Well, according to the Public Relations Society of America, an awful lot of needless guff.

It seems, due to the ever-changing face of our industry, they feel the need to redefine ‘public relations’ and in so doing, have apparently suffered from a severe bout of verbal diarrhoea.

Currently, they are inviting PR professionals to provide feedback on three definitions as follows:

1. Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.
2. Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.
3. Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.

Now, if you’ve read even one of my previous blogs, you’ll probably be painting the picture of a grumpy ex-hack for whom cynicism and sarcasm has become a competitive sport. If I’m not yet a professional moaner, I’m easily a top-ranked amateur.

That said, I can’t be alone in thinking the above definitions do absolutely nothing for the image of the modern PR person. In fact, the pretentious, convoluted tone is downright off-putting.

Personally, I have no need to be defined and as far as I’m concerned, this job is exactly what you make it. There are a multitude of methods and styles that allow you to reach the same goal and, no matter how the landscape changes, it’s up to the individual to make the most of the tools at their disposal.

Once this definition is finalised, what exactly are we supposed to do with it? Am I to write it on the back of my business card and slot it neatly into my wallet so it can be trotted out verbatim the next time someone throws me a puzzled look when I tell them what I do?

Answers on a postcard please.

A new survey revealed 70 per cent of consumers questioned would avoid buying products if they did not like the parent company.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s an encouraging development. Not only will the brand come under scrutiny when the public are making purchasing decisions but so too will the organisation and, by extension, their corporate ethics.

That’s a step in the right direction because too often a strong brand has been the cloak for a multitude of sins.

Personally, I was disappointed when Innocent Smoothies sold a majority share to Coca Cola but perception of the brand doesn’t seem to have changed much in the aftermath.

It’s slightly disingenuous that a company with such a fluffy, cuddly image, founded amid the mud, hemp sandals and ponchos of a music festival should be run by a global leviathan, which has faced criticism for adverse health effects and exploitative labour practices.

But as much as my mental product blacklist takes ethics into consideration, there’s another major factor – advertising.

Rightly or wrongly, I have been dubbed the ‘angry man’ around the office but maybe my extreme intolerance for anything I find even mildly irritating is a contributory factor.

So no, I don’t want to sell you my car and even if you offered me two grand above the book price I still wouldn’t because of that instant headache of a song on your TV and radio adverts.

Similarly, if and when I sell my unwanted CDs and DVDs, I think I’ll just bang them on eBay rather than hand them over to some smug bird with an astonishingly appalling theme tune. Think on.

At this stage, I’m pretty certain the only people actually concerned with the minutiae of this tiresome parade are the journos themselves – and then only because they’re tasked by unimaginative editors with cataloguing every moment Hugh Grant scratched his backside for their morning editions.

If I have to see another worthy celeb appear outside the Royal Courts of Justice to tell us “journalists are bad mmm kay” then I may just form a one-man militia to reclaim the moral high ground and force those beloved personalities back into the pages of Heat. Kind of like Fathers for Justice but with shorthand notepads and a greater sense of self-awareness.

Now, I’m not condoning phone hacking (although I do take exception to the term as ‘hacking’ tends to indicate a degree of skill) and I’m certainly not saying all’s well on Fleet Street.

For too long, our nation’s newspapers have gone unchecked, free to publish stories of questionable accuracy with utter impunity.

But what will the Leveson Inquiry actually achieve? A few convenient scapegoats will be sacrificed but nobody with any true power will be brought to task.

Ultimately, you get the feeling that it’s a chance for a few politicians to either boost their careers or enjoy a fleeting moment in the sun – at the expense of the taxpayer of course.

It’s the Parliamentary version of Big Brother, where a series of inconsequential figures preen, pose and pontificate under the constant glare of the camera lens, aware this may be their only chance to grasp Warhol’s fabled 15 minutes.

The money could be spent better in actually affecting some kind of change. Obviously media self-regulation is flawed and greater Government intervention would open up a whole new can of worms, so why not direct funds to establishing an independent regulatory body?

Too often, the PCC appears toothless when dealing with disputed stories and victims find the cost of legal action restrictive when faced by the might of huge media conglomerates. An independent watchdog could provide a happy medium to ensure inaccurate or malicious journalism does not go unchecked.

I’m not for one minute suggesting we curb freedom of expression but self-regulation is clearly not working. The argument that bad journalism will be punished by a loss of credibility seems to have lost much of its gravitas in a world where celebrity scandal is splashed across the front of countless newspapers and magazines.

Even as an ex-journalist myself, I admit it’s time for a new broom.

It’s that time of year when everyone, no matter their age, occupation or location, feels the weight of the world pressing firmly on their shoulders.

It’s understandable. After days on end spent cultivating the perfect sofa groove throughout the festive period, the January Blues can bite hard.

But before you start to feel seriously sorry for yourself, please take a moment to consider the existence of the downtrodden PR executive.

According to a study carried out by Career Cast, PR practitioners have the seventh most stressful job on the planet – behind only assignments to the armed forces or emergency services and the cursed world of event planning.

Even chief executives have it easier, so show a little sympathy when you come across a bedraggled agency foot soldier out in the street. Maybe even treat them to a cup of coffee – a little kindness and a lot of caffeine can go a long way!

In fact, I’ve come up with my Dragon’s Den idea, a rehabilitation centre where overworked and underappreciated PR people can escape the pressures of everyday life. It’d be much like a day spa where the swimming pool is replaced by a beer bath and champagne jacuzzi.

What do you mean, it’ll never take off? I’m off home later to empty a few cans of Tetley’s into the tub.

Whatever music you want, whenever you want it. Well, unless you fancy listening to some Beatles or Oasis, which is pretty much the same thing anyway, or some De La Soul – strangely enough.

The absence of everyone’s favourite daisy age rap group from everyone’s favourite music streaming software is a particular annoyance when you grew up wearing Adidas shell toes and baggy jeans.

Anyway, thanks to Spotify and my own varied taste, each day becomes a directionless trek through the world of music.

From Thelonius Monk to The La’s, Leonard Cohen to Run-DMC, no stone is left unturned.

But as varied as my tastes are, the music all has one thing in common – it’s good. Or at least that’s what I thought.

I have always made a concerted effort to avoid bubblegum pop, shoe-gazing rock or lazy R&B – all manner of downright dirge – yet apparently I’m not really allowed to classify any of this as ‘bad’.

Maybe I’ve been blinded by my own snobbery but, playing devil’s advocate, one of my colleagues argued there was actually no such thing as good or bad music, that it was all, in fact, a matter of opinion.

I tried to define good music as being made with a genuine love and appreciation for the artform but even that falls down when you consider plenty of utter garbage has been created in earnest. Just listen to some of the more recent stuff from seminal 80/90s rap group Public Enemy for an example of that.

Age is generally making me grumpier but this is one area where I may just have to mellow.

So, feel free to listen to whatever you want – just as long as you don’t do it within my earshot.

Today’s Spotify playlist:

Outkast – The Love Below

Aloe Blacc – Good Things

Sam Cooke – The Two Sides of Sam Cooke

Thelonius Monk – Monk’s Business Vol 1

Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Janis Joplin – Pearl

The xx – The xx

The Animals – Animal Tracks

Beastie Boys – Hello Nasty

Happy Mondays – Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches

Nostalgia because I still remember the impact the Stone Roses’ first album had on me as an impressionable, young Mancunian.

From the brash cover artwork on my dad’s vinyl copy to the intertwining of catchy, 60s-inspired hooks with a rhythmic urgency provided by acid house overtones it all just seemed to make sense.

Throw in Ian Brown’s sneering, yet casual malevolence and, even at that age, I was sure I’d listened to a masterpiece.

Even so, the guilt at jumping on the reunion bandwagon is hard to shake.

John Squire has always been the last piece of the reunion puzzle so the possibility seemed dead when he was quoted earlier this year, saying “when it’s just a get-together for a big payday and everyone gets their old clothes out, that seems tragic to me.”

What’s changed? Maybe the lure of the reddies – a reported £12.3million for the three gigs at Heaton Park alone – ultimately proved too much.

Whatever Squire’s reasons, the about-turn was more than a tad unsavoury but still, I was in there at 9.30am, joining the scramble for tickets.

More than anything, I couldn’t NOT go. Playing to type, I did what was expected of me for fear of missing out on something so many of my friends and acquaintances may or may not experience.

Obviously social constructs are far harder to escape than I had imagined, so forgive me as I swagger off to Afflecks to pick up a battered parka and some Adidas Sambas before heading down to Oxford Road to sneer at students. It’s just what I’m supposed to do.

Can certain spiritual ideas, concepts or practices be applied to the art of copywriting?

Zen thinking, in particular, seemed a good starting point. Is self-realisation and meditation a necessary step in nailing that troublesome strapline or knocking out 1,000 words on the benefits of fleet management technology.

At this point, I realise I’ve lost some of you. After all, I am sounding ever so slightly like a right pretentious so and so… but bear with me.

Martial artists are able to achieve a meditative state that gives them complete and utter focus on the challenge at hand, shutting out distractions, unhelpful thoughts and even pain.

Is a similar state achieved when writing to a tight deadline? Does this excuse my total ignorance to any requests from colleagues when I’m up to my neck in urgent copy?

Personally, I reckon so. At all other times, my head is a whirring mess of noisy, over-active machinery but half an hour before deadline, I reach a strange state of calm where the world outside ceases to exist.

If only that inner calm could prevail at all other times. Maybe my life processes need a series of strict deadlines themselves, then all will be right in the world.

That was the exact word used by Barack Obama when commenting on the passing of Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs earlier this week.

There’s little left to say about Jobs that hasn’t already been said. As well as having an incredible knack for innovation and design, he was a brand in his own right and an effective marketing tool for his own company.

His death seems to leave Apple in a state of flux but much now rests on the shoulders of unassuming Brit Jonathan Ive – the less heralded and less prominent creative force behind the American company’s remarkable rise.

Like them or not, Apple products are a 21st century phenomenon. Despite their often obvious flaws, they spectacularly combine aesthetic value with functionality and each product has become a byword in its respective field. Does anyone say ‘MP3 player’ instead of ‘iPod’ anymore?

In the space of a decade, Apple have gone from creating tools for designers to producing the most sought-after consumer durables on the planet.

Ive has played a big part in that as a major player in the design process so it will be interesting to see if Apple can maintain momentum, even without their figurehead.

It was interesting to read today that Ofcom are cracking down on the broadcast of sexually-explicit before the 9pm watershed so the Barbadian pop