Andy Flemming’s Cannes Diary: Day Two

Andy Flemming, creative director at M&C Saatchi is in Cannes. He writes exclusively for Campaign Brief.

Not Judging, not winning, just here.

8:00am. I think I’m hung-over but I’m not sure. I think it’ll be one of those ones that fools you into thinking you’ve got away with it but nails you at about eleven.

8:30am. I nearly stepped in a huge pile of dog poo at the top of the stairs leading to the hotel reception. The guy who owns the place doesn’t speak English so through sign language I manage to get him to go over and see it. He sighs deeply, mutters something, and scurries off. I think it’s his wife’s dog.

8:45 am. I’m drinking coffee in the hotel verandah as a huge pool of liquid slowly starts to make its way towards me. I immediately assume it’s the fucking dog again but apparently he just watered the ferns.

9:00am. The local launderette is closed. This is after I spent twenty odd minutes attempting to mime the days of the week and drawing clocks on a pad the day before. God, I wish I knew more French other than ‘Can I have a ticket to Paris’ and ‘you are beautiful.’ ‘What time do you open in the morning’ would have been a godsend. I’m sure there’s an app that’d do it but there’s no Wi-Fi.

9:30am First seminar of the day. Apparently Twitter want us to realise that things can, like, go global if you just have a good idea. No shit. They bring out David Hasselhoff and get us all to use a hashtag. Call me old fashioned, but you could get film David Hasselhoff eating a burger and it’d go viral. As he walked off the stage I managed to grab a selfie with him. This caused a mini riot in the front rows which I think he rather liked.

11:00am Bang. There you go. Like clockwork – or a clockwork-powered sledgehammer in the brain. I’ve necked lots of multivitamins. That should help.

12:00am Sarah Jessica Parker’s on. She talked about Sex and the City, her own brand of shoes and her new show which features just an ordinary, everyday forty-something woman dealing with the loss of her TV talk show. I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Cannes, but she did use the word ‘social media’ a few times, so I guess that makes it relevant.

12:45pm Why do they install plugs so fucking low that you can’t plug anything into them? And they’re those two prong French ones that need a huge adapter, which doesn’t plug in because it scrapes the floor.

1:00pm Just tried Google Glass. It’s actually amazing, other than the fact that I think you need to nod your head up and down to move the cursor. I can imagine that’d look rather odd on the bus.

1:45pm Lunch. What’s the deal with Truffle? I bought some Truffle infused Brie the other day in Sydney, which was, by far, the most wanky, middle-aged thing I’d ever done. Over here your pasta’s covered in the stuff. And it’s cheaper. In France. Go figure.

2:00pm The head of Sapient Nitro worldwide has decided that whilst interviewing Spike Jonze, he’ll ask questions that are literally five minutes long.. From the front row we can see that Spike is getting a little annoyed. At one point Spike refused to answer a particularly long question and wants to know if the audience have got one. After two great questions Mr. Nitro had enough, takes back control and goes on about meeting James Cameron.

2:45pm. I walk into the hotel lounge with my laptop and the owner and his wife get up and shoo me out. I think it’s their living room during the day. At least the dog’s are in there. There are two of them. Two.

4:00pm. It’s raining, so hundreds of street vendors roam the streets with cheap umbrellas. They’re everywhere. When the rain stops they still try to sell them before getting the Fedora hats out. I’m not sure if the 12,000 twenty-something delegates would be into Fedoras, but points for trying.

4:45pm. Just passed a gigantic peeling Microsoft sticker on a booth. Oh Mr Gates, what happened?

5:00pm. Cannes delegates. Don’t use those flashy modern automatic toilets. Just don’t. I went in and filled the bowl with amazingly luminous wee (that’d be the multivitamins kicking in) and the fucker wouldn’t flush. I pressed all the buttons and nothing happened. After a moment of panic I pressed the big green button to open the door and there was a beautiful Brazilian girl waiting to go in. I muttered something about it not working and literally ran off down the Croisette.

11:00pm I’m in bed. There’s a funny smell and I’m not sure what it is. It’s either the dodgy aircon or the dog. I’ll let you know in a couple of days.