Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that. The concept seems totally random- what exactly is the connection between Rooney/ Nike / the world cup and juice? But the banana swoosh did raise a smile.

It’s actually quite amusing to note some of the excruiatingly tenuous attempts by marketers to link their products to the world cup. A couple of beauties, spotted on a recent walk down the high street: ‘Chocolate’s coming home’ from, I think, Thornton’s and the world cup-themed Rabbit vibrator promotion from Anne Summers.

But even these aren’t as insanely random as Volvo’s bizarre attempt to forge a link between piracy and 4x4s.  Someone was daft enough to suggest a promotion linking the Volvo XC90 to the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which means we have the joy of seeing how Disney’s summer ‘blockbuster’ featuring Johnny Depp pretending to be a gay Keith Richards has ‘inspired’ Volvo to bury a car in a big hole. Isn’t it great to see the finest creative minds applied to such worthwhile projects?

The pics I posted on here before of the Hifana gig were a bit rubbish so here are a couple of better ones.

Some comments from Bruce Ikeda of WK Tokyo Lab on the gig:

After SONAR ended, we moved to London with the HIFANA crew.  On the afternoon on the 19^th (Monday), Eric J and I made a short presentation of WKTLAB to about 30 people at W+K London office.  The same evening, HIFANA performed a short gig which was coordinated by W+K London. (Thanks London!) The performance took place in a small room above a club space called 93 FEET EAST located in the central area of East London.  The atmosphere was much like a stage set up in a private home party when HIFANA’s performance started at 19:30.  The 150-people audience consisted of staffs and friends of W+K London, UK music label people including Ninja Tune and Warp, as well as Japanese artists residing in London, journalists, gallery owners and other influencers. All I can say is that the excitement in the room was overwhelming.  The visuals were projected directly onto the wall, and although the sound system was hand built, the sounds were great, so people were able to enjoy in a relaxing, but energetic mood.  Being able to see HIFANA’s performance up real close, there were many comments like “Amazing, never seen anything like this! Fresh!” This gig, although the smallest, probably turned out to be the most meaningful show HIFANA has performed in the past several years.  It was a good experience putting together a live event in collaboration with the London office people, and more than anything, it was great to prove that HIFANA can please a crowd of Londoners with discriminating taste for music.  We also got great reaction from UK music label people too.