bizarre – nearly everything causes cancer these days, and we all already know about it, so why strike more fear into people by putting warning stickers on phones, when it’s not even proven! Smoking, sure, I get that, but phones? The world’s going mad!

Everyone’s had that moment of instant regret when being a little too trigger-happy with the  ‘send’ button on an email, but no one perhaps as much as Holly, a grad at Deloitte. Or rather, ex-grad…read on…

Here’s how it all started…

Gutted....

What started on Tuesday this week has become a viral phenomenon in a matter of days, being sent on to team members, colleagues and friends and not only in Deloitte. In fact, this one email has become so widespread that even the Times Online has picked it up and ran a story leading with the headline “Holly went lightly after he-mails turned viral”.

See the Times’ story here: http://bit.ly/6SH0Q4

What was meant to be a bit of office Christmas fun has turned into a viral sensation that has forced Holly into quitting her job on the grad scheme at Deloitte after just four months. Poor girl…

As the year is drawing to a close, PR Week has summed up what has been a tumultuous year in PR-land. In a month-by-month breakdown, they’ve highlighted highs and lows within the media and PR industry, covering everything from companies that have had to make job cuts to Nick Griffin being made an MEP [shock!]

 They’ve also stuck a ‘reputometer’ at the end of the piece – charting who’s risen in our expectations and who’s lingering at the bottom. I have to add my two cents in here though – in the ‘Hot’ section of the reputometer, they haven’t included the rise and rise of Cheryl Cole…surely this year she’s dominated headlines once again? All in all it’s a great round up and it makes you wonder how so much has happened in such a short space of time, with a lot of it being so negative…

 Roll on the next 12 months!

It emerged in the news recently that a man who loves Monster Munch, the best crisps to emerge from the 90s ever (fact), has changed his name by deed poll to Mr Monster Munch, to show his love of the potato snackettes.

The Telegraph.co.uk reports that “He often mixes his Monster Munch with traditional meals – but is yet to crack the secret of mixing the crisps with his breakfast”, and that he changed his name after his mates dared him to. When asked about his love affair with the crisps, he replied ”I just don’t want to give up Monster Munch – I loved them when I was a lad and when they brought out the new retro packs I must admit my heart skipped a beat.” His friends say they’ll call him Monster.

Oh dear….

A SteamPunk mobile - you know you want it!

Apparently there’s a growing group of people out there who are redesigning modern technology to fit in with a Victorian aesthetic. According to Wikipedia, “SteamPunk fashion” has no set guidelines, but tends to synthesize modern styles as filtered through the Victorian era. SteamPunks even have their own magazine.

SteamPunk fans apparently take inspiration from works of fiction like Alan Moore’s and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or the novels of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, where extremely advanced inventions are made possible through Victorian level technology. So we’re talking about computers powered by steam, or clockwork time machines (in reality, of course, everyone knows that time machines require a DeLorean).

Still, it’s interesting to see how people are now customising the appearance of their technology to fit in with an aesthetic they like. In many ways it’s a logical step forward from customising the content and software you have on your personal devices.

It’s likely to be a growing trend: CyperPunk mp3 players and Zen big screen TVs are sure to follow.

The Telegraph has put together a list of the 20 funniest predictive searches on Google, providing a unique – and slightly scary – insight into what is running through the minds of the global populous. Classics include:

“What would a… chair look like if your knees bent the other way?”

“I like to…tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it’s like to be a dinosaur”

And my personal favourite (which is actually a quote from LOST):

“Why is there… a dead Pakistani on my couch?!”

Check out the full list here.

What are you searching for?

This story has tickled me. Courtesy of the Daily Mail (why am I surprised at this?), the story reports how a father is ‘furious’ over ‘pornographic sweet wrappers’. Oh yes. Apparently Maoam sweets, although delectable and very chewy, are actually, soft porn.

The image, as you can see, *clearly* show’s the lime getting a bit too much pleasure from his fellow fruity friends.

Clearly someone's creative juices were flowing...

I don’t think there’s anything else I can say on this. I don’t even know where I stand on the matter. Does Mr Lime really have a ‘lurid’ wink upon his limey green face? Are the cherries enjoying being licked that little bit too much? I’m torn. The more I look at the picture, the more I think furious Mr Simpkins may have a point. But would a child ever notice a tiny wrapper like that and immediately deduce it was pornographic? I think not.

Read the original article in all its glory here.

What are you DOING?!

I’m going to say this up front: I’m not a fan. Magic, broomsticks, talking animals, flying buses…no thanks. In my book, it’s not a proper movie unless it ends with an enormous thermonuclear explosion. You can quote me on that.

I like good, solid, real technology. So imagine my chagrin at finding that some of the newest technologies out there seem intent on bringing the Harry Potter world to life?

First off, we have scientists developing invisibility cloaks. Professor Ulf Leonhardt at St. Andrews University has said that he expects to make “real advances in the field of invisibility” within the next two years.  He is also quoted as saying that the technology involves “geometry, light and a wee bit of magic”. Urgh.

Secondly, we have video adverts running in magazines – something very similar to Harry Potter’s Daily Prophet. The US publication Entertainment Weekly recently ran an article with a video advertisement that would play as soon as the page was opened. The device contains an extremely thin screen and a minute speaker and is, apparently, tough enough to survive being thrown by even the most enthusiastic paperboy.

In my opinion, this is the thin edge of the wedge. If this sort of thing goes unchecked, how long can it be until we have talking animals?!

Could this adonis be a gamer?

Not really surprising when you consider that they spend most of their free time sitting in front of a computer screen, eating high fat, refined foods and taking less exercise than a narcoleptic sloth with a nasty case of glandular fever. Despite recent attempts to make gaming more healthy, it remains a very passive pass-time.

So why do it? Well, let’s face it, in our daily lives we just don’t get to stomp around in big-stompy-robots, blowing up other big-stompy-robots.

Not as much as we would like anyway.