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...

Recent studies

Recent studies show that we get our best hours of sleep from the moment we fall into a deep sleep to the moment we fully awaken. Studies also show that we feel most tired when we are conscious and aware that sleep has been poor and/or insufficient.

Governor releases statement

… And today the governor of the jail released the statement that some in the community had been waiting for. He said that after two years’ imprisonment the statement had learnt its lesson and should be freed. In fact, the governor said, it had been a model statement during its incarceration. He added that the statement was now free among the community to be fully expressed out loud by anyone choosing to do so when they saw fit.  

The statement released its own statement just hours ago – via a representative who stated he was making the statement on the statement’s behalf – claiming that it felt linguistically sound and was looking forward to being expressed by anyone, anywhere, anytime – except not before 9a.m. as it wasn’t too good in the mornings. The representative said that the statement wanted to thank all the other statements that had helped and supported it during such a trying period. According to the representative, the statement said it wanted to thank its lawyer for all his recent statements made throughout the court process, which helped secure its release back into the community. Finally, the statement’s representative stated that the statement said that were it not for the governor’s statements it would not be a free statement right now.  

The governor has yet to provide any statements in relation to the statement’s representative’s statements.