Singapore Slings - Cultural Media Learnings of Asia Pacific for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Great Britain

Steve Blakeman

I started in the media department of J Walter Thompson in Manchester in June '86 eager to make a good impression. It didn't last long. Within weeks I'd found out about the lunchtime lure of the White Lion, went to my first media bash (courtesy of STV, it was all fireworks and free lager as I recall) and had got quite friendly with one of the girls from production charging.

All was well with the world. Until that day when the sales director of a fledgling satellite & cable TV sales agency came in to ply his wares to us. I can't remember his name or the name of the sales company (there have been a few more free beer parties since then) but I could never forget what happened.

I was in the Boardroom on the 3rd floor with a load of my colleagues at the time (Pauline Hackett, Jill Thomas, Robin Bell, Clare Downing, Pete Mitchell to name but a few). Anyway, the presentation was shite. A load of channels we had never heard of and most of which I have never heard of since.

But he had saved details of the best channel until last. It was called 'Red Hot Dutch'. If you haven't heard of it before then I'm sure you can work out what type of programming it featured.

Needless to say our ears pricked up when he started his opening sales gambit for RHD. For some strange reason he seemed a trifle coy and started muttering about things like reach, impact and penetration to the barely stifled sniggers of me and my partner-in-crime Pete.

But worse was to come ... as he got more embarrassed, he got increasingly more flustered to the extent that he decided prematurely to cut to the Audio Visual he had prepared on Betamax (it was the 80's after all). Now brimming with eager anticipation, Pete and I were on the edge of our seats waiting (praying) for him to push Play when the guy uttered the immortal line "well enough of all the sales patter, here is a video of example programming from the channel. Actually there's some great little snatches on this tape".

Now, in hindsight, I reckon he might have chosen his words slightly more carefully. 'Excerpts' could have been a slightly better alternative perhaps ? Alas, it was too late. Pete and I lost it. Basically we simply self combusted and were flailing all over the Boardroom table. It was so bad we had to be escorted out the room. Even that didn't work though. Despite the fact that the room was sound proofed we could still be heard outside laughing for another 20 minutes after the incident.

The downside ? Got a written warning. Oh and I never got to see the tape. Actually I got another written warning a few months later for turning up at noon the day after a Christmas MPA bash (but that's another story). Well, at least Pauline never found out that it was me who blew up the engine in her white Escort RS Turbo posing on Deansgate in my Wayfarers (like I said, it was the 80's) or else I wouldn't be here to tell the tale now would I ?

ps. sorry Pauline