Narcissim Cont.

Brother Stevie is still MIA (presumed working), Brother Alex has got a job emptying the spittoons in a Rio brothel, so no illustration today I'm afraid.

Instead I'm going to take the opportunity to engage in some unrestrained navel gazing. Wednesday's was my 100th post and it would be a shame to let it go by without some kind of self-congratulation, this being an advertising blog after all. February has been the busiest month so far, with hits at 3,734 (3,735 with you reading this, thank you very much). The most flattering figure I can find is 12,578 page views this year - but I think some of my regular readers may be a little refresh button-happy. One Irish reader (called Phil Hickes), appears to have this blog as his homepage, as I can find no other explanation for the incredible amount of time it's open in his browser.

I had a big spike (fnar!) around the Sausage Pizza post at Morgue World Magazine. My thanks, as always, Mark. Have you noticed the porn SPAM links you're getting in your comments? Not from me in that case, but definitely adds to the authenticity.

The agency roll includes DDB (hello Feargal), BBH, Fallon, JWT, Wiedens, McCann, AMV, Saatchis, Mother, Publicis and O&M. Student readers come from University of the Arts, Watford and Sunderland - the tutors insist they read it, as kind of cautionary tale.

I also have one regular reader from the Zoological Society of London. I'm always pleased to see you, whoever you are.

I suspect I may have been on a couple of all-agency check-out-this-arsehole emails, I can tell because I've got loads of hits to the same post from the same agency - if this happened at your agency I can only apologise. No one should have to read this stuff, if your employer is encouraging you to do so it may be time to seek legal advice.

But it looks like someone at Watford circulated Dave's post: very sound advice after all, just what the young people need.

In the light of these stats Google have started trying to press advertising on me. As you may gathered, I'm not that keen on advertising. I browse with Adblock Plus and advise you to do the same. The model for bloggers who want to advertise is libertarian, gossip-monger Guido Fawkes. He makes an absolute fortune, to add to the absolute fortune he made in the city, advertising vibrators to MPs. Since his blog is also more or less the house magazine of the House his space also looks good to those with a political axe to grind, as they can reach journalists and politicians, as a dead-eyed media buyer might say, "where they come to the water."

The problem with advertising to advertisers is that, whatever they tell you, they aren't very influential. In fact they're peculiarly powerless in the media structure - because the ideas that they have to peddle are dictated by brands. Which means the only things you can sell to them are books on advertising and marketing, which would make the whole blog look really dull and self-involved. I mean, more dull and self-involved.

I like the clean, ad-free layout. Art Directors, when they stumble on to this blog, often mention the Courier type - it's not an accident - nor is the way that it all looks pretty nasty. I want it to look honest and there's nothing like a lot of advertising around the place to make it all tawdry and false.

That said, I could probably relate to advertising one or two things, not related to advertising.

I don't know what products would want to be associated with the horrible shit that I feel the need to share with the industry I no longer work in.

K. suggested Gentleman's Relish, which is an evil-smelling anchovy paste I eat in vast quantities.

Anyway, when I feel like I can't do advertising I look at this graph.