Apart from a large amount of music for review or podcast play I don't tend to get many perks besides guest list places for gigs. The days are long gone when record companies and PR firms would fly you round the world getting you drunk and sticking Ferrari keys through your letterbox, and the Internet has almost killed the press-pack containing t-shirts and other such treasure (apart from Dick Venom and The Terrortones who are the kings of the press-pack in Nottingham). I can't even remember the last time I received a band t-shirt or badge. Last year the postman delivered David Nolan's book about Jake Bugg as interview research and for review I was sent Danny Baker's and The Chuckle Brothers autobiography, but apart from that the gifts have been very slim on the ground. The last time I had a gift was the Sunday delivery to my front door of a freshly cooked pork pie from a local butcher when Erik Petersen and I went through a phase of discussing them on The Sunday Alternative.
To be perfectly honest I don't worry too much about it (apart from the band t-shirts, where are they?) so it is nice when you get some incentive to carry on what you're doing. On the other hand it might cloud my judgement and stop the freebies coming full stop. Take my writings about breakfasts in cafes for example; I have never been recognised in a cafe for writing about them, despite the looks I sometimes get for taking my pad and pen out of my pocket and making notes.If I was given a free breakfast as an incentive then I would feel obliged to write nice things about them in return which would mean that I sacrificed the one thing that my writing is based on - honesty. However, maybe it would be nice if I was offered a free meal on a return visit. I don't do it for such tacky rewards though, I am a consumer champion.
One of the main focuses of my consumer championing is the world of crisps, technically they are snacks rather than crisps but you know what I mean. I often tweet a photograph of the freshly finished packet of snacks with a 140 character opinion. Rather than report on the obvious brands I try and find some lesser known items, usually produced by KP, Golden Wonder, and Bobby's. These are found in small Londis shops and are certainly not mainstream names. I refuse to buy or review Walker's as I (along with every other person who spent their childhood in the 1980s) object to their lack of conformity when it comes to colour coding; it is green for cheese and onion, not a difficult thing to understand you would think. Today I received a direct message on Twitter from a crisp/snack company asking for my address for some samples. Although I won't let this influence writing about what I think of these snacks, I had to sit down and smoke a John Player Special (blue, king size - will have superkings if that's all there is) cigarette and make a cup of PG Tips tea, quite possibly the best tea on the market, while I tried to imagine a Rolls Royce parked outside the house.
Related reading here.
No podcast this week.
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May housekeeping
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