Clancy . . . overflow . . . the best bits . . . funnies

It appears that while, yes, the costs of catalogue distribution did go up 5.6 per cent (averaged over three years) the volume of catalogues also rose five per cent in the period. According to Chris Lee-Brown, CEO, Australian Catalogue Association, this equates to a distribution cost rise of 0.6 per cent, a fairly modest affair and nothing to justify the notion that the distributors are in danger of pricing catalogues out of the market.

Lee-brown writes, ‘the average press advertising rate rise in the same period was 4.5 per cent, consumer mags more than 4 per cent, TV well over 5 per cent, and radio around 4 per cent. Compare this with 0.6 per cent increase in catalogue distribution costs. It's interesting to highlight that not only have catalogue distribution costs remained very low for more than a decade, in cost per thousand impact terms, since 1990 they have actually fallen!’


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If Howard Howard says so, it must be true. Fans of the novel Catch 22 will remember the ill-fated Major Major Major, a victim of his parents wicked sense of humour who rose in the air force to the rank of Major. After that he was never going to be promoted. And lose the only Major Major Major we have?

The marketing manager of Harman Technology Limited in the UK, Howard Howard, is not quite in the same position, but it’s close. He is tasked with assuring the market that the famous Ilford monochrome photographic technology will remain. The management buy-out company has acquired all Illford Imaging assets and rights to the Ilford name and brand on all monochrome products (i.e. film, paper and chemicals). Howard Howard confirmed the complete monochrome range of films and papers would continue indefinitely, as with liquid chemicals.


Managing director of Ilford Australia, Andrew Stewart, also confirms that Ilford Photo has resumed the supply of powder chemicals including the world-famous ID-11 and Microphen powder monochrome film developers. “We are very passionate about black-and-white and are happy to be in a position to give this true medium a rebirth,” he said.


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They may be tomorrow’s fish wrappings but newspapers have been around for a long time. Four hundred years to be exact and the Gutenberg Museum in Germany is celebrating with an exhibition Black on White: 400 Years of Newspapers. A Medium Makes History. Star of the show is an 83-year-old MAN Roland web letterpress that once a week prints an eight-page souvenir newspaper.

So, don’t stop that press!


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Did he fall or was he pushed? – by Hugh Dunnit

It’s not War and Peace but industry types have been exercised in the past week by the report that Heiner Müller, director of sales and marketing at German colour company GMG jumped ship to join the opposition CGS Publishing Technologies. The GMG crew is loud in its outrage that Herr Müller did not jump, or if he did it was from a very short plank. The man himself is determined to bite his thumb in the direction of his erstwhile shipmates.

You wouldn’t want to be in between when the broadsides start up. Who would have imagined there could be so much fire about so little in the German soul?

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They’re a bright bunch out at The Bright Group in Fairfield in Sydney’s west, and now they’re sparkling a little more since the highly personable David Bertram joined them as account manager. It’s thanks to him Clancy has come into possession of the fact that the grandfather of founder William Robert Bright, one Constable John Bright, is famous for shooting the notorious bushranger ‘Flash’ Johnny Gilbert in the 1900s.

This is not a comment on the company’s credit collection techniques.

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And finally . . . for those who came in late, here’s a piece of cultural history from Trevor Hone, that was first retailed here by Astrid S many moons ago.

Larry La Prise, a great songwriter, the man who wrote The Hokey Pokey, died peacefully at home. He was 93.
The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin.

First they put the left leg in …

and then the trouble started.