So Sven might be staying and no decision has been made!  Confusing messaging at the very least.

You have to say Thaksin Shinawatra (Frank) is getting the hang of City by following the established tradition of Man City cock-ups: snatching defeat, and humiliating defeat from a glimmer of achieving the average.

Still, it seems that either Frank has come to his senses.  Perhaps the pressure of the protests and strength of feeling including the MEN campaign that was featured on this blog has worked.

I don’t know, he might keep Sven if he cannot get Big Phil Scolari.  Unless he gets Slaven Bilic who has just signed  a contract with Croatia.  He might keep Sven anyway.

Frank has hired a big PR outfit with offices up here.  It’s a challenging brief, even if the team are City fans.

Can they now repair the damage?  It will make an interesting case study in PR Week a few managers down from Sven.

The CIPR has got its conference coming up in London.

From looking at the website it is of interest, but not so much.

However, the price rules it out for me: £750 for both days, £950 for non-members. Put into the equation time off work travel, hotel (I have a few friends so I can stay over) and sundries. I reckon the best part of £2000.

I am not really enticed by the program, but how can it be justified even if you have a better view than me?

Answers telling me why I am wrong in the comments box please.

Canberra, Australia’s capital had fewer protests than London, San Francisco or any of the other cities that has hosted the torch. (The image is of protesters outside the Chinese embassy).

But it was not China’s victory.

The protests, even though combated by Chinese students and citizens in Australia, brought the issue of Tibet and human rights and the environment to centre stage again.

Up until China being awarded the Olympics and especially the idea to parade it through so many cities the issue of Tibet was not high on many politicians’ agendas nor I suspect was it widely appreciated by the general population.  The last time I saw a big article on Tibet was in the early 90s in The Guardian.

The Chinese government has effectively supplied the oxygen of publicity to an extent unthinkable before.

It was foreseeable except to the Chinese government.

This has been a huge miscalculation by a government that does not understand the media because it suppresses its own.

NW Business Insider had a wonderful piece on the dog advertising concept in their current feature on guerrilla marketing.

I originally came up with this concept after selling in the story of a certain dog called Dante in to the South Manchester Reporter. The story of the curry loving pooch spread to the Metro, Manchester Evening News and even The Guardian.

It seemed obvious that there was original and possibly effective advertising mileage to be had and so I teamed up with Mick Greer and Phil Howells, well- seasoned advertising pros.

The lucky recipient was a family lawyers called Greens & Co.

It is some fun but also when there is so much competition to grab our attention it is a little different and attention grabbing.

A quick note: Has no-one done it before? I don’t know. Churchill said an original idea is just a good one everyone has forgotten.

Shocking isn’t it?  The picture above shows some of the damage from the epicentre of last week’s quake.  Some people were woken up no doubt, others lost crockery.

Apart from a serious injury was there any need to dominate the pages and airwaves with this?

And then there was Prince Harry.

Brave lad.  He has done the right thing and you have to admire him for that.  But surely the disproportionate coverage the media has devoted to the story works against their original aim.

When a personality or a story have too much media coverage it undoubtedly starts to grate: people push back against it as though they were being forced into believing something.  It is a natural reaction.

Half the coverage of the Prince Harry story would have got the message across just fine and with more impact.

What else happened in the news last week?  I really don’t know.

Sorry for the long delay in getting to my latest post: there is a real possibility of Artisan being sold for a six figure sum.

But what is a six figure sum? Is it £100,000 or more? Or is it £1000.01 or it could even be £100,000 of the Egyptian variety going at 10:1 against Sterling?  All are six figures and we know in PR presentation is everything.

What am I driving at? I have seen stories in the local business media where businesses have reportedly been sold for impressive amounts but you do not need to be Columbo to work that it doesn’t make sense when you know the companies.

Of course it is all amounts to what anyone would pay, but this doesn’t apply in this case.

My problem is that when such dross doesn’t get filtered out what can you believe?

Gloss yes.  Delusional rubbish no.

I have just moved to Word Press, which is long overdue.

With the holidays and moving over to the new format there has been a little gap in entries but that should be resolved shortly.

Thanks to all the support I received when I was on blogger and I am looking forward to writing new entries.

Thanks also to PushON for their help with moving over.

I am not sure I fully agree with Buzzwords saying it is a time to forget about PR during the festive season while you recharge the batteries.

I certainly think you should take breaks. However, as the volume of releases decreases some journalists struggle to find the volume and quality of story they need, papers need to be filled all year round.

This summer one accountancy magazine put the word out that if you sent a release on anything approaching an accountancy subject they would publish as they were so short of stories going into the August bank holiday. They asked twice.

So yes have a break but take advantage of an opportunity.

Crain’s Manchester has made an impressive debut.

It offers varied business content in an easy on the eye format. The tabloid size make it perfect for a read while commuting in or indeed out.

There is a website with all the offline version’s copy as far as I could tell. You cannot leave comments and there are few links out. Missing an opportunity if not resolved perhaps to conect to the business community. How Do resolved that issue for the better.

The editing team seems strong and one story on where Web 2.0 enterprises meet was well researched, there were a couple of venues I did not know anything about. They had done their research.

Criticisms? Nothing of real note although a feature on online marketing issues would be welcomed.

With the loss of a few Manchester and North West business magazines over the last year Crain’s seems the anecdote to the loss of editorial opportunities for B2B PRs, which always are harder to come by than B2C PRs.

The Manchester Evening News has responded by adding a new business journalist, which is making the sector more competitive and of course helpful to B2B PRs.

If the magazine adds more pages as it gains advertising and builds on this start we could have something that will become part of the business scene, something we will forget the time when we did not have it.

The BBC in its minute wisdom has decided to ban certain parts of The Pogues Fairytale of New York because they contain the words “slut” and “faggot.”

This is a certain recipe to make people listen more closely to the “offensive” words and to increase sales.

But the point is that the words are used in the context of a fight or argument between two drunks hoping that their luck will turn around. They are hardly going to lift dialogue from Lady Windermere’s Fan are they?

As Lenny Bruce used to point out a word is a word and is only offensive if there is intent.

BBC Radio 1 has said that “they had made their decision” and would not be going back. I think they will. They are creating a PR backlash.

Over 95% of the 7,000 votes on the BBC website have said they are wrong. Tom Robinson, a high profile gay rights campaigner is a bit surprised by the censorship and certainly does not think much of it.

Still BBC Radio knows best, at least Radio 2 does, they are still playing the song and have not censored anything.