April 30, 2006 in Media Orchard, Public Relations by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
For People Who Like to Look at Pictures from Other People’s Vacations


We know — most people would rather watch paint dry. But given Andrea and Bill’s “Where’s Scott” contest, we figured we’d share some pics from our recent journeys.

Cathy and I were married last April, but a series of personal catastrophes — and I don’t use the word lightly — forced us to delay the honeymoon for a full year. The trip was 16 days in the U.K. and Italy, with visits to London, Rome, Sorrento and Positano. In Rome, we stood among the throngs at St. Peter’s on Easter Sunday. In Positano, we overlooked the bay from the Hotel Marincanto, which is built into the cliffs; even the jacuzzi hung over the shore below.

All in all, a dream honeymoon — even though Cathy did have to spend one night in an Italian hospital with food poisoning. (Watch out for the pepperoni.)


Thanks to fellow PR blogger Mason Cole for some great travel tips. And of course, thanks again to guest bloggers Andrea and Bill, who saved the day for me after Cathy forbade me to bring my trusty HP Pavilion zd8000 on the trip.

Now … if you actually do like to look at pictures from other people’s vacations, you can view them here.

 
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April 30, 2006 in Media Orchard by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
Pick of the Orchard 4.30.06
 
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April 29, 2006 in Celebrity, Media Orchard by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
Things We Learned on Vacation, Part 2: Brits Have Bad Taste in Song Lyrics


While we were in London, we read about a VH1 poll in which a ho-hum line from U2′s “One” (“One life, with each other, sisters, brothers”) was voted the U.K.’s favorite song lyric of all-time.

It made us think about some of our own favorite lyrics. Here’s one from Primitive Radio Gods:

And if I die before I learn to speak
Can money pay for all the days I lived awake
But half asleep?

We know this is corny to say — but we’ve actually thought about that lyric when debating some of our life and career decisions.

And then there’s our favorite rap lyric, from Rob Base‘s “It Takes Two”:

I like the Whopper, f*** the Big Mac.

Top that, Bono. Word.

 
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April 29, 2006 in Media, Media Orchard, Public Relations by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
Things We Learned on Vacation: Page 3 Girls Are Policy Wonks


We hadn’t been to London in many years, so we were gratified that so many of the beautiful things we remembered about the city hadn’t changed at all.

Of course, some things have changed. Perhaps most disturbingly, Londoners are apparently turning to Rupert Murdoch’s Page 3 Girls for their conservative political commentary these days.

Nineteen-year-old Ami, for example, states in the April 26 edition of The Sun that she is “outraged” that Tony Blair’s government has allowed “so many foreign criminals … to roam the streets instead of being deported.”

In other recent editions, Becky, 24, complains that “the loans-for-peerages row has only made people question the work of the government more” and topless lesbians Beck and Mel weigh in on the ongoing sex scandal involving government official John Prescott.

Bloggerheads has the latest here and some background on Page 3 wonkery here. As the blog explains:

In Ye Olde Days, the topless models on Page 3 were accompanied by just enough insight and innuendo to allow the average reader to identify with the model … Were the model training to be an accountant, the text would playfully refer to her “ample assets” and the “bottom line”. Had she been a vet’s assistant or even the owner of a small domestic animal, the caption would suggest that “She also brings the beast out in us, eh readers?”…

Under the new editor, Rebekah Wade, this changed. Pictures of Page 3 models were soon accompanied by a caption entitled “News in Briefs” … With the new Page 3, they can deliver a highly focused and personalised editorial that sticks in the brain in a very personal and special way…

The central issue is the exploitation of these women — and The Sun’s readership — in a way that not even Orwell could have imagined in his wettest dream.

We’d normally conclude this post with an incisive comment on the ironic alliance of right-wing politics and soft-core pornography — but we’re still a little foggy from the trip.

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April 29, 2006 in Media Orchard, PR and Pop Culture by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
Melissa Theuriau Interview: We Think Something Might Have Gotten Lost in the Translation


As the worldwide blog leader in Melissa Theuriau news, Media Orchard’s crack reporting team spotted two recent interviews of Melissa — an article by Tele Loisirs and a video podcast by Le Podcasteur.

Unfortunately, both interviews are in French.

We tried Google’s translator on the Tele Loisirs piece and got this:

Tele-leisures: You are very young. How did you fall into the bath from the presentation?

Melissa Theuriau: The antenna was offered to me, very naturally. However, I had never dreamed some. Three years ago, I worked with LCI, the desk, when Jean-Claude Dassier proposed to me to carry out tests. Here how, at 25 years, the shortly after my anniversary, I discovered the adrenalin of the direct one. Difficult to happen once from them that one tasted there!

Tele-leisures: How to explain this phenomenon of hysteria around your person?

Melissa Theuriau: It is the trap the tele one. The physique makes it possible to reach it. I know that all that belonged to the play. But I do not have the impression that the sexy adjective really sticks to my job. To be honest, that exceeds me completely. Never I would have thought that I would find myself as quickly and as much state as Laurence Ferrari and Claire Chazal. I try to make abstraction and to continue of it to work. I nevertheless took a lawyer to try to make close certain sites.

Tele-leisures: Etes you on the basic list to replace Claire Chazal or Laurence Ferrari, as one can read it a little everywhere?

Melissa Theuriau: As flattering as can be this kind of rumours, today, the answer is not. Perhaps that a day, I will have the desire and the ambition of it. I will be 28 years old. I do not want to explode in full vol. I would initially like to turn over on the ground to enrich my luggage and to still gain of credibility. Later, one will see!

The Babel Fish translation is pretty much identical.

Oh, well. As Steve Martin once said of the French: It’s like they’ve got a different word for everything.

 
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