From the comfort of your own home!

Those in the advertising industry keep saying, '...from the comfort of your own home'.

But how do they know my home is comfortable? It’s not. There are renovations going on and my couch is old and saggy. I’m not comfortable at home, thank you. Anyway, I could be staying somewhere that's not my home, it could be someones else's home. Do they consider that scenario? No they don't.                              

Midstairs

The underdog so often loses out, doesn’t it? Poor underdog. Take the midstairs for example. That’s right, midstairs. We keep referring to the upstairs or downstairs in everyday discourse when informing others of where we might be going or what we’re doing. Such as, “I’m going upstairs to bed, see you in the morning”. Or (speaking to your wife), “I just accidently pushed your mother downstairs. Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to breathing.”

Upstairs and downstairs are helpful, practical adverbial expressions in the usual sense (they can also function as a noun or adjective – but that’s a story for another day). That’s all very well. But what about poor old midstairs? It never – or hardly – gets a look in, does it? It should. Why not? Well, think about it. I mean if there was no midstairs no one would be able to get upstairs or go downstairs in the first place. You wouldn’t be getting the sleep you needed because you couldn’t reach your bed – at least for those of us with our bedroom all the way upstairs. And, possibly, you’d not have finally gotten rid of your mother-in-law, obtaining all the joy of watching her free-fall tumbling to a thumping death at the bottom of the stairwell in the process.

So, sorry, there’s just no escaping it. You have to necessarily traverse midstairs to reach either downstairs or upstairs. The midstairs is the crucial bit joining the two opposite ends together, a seamless bridge that you don’t even notice or normally give a second thought to. Without it you’d be stranded down the bottom or up the top with no way to reach the other side. Doomed with no foreseeable way to get back. Like the Star Trek gang on some weird where-the-hell-are-we-and-how-did-we-get-stranded-here? episode. Come to think of it, without midstairs we could never really have an upstairs or downstairs in the first place. Then what would we all do? Keep travelling and going places and meeting only on the horizontal plane? Relocating our bedrooms downstairs? Disposing of our mother-in-laws only by non-vertical means? Just think of the implications and how limiting and inconvenient this would be.

The midstairs. I wholly embrace it. I’m rooting for its linguistic relevance and subsequent usage. See you midstairs sometime as you make your merry way either upstairs or downstairs. 

The restaurant booking

People keep telling me, “Oh, I’ve booked the restaurant – see you there”. Then I get there and it turns out they only booked one table and all these other people are in the restaurant.

Email to Schick

From: Julian Hudson [mailto:cmantics@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 9 September 2014 9:08 PM
To: eapl.sales@energizer.com
Subject: Xtreme 3 Sensitive

Hi Schick

I’ve been a buyer of your Xtreme 3 men’s razors for a while now. I bought a packet the other week but only opened them up tonight, because I noticed my old Xtreme 3 was getting a bit rough and was cutting my skin. Anyway, pow! I saw on the packaging it said “New Look!”. That’s so exciting. When I opened them I thought, ‘how will my razors look different tonight?’. It doesn’t matter what bad things might happen to me this week – because my razors now have a new look.

Although I have to admit I couldn’t discern what the difference was. I wasn’t able to spot what you did to make this new look a reality. But I’m sure it was something deep and well thought out by your top Schick razor designers.

The other thing I noticed written on the packet was “4+1 free razor”. Great! Except I don’t want to sound negative. But I just wasn’t sure which razor in the packet was the actual free one. Still, each razor is as good as the other – so I resolved to think that it didn’t really  matter which one you had intended to be the free one.

Lastly, in future how will I know when the “New Look!” is something I’ve never seen before? I mean if you keep saying “New Look!” it would be hard for a customer to know when it is new to them. Do you think in future you might say “New New Look!”? I mean over time that could get a bit difficult, wouldn’t it? For example, “New New New New Look!”…it would just keep on going and end up looking very silly.

To this end, could I offer a suggestion? How about “New Look Mark II!” etc. Also, maybe you could have a competition. Call it “Slick Schickers” (a ‘Schicker’ representing a guy who uses Schick razors). In the competition, someone who can spot how the razor is different when it has a “New Look!”, is crowned “Slick Schicker of the Year” and gets 6 months’ worth of your razors for free. Maybe you could hold the crowning at a supermarket near to where the winner lives. I guess it would probably be Coles or Woolies since that’s pretty much all we have in Australia. But just don’t hold a crowning event if Jamie Oliver happens to be in Woolies, as he is all-powerful.

