I had to check my diary this morning just to see whether it was April 1st had come around early …

I've just read in my daily marketing bulletin that Burger King has launched a meat-scented cologne for men and named it 'Flame'.

Available at retailers in New York and online, the cologne is being promoted as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame broiled meat" …

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My apologies for not blogging for a while - I've been preoccupied by reviewing our own company brand positioning and communications platform, the worst job in the world for an ad man.

Everyone in the ad agency business will know that the hardest creative project you can ever be asked to work on is your own agency's brochure, website or similar. After much navel-gazing, every idea is interrogated mercilessly, looking to move it on, seeking perfection, until we usually disappear up our own market niche. 

What we desperately need in such a situation is a client ready to say yes, or no, to the proposal  …

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 Well, the panic-mongers were proved wrong as we didn't all disappear down a back hole last week.

Although some bankers, city traders and investors were probably wishing that we had - we certainly faced an economic black hole, that's for sure.

But just when I was considering cashing in my very modest investments and stashing the cash under the bed, the FTSE has the biggest upwards surge in its history, thanks, I'm told, to the ban on short-selling of banking shares and the US government's plan to create a fund to house the billions of dollars-worth of sub-prime mortgage debts. So for the moment my humble deposits remain untouched as governments seems to be taking some action to avoid total worldwide economic meltdown.

But it's difficult to know what action to take in such uncertain times.

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As the boffins set about recreating the Big Bang by smashing particles together deep underground beneath the Swiss/French border in the world's most powerful physical experiment ever, I'm hoping the panic-mongers amongst us are wrong in their prediction that we're all going to disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again.

If, however, the panic-mongers prove correct in their predictions I'd just like to thank all the clients we've worked for over the last 23 years for their business and, to most of them, also for their longstanding friendship.

Just when we'd got our new website up and running too …

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Voicemail. What did we all do before voicemail? Spending much of my time following up new business leads, I find that, having used fair and foul means to confirm my target's direct line I am invariably faced with all-too familiar "Sorry, I'm not at my desk at the moment. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you on my return".

Where do all these people go to? The "I'm now away on annual leave and won't return until 29th December" message is understandable, everyone has to have a holiday. But what about the rest of us? We're never available. And I can't believe we're all in meetings all day.

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