Morning! Here's your weekly ShortList!
Now listen, I have no axe to grind with Mike Soutar - I used to work with him at Emap and he always seemed a terribly nice chap from Smash Hits who got sucked up into the bullish world of men's magazines and was forced to hand some of his morals in at the door. I wish no ill-will on ShortList either - it's just magazine people getting on with their job, just like my friends at Word but in a different sphere and, presumably, with higher stakes - but this is fucking hilarious and I share it in the spirit of democracy and freedom of information. (Thanks to the anoynmous poster who pointed it out to me.) You may wish to have a bucket handy.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:23 AM
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It makes such a difference to know about all the pseudo-psychological gubbins that goes into chucking out our weekly ShortList. I will obtain a copy the very next time I am in London on a Thursday, if it hasn't gone bump in the meanwhile.
Two words: David. Brent.
"Morning, here's your weekly Shortlist" - London Commuters will be halfway to work by the time the vendors get this sentence out.
McPublishing
I'm glad i no longer live in london
The vendors are hitting exactly the right market. I had two copies thrust in my hand last week by a silent, surly distributor. And I'm a woman, or I was the last time I looked.
The fact he keeps looking over to his left (to check his script) makes him look shifty, and that dodgy jacket does him no favours.
I'm glad to hear they are working really hard to produce great covers. Hopefully we'll see the fruits of their labours at some point, once all the issues with the rubbish covers have gone.
No-one - literally NO-ONE - is that stupid. No-one handing out free magazines is enjoying their low-paid, no-skill task. No-one seriously belives that a bright blue nylon ShortList jacket "LOOKS GREAT!" A better training video message would take that into account and adapt the message to something closer to "We all know this is basically meaningless and you'd rather be doing something better with your day, but if no-one reads this magazine we're all out on our ear, so please at least try and fake a smile, if you can bear to as you suffer the tortured ennui of the frustrated actor/novelist/bass player that we know you to be. I'm not happy about wearing the jacket either, but I'm giving it a go for the team. Do you best, kids, and be careful out there."
Not THAT, but something like that. But not that.
"Short list is a good looking mag for good looking people"
How can publishers be so blinkered as to think commuters really want to have a free newspaper/magazine thrust at them as they rush for their train?
I actively avoid the people handing out the Metro in Dublin. Why not have a stand for these free publications at the station instead? It would probably produce less litter as people wouldn't be ditching the unsolicited newspapers.
I have to say I'm pretty angry about this, it's just another example of employers treating their staff like children... makes you want to do a Jeanette Winterson... what is the point of....
Actually, all the film needs is Mike trying out the technique on one of the passers-by, I'm sure it would work a treat.
Ooh, I'm in London this Thursday. I can't wait. I'm sure it will make *such* a difference to have had a cheery 'good morning' from the 300th person to push a free paper in my face.
He could have run into the road in front of the White Van Men about 10 seconds from the end of the clip. Shouting BANZAI or something. See how compelling the pitch is then, chap.
Personally I think he is more Gordon Brittas in pep talk mode than Brent, doubt that Brent would ever move his arse that far from his chair. Most people involved in 'customer contact' have to put up with this kind of shite on a daily basis now. It's the new warehouse-to-call-centre UK economic model in action.
Anyway I've got a query for Londoners - does that street sign behind him, top right, read in full STELLA STREET . I so hope it does.
You couldn't make it up. I wonder whether there's similar prep talk for the press release + gossip formats of the London free papers...
shortlist? shitlist more like.
I won't say where exactly, but I passed a ShortList vendor outside a station this morning and, although dressed in the "great jacket and hat" he didn't greet me with a cheery cry of, "Morning! Here's your weekly ShortList!" - rather, he muttered something that sounded like, "Sorry!" but may have been his interpretation of "ShortList" in a non-English-speaking accent. Sack this man immediately, Mr Soutar! (That, or give him some more money if you want him to actually degrade himself further.)
I didn't take a copy.
The best covers, with stock photography? I bitch-flicked through the first issue and found only freeby publicity photos from the likes of image.net. And the design? Hard to believe that Sutar was once the publisher of Wallpaper*. Obviously he has found his inner Bond.
Now a lavishly shot fashion spread featuring the season's sky blue rain cagoules and caps would make such a difference.
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