You never know, Coles or Woolies might jump at the chance since it could bring in more shoppers for them. If you choose an attractive guy to be the winner, this would probably work even better. Then you’d get droves of girls and ladies coming to the crowning event – and they love to shop! They might be enticed to purchase your ladies’ razors. Aha! An increase of your profits – you see where I’m going with all this!

You might also want to consider the following as a slogan for your men’s razors:

“Be a Slick Schicker, not a Schick Kicker”. What do you think? Run it past your marketing people.

Hoping my suggestions and feedback help. Please let me know.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Julian Hudson

The hair

A guy: I can see a hair on my face from the corner of your eye. It’s really bugging me.

Guy's friend: Right…don’t you mean from the corner of your eye?

A guy: That’s what I said – from the corner of your eye.

Guy's friend: I think what you mean is, from the corner of my eye.

A guy: But it’s not your eye. It’s from the corner of my eye that I can see the hair.

Guy's friend: Right, which is why you’d say from my eye and not from your eye.

A guy: That doesn’t make any sense. Like I said, it’s not your eye we’re talking about. It’s my eye that is seeing the hair. And the hair is on your face.

Guy's friend: Hang on, you mean my face. You should be saying the hair is on my face.

A guy: No, the hair’s on my face. So, why would I say the hair is on your face?

Guy's friend: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. You already said in the beginning that you can see a hair on “my face”.  Those were your words.

A guy: You mean my words and not yours?

Guy's friend: Yes.

A guy: Ok, I did. But I didn’t mean your face. I meant mine.

Guy's friend: Right! Which is why your words were: “my face”.

A guy: Well that was just a mistake. I should’ve said your face.

Guy's friend: No, same thing as the eye. You should’ve said my face. Like you should have said my eye.

A guy: Why is this so difficult? It’s my face and my eye that we’re talking about. So why would I say your face and your eye when they’re both mine?

Guy's friend: That’s not what I mean. You’re just confusing the meanings of the words.

A guy: Well you seem pretty confused yourself!

Guy's friend: Ok, then. Why don’t we agree on at least something. We’re talking about a face. And there’s an eye and a hair involved. Right? Can we agree on this?

A guy: Yeah, ok. Fair enough. And it’s been a curly one.

Guy's friend: A curly hair? 

A guy: No, the conversation’s been curly.

Book launch - Writers2Watch - Manly Edition

We had our little book launch at Desire Books, Manly on the 14th of August. Thanks to Desire Books, guests and Many Writers' Group - especially Robert Salisbury who gave all us unknown writers the chance to be published.

Up there on stage reading my short story, it occurred to me: was I a launchee or was I a launcher? In one sense I was a part of launching the book. So, I guess in one way I was a launcher. On the other hand, I was part of what was being launched - so I was also a launchee. I guess you could say that makes me bi-launchual.

Writers2Watch - Manly Edition is available at Desire Books and Humphries.

Anyway, here are a few photos of the night in case you're interested...or if you just like photos of other people and places.

Displaying the book

Reading my short story to the audience

Reading my short story to the audience

Chatting with guests of the night

Inside Desire Books, Manly

With Mum.

Nick Basford, convenor of Manly Writers' Group (left) and Robert Salisbury, founder of the Group (right)

With my sister, Charlotte, and brother, Adrian

With my sister, Charlotte, and brother, Adrian

With Erin, my wife

Me (right) chatting with a guest

Inside Desire Books, Manly

Chatting with a guest

Book launch!

I'd just like to use an online loudhailer to quietly express excitement at having some of my writing published. It's a short piece, Slow down and hurry up about it, and has been included in a new book called Writers 2 Watch (the book's cover is above). The book is being printed as we speak, so no links right now.

But, here are the details of the launch for Writers 2 Watch: http://bit.ly/XLuo4y

Everyone is welcome! If you live in, say, America or Europe it's only a short and inexpensive plane ride to Sydney, Australia...