In praise of PR people

[Alan Balfour]

As a regular employer of freelance pr, here are my faves:
Jody Gillett (not used her for long, but she's really good to work with - tells it like it is, relaxed and measured in her campaigns - she's recently worked on the following titles for me: Sonantes, Ceu, Best of Mr Bongo [Various], I Like It Like That - Fania/Mr.Bongo [Various])!

Is this the second born to Charlie and Buffy G, or just a coincidence?

[Chris Walsh]

Same one...

[Peter Culshaw]

having missed the thread elsewhere to Rob Partridge, whose funeral was today, he was so self-effacing it was only when he died I realised what a key figure he was in signing U2, pushing Marley etc. I really only got to talk to him in the last couple of years when he managed to get you to feel you were in a conspiracy with him to get Amadou and Mariam and Manu Chao better known - what a great thing it would be if this blind couple from Mali got to be hip and successful , how cool it would be if Manu got into the mainstream etc. I felt like a co-conspirator rather than a journo being pushed stuff by a PR, which felt good. He did mention with some humour his new treatments to attempt to defeat the cancer. He also said to someone, Sean O'Hagan I think , that he didn't think he'd make it through November. Hagan, if it was he, said that sounded like a country song someone should write. As indeed they should.

[Charlie]

he managed to get you to feel you were in a conspiracy with him to get Amadou and Mariam and Manu Chao better known - what a great thing it would be if this blind couple from Mali got to be hip and successful , how cool it would be if Manu got into the mainstream etc.

Yes, Peter, this was the art of the PR man cultivated to its highest level. Somehow, the opposite of spin, if there is such a thing.