The Rape of Europa (1562)

CSS Advisor beta

JUDGE HARSH BLUES (alternate take)

Good morning judge, what may be my fine?
Good morning judge, what may be my fine?
Fifty dollars, eleven twenty-nine

They 'rest me for murder, I ain't harmed a man
'Rest me for murder, I ain't harmed a man
Women hollerin' murderer, Lord I ain't raised my hand

I ain't got nobody to get me out on bond
I ain't got nobody to get me out on bond
I would not mind but I ain't done nothing wrong

Please Judge Harsh, make it light 's you pos'bly can
Please Judge Harsh, make it light 's you pos'bly can
I ain't did no work judge since I don't know when

My woman come runnin' with a hundred dollars in her hand
Woman come runnin' with a hundred dollars in her hand
Cryin' Judge, judge, please spare my man

Woman, hundred won't do, better run and get you three
Woman, hundred won't do, better run and get you three
That'll keep your man from penitentiary

Baby cause I'm arrested, please don't grieve and moan
Cause I'm arrested baby, don't grieve and moan
Penitentiary seem just like my home

People all talking 'bout what they will do
Judge all talking 'bout what they will do
If they had justice he'd be in penitentiary too

The Beat That My Heart Skipped [WindowsMedia Trailer]

Dan Hedeya, playing a lawyer, in a fantastic episode of "Law & Order"

"Are you gonna keep shakin' the family tree until a pervert drops down?"

Allow yourself a last-minute spree

By Tyler Brûlé

Published: November 24 2006 17:02 | Last updated: November 24 2006 17:02

At about the same time that this newspaper was coming off the presses across the US this morning, bleary-eyed shop managers, sales assistants and security guards were getting into their cars to man the tills and exits of America’s retail centres for one of the biggest spending days of the year.

By now, Christmas shopping should be a pretty straightforward drill. Well-tuned consumers should know exactly what their wives, husbands, mistresses, assistants, children and clients like. Retailers should know how to stock and style their shelves so items almost wrap themselves. Sadly it is not that easy.


ADVERTISEMENT
Stores are overheated, serious shoppers always wear too many layers, commission-driven sales staff sell rubbish to the weak and unwitting and it is next to impossible to find everything you want under one, well-edited roof.

While there’s a certain rush that comes with buzzing through a city helping cash registers ring, it can also be a bit depressing and soul destroying – particularly when gift-wrapping comes with a service charge and the overall execution looks more like a promotion for adhesive products than an elegantly wrapped present.

If you were relaxing (on a big, overstuffed Josef Frank sofa, with Bauwerk parquet floors, low lighting and Koop’s new CD playing softly in the background) with me right now you would have trouble seeing me for all the boxes and packages that have started to pile up in corners and on available surfaces.

Sometime back in August I subconsciously started buying my Christmas gifts and over the past few weeks all the special orders and bespoke solutions have started clearing customs at various ports across the UK. While there are many things that frustrate me about Britain’s points of entry, HM Customs and Excise isn’t one of them.

One of the best things about living in the UK is that you can return home from a shopping spree abroad and be almost guaranteed to glide through customs – so long as your flight hasn’t originated in Montego Bay or Kingston. The same goes for most forms of mail-order. It’s rare for a package to arrive from outside the European Union with a duty demand stamped on it.

Having just returned from my three-week Tokyo-Osaka-Seoul-Hong Kong-Stockholm-Paris-Berlin-Munich tour, I’ve started to open up the boxes and identify who hasn’t been covered on my Christmas list. For the most part, everyone’s been catered for but I reckon there’ll still be a two-hour dash around the shops some time around December 23.

If you’re finding yourself pressed for time or short on inspiration, here’s my list of what I think will work wonders in stockings and under trees:


1. Super-chic, failsafe client gift: Valextra’s jotters are the best thing going in luxury goods at the moment. Flexible enough to sit in your back or breast pocket and available in a range of juicy colours, the paper stock is also just the right shade of white.


2. An addictive electronics device that improves life: The Apple + Nike iPod meets pedometer device really works. In fact, it’s something I can’t quite live without. If you have a serious runner or walker to buy for, this is the perfect tool. If you want to
skip buying the Nikes, pop me an e-mail and I’ll tell you a simple way to get around being sucked into the total concept.


3. An easy accessory: If your travels are taking you anywhere close to a branch of Tomorrowland in Japan, grab a bundle of Fattori scarfs to share among the men in your life.


4. A perfect all-rounder: Bag maker Orobianco has developed a tote-cum- shoulder bag that easily works as an overnighter, a chic laptop carrier, an oversized purse or generous briefcase. Made of super light nylon and supple leather, it looks best in chocolate or midnight.


5. A serene scent: A candle might not be the height of originality but for the hard-to-buy-for or for those who don’t quite meet your “swaddle them in cashmere” criteria the next best thing might be Lucien Pellat-Finet’s bespoke bougie.


6. Watching your numbers: An Amadana calculator in caramel and mocha tones for keeping track of your forecasts and profit and loss.


7. Mobile security system: A custom Goyard dog carrier and a well behaved Shiba-ken to go inside. For an additional fee Goyard can also put your pet’s initials on the outside.


8. Global understanding: True global nomads will like to plough through Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s “Pathfinders” – a broad history on the golden age of discovery.


9. Keeping up appearances (men):

For a smarter take on style and looking your best, Dutch magazine Fantastic Man is top of its game and a subscription would fit neatly in even the most crammed stocking.


10. Keeping up appearances (women):

For the ladies, a subscription to the Saturday edition of Italy’s la Repubblica – complete with a copy of its still chic supplement D.


tyler.brule@ft.com


More columns at www.ft.com/brule

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

Congestion defeats my Seoul ambition

By Tyler Brûlé

Published: November 17 2006 15:01 | Last updated: November 17 2006 15:01

You’ve perhaps noticed that I can become slightly obsessed with a place. Some of you have even taken the time to compose letters suggesting I vary my travel routine a bit more and find some new objects for my affection. “Enough Denmark”, “No more Helsinki” and “Stay away from Tokyo” have been the headlines of some correspondence. A more frequent subject is: “who the heck pays for all your flights, rooms and laundry bills?”

The short answer is that I finance all the travel, not Pearson shareholders. This means I have to go where my business takes me and I can’t mix up my routings as much as I’d like to. From time to time I have the rare luxury to connect via a new hub but for the most part I end up spending time in cities where I enjoy both the clients and the surroundings. I’m more than happy to accept air-miles to sample destinations new from those of you who are not fond of the places that frequently appear in this column.


ADVERTISEMENT
Two years ago I touched down in Seoul for the first time but had little opportunity to sample more than a body scrub at The Shilla and tour the newsrooms of various newspapers and broadcasters.

On assignment for the BBC, I was there to cover the rise of the Ohmynews brand and the boom in citizen journalism. After 48 hours of filming I was sitting on the tarmac at Gimpo airport feeling frustrated that I had no sense of what Seoul was really about and wishing I’d extended my trip.

Last week I flew into Incheon airport from Osaka and had grand plans to at least spend a night on the town, venture into an interesting neighbourhood or two and squeeze in a few meetings between. My mission was to allow myself to be seduced by the city and make it a fresh destination for my frequent jumps over to Asia. Unfortunately, Seoul’s infrastructure had other plans for me and my colleague Pam.

I can accept traffic chaos in many cities across Asia but Seoul shouldn’t be one of them. Since its debut, much has been made of Incheon as a new super-hub for Asia. The airport is certainly pleasant enough but the warm “Welcome to South Korea” experience comes to a grinding halt about 15 minutes after you hit the motorway into Seoul.

I optimistically asked the driver: “About 45 minutes to the hotel?” He laughed, pointed at the traffic and said: “No, it’s rush hour. More like two hours.”

Why the government and the country’s industrial powerhouses didn’t take the opportunity to build a showcase, high-speed rail service into the city when they decided to split flights between Gimpo and Incheon is something of a mystery – even to locals. Samsung and Hyundai, along with a few outside partners, could have built a seamless, model transport network from runway to city centre. Instead, the latter’s just managed to sell more taxis and limos to clog up the roads into the capital.

Arriving an hour late for our dinner, we were too intimidated by the congestion to attempt any further nocturnal adventures so we decided to call it an evening and retreat to the Park Hyatt. Our schedule for the following day called for three meetings spread out from morning to early evening. At a glance it looked like a bit of a lazy day, so I mentally inserted about three stops to do a bit of retail and architectural exploration.

From the moment we jumped into our Hyundai-masquerading-as-a- Lincoln-Town car the day was a stop-start, stop-start rally race across the city to make our appointments. While the roads in Seoul seem to be in reasonable shape and there appear to be enough motorways, the city is choked by the sheer volume of vehicles on the road. After the fifth hour in traffic, I started to wonder whether the mayor of Seoul had made the mistake of plucking someone from Los Angeles to oversee the city’s road network.

The more I started to think about the two cities from the back seat, the more the similarities became startling: multi-centred, a shocking transport infrastructure, wealthy people occupying sprawling mansions in the hills, hubs for entertainment, and surrounded by muscular IT businesses.

Meetings aside, I never managed to venture outside the car and before I knew it I was being deposited at Incheon for my flight to Hong Kong.

An hour later I found myself overcome by that same sense of frustration I felt two years earlier. Something tells me I’m going to love Seoul when it manages to give me a clear run at seeing its best sights or I budget in an extra day or two to compensate for the less than ideal infrastructure.


tyler.brule@ft.com


More columns at www.ft.com/brule

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

Nettets nye reklame-magneter

Blogs skyder frem overalt i cyberspace, og er man populær, kan man score penge på at omtale produkter i sin blog


Camilla Riis Cornelius - 08:00 - 03. dec. 2006


En ny type reklame er på vej til Danmark. Det er reklamer, som de såkaldte bloggere på nettet står bag. I deres elektroniske dagbog beskriver de i rosende vendinger et produkt, og vupti, så har 100.000 netbrugere pludselig fået viden om produktet. Fænomenet eksisterer allerede i USA og selv i vores naboland Sverige er man langt fremme med denne form for markedsføring.

Det ved den danske designer Christina Ribel. Hun har et lille designfirma i Stockholm og sendte for nylig et par T-shirt til de mest populære svenske bloggere, der kvitterede med rosende omtale.

- Bloggere i Sverige har på meget kort tid fået opbygget en stor læserkreds og er meget populære, og derfor tænkte vi, at det var en smart måde at reklamere på. Vi har jo ikke noget stort budget at lege med, forklarer Christina Ribel.

Ifølge Christina Ribel var markedsføringen hurtig og effektiv. Hun oplevede med det samme en øget aktivitet på sin hjemmeside og fik langt flere bestillinger end normalt på de udvalgte T-shirt.

Reklamesnak er yt
Ifølge Patrick Damsted, konsulent for Institut for Fremtidsforskning, er markedsføring via blogs noget, vi vil se mere af fremover - også i Danmark.

- Igennem lang tid er vi jo blevet bombarderet med reklamebannere på nettet, så derfor gennemskuer vi dem med det samme. Vi er nok blevet trætte af dem, og vi har mere tillid til andre forbrugeres oplevelser, siger han.

- Hvis jeg skal købe en Honda, vil jeg da stole meget mere på en australiers oplevelser med bilen, end hvad Honda selv skriver på deres hjemmeside.