All right, the newsletter competition has found its three winners:

- Arild A.
- Kent D.
- Jonathan D.

The original author was Jerry Lordan, of the British group “The Shadows”. Wikipedia has a history of the song here (it’s been covered/changed by Sugarhill gang, Scooter, Fatboy Slim). A shorter history, but with music samples is here (they say Moby references it, but I couldn’t hear it).

Winners get a shirt from the Derby shop. If you couldn’t put finger to keyboard fast enough, you can get yer own there. Right now, only 10 euros! In sterling that’s something like a Coke and chips.

We’ve found out about FIFA charging shop partners for the great offence of creating a product with the text “world cup 2006″. This is one words protected by FIFA from bad bad non-millionaire, non-FIFA-sponsors who are were excited about the games. There’s a special newsletter about what is going on, and how shop partners can (and, honestly must) protect themselves. Violators have gotten a “cease and desist” letter and a huge pile of lawyer’s fees. It doesn’t matter if you run a big, successful shop on a hugely famous website, or if you opened a shop on a lark for your friends. FIFA lawyers’ interns can Google like nobody’s business.

But you should know that some corporations are on your side: Ferrero (the maker of Kinder chocolate among others) wanted to use “2006″ in some of their own branding. But, not allowed. According to sportbusiness.com “Confectionery company Ferrero had argued that the FIFA trademarks should be declared invalid on the grounds of absence of distinctive character.” The result, “passed by a Hamburg Court on October 25, 2005, cancelled Ferrero’s trademark registrations in respect of 11 marks containing the element ‘2006′ or ‘2010′.”

FIFA rejoiced, and offered up this statement: “…the unique characteristics of [FIFA WORLD CUP TM] have led unauthorised parties to employ all manner of means to use the event for promotional purposes. FIFA has responded by setting up a comprehensive international rights protection programme to focus on safeguarding FIFA marks in close cooperation with public bodies, such as police forces and customs authorities [italics added. but seriously.].”

It continues: “So far in the lead-up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, over 400 infringements have been discovered worldwide, 390 of which have been successfully dealt with. Over 300 of these cases were detected in Germany alone. These statistics underline the sheer extent of the illegal activities going on and the necessity of an extensive protection programme.”

It looked like a victory for FIFA, but Ferrero kept fighting and it looks like they won some. At least in Germany. According to IOL: “Football’s world governing body FIFA suffered a serious setback on Thursday in its bid to protect its World Cup sponsors when Germany’s federal court lifted the copyright for three German-language slogans on 860 products….The three slogans in question were WM 2006 (which translates as World Cup 2006), WM Deutschland (World Cup Germany) and Fussball WM Deutschland (Football World Cup Germany).”

But it’s still not all settled, and no reason to get too comfortable (or not to be too careful with what you write). I am personally resolving to eat more Ferrero chocolate to show my support. What are you doing in response?

There have been quite a few answers to the newsletter competition question, but only one right one. There’s still two chances to win. The question: what song does Missy Elliott sample in “We run this“, and who is the original (hint: original) author of the song?

Over at a little number we’re calling the SHOPWC, they’re giving out prizes for the best shop taking on the theme “world championships” or football in general. At stake is €1,000 for the first place, €500 for second, and gifts all the way down to 11th place. My opinion: the range is pretty big. One of my favourites is on foosball. It’s like a simplified, commentary-free derby.

A newsletter hot of the presses. With a little competition at the bottom…Just so you know, no right answers in yet. And it’s 13:56 over here (Italian time).

This weekend I read Russell Bank’s The Darling which is, among other things, about the wealthy trying to figure out how to do something good. There was this little quote, and I thought of last week:

My mother always viewed my political commitment the same as she viewed her own, as noblesse oblige, as a modest way of acknowledging that one had only by accident acquired social and financial privilege. It wasn’t that the poor and downtrodden were exploited; they were merely less fortunate. In that way, on avoided contending with any self-incriminating guilt and felt free not to surrender one’s privilege.

Interesting…

The fine gentlemen of Night Warrior promoting Raging Psycho Comics* have photos of their shirts in ack-shun at a recent comic artist conference:

Look how good they look!* See more (including a really nice photo (lighting, composition-wise) at the bottom of the page) at: www.nw-comic.co.uk.

* by the way, they look neither raging nor psychotic.

Finally, we’ve done it. And got ourselves a flickr account. I know, how radical! In it, you can currently see this fine authoress (and see how my mother was right - I still need to brush my hair). And my current domicile (Catania, which is next to Mt. Etna). I can see Mt. Etna from our terrace (I know, I’m sorry, please forgive me), but I just went up to the peak this weekend. It’s incredible:

You can also see my home office with all the necessary accoutrements (chocolate and water) save a computer which should be on the desk at the right. My computer fatally crashed a while back, and generously Daniel (partner della crime) and I are sharing one (his) while waiting for relief supplies.

Are you on flickr? We should totally be contacts. We’re at: www.flickr.com/photos/spreadblog

Karl Pinkington is the man behind the man behind the microphone: a radio producer who is best famed for his radio show that brought together Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant who went on to create the brilliant The Office. Gervais is known to call Karl “a little baldy manc” (but fondly). Karl’s got his own myspace. And a fansite with this lovely merchandise shop.

Yesterday I really wanted to write something on the Guardian piece about David Cameron’s plan of “modernising of the Conservative party today by embracing a radical new agenda of ‘promoting wellbeing’”. How? “He will argue that employers, through family-friendly workplace practices, can fulfil a moral duty to help staff achieve that sense of wellbeing. His remarks have been constructed to contrast with a vision of regulation and the Protestant work ethic exemplified by Gordon Brown”.

I couldn’t articulate what was wrong with this, until after I shut down my computer and went for a walk. And then thought of this week’s design of the week, and put two and two together:

Which says “noblesse”, written in Hebrew. Ah yes, the problem is noblesse oblige - the concept that the powerful have the moral responsibility to help the weak. What’s wrong with this? (In my view?) That it makes exploitation (for example) something that is not forbidden because it is never allowed, but out of the kindness of the powerful. And that whole employers should care about employee “wellbeing”? Of course, yes, because laws should prevent exploitation, and because employers should value not losing their workers. But not so that employers can congratulate themselves on the pretension that they are satisfying a “deep human need”.

OK, enough from me. For articles talking about Germans: (they swim naked!), (they’re funny, we just can’t understand them!) and a bunch more in preparation for travellers to/television viewers of the world cup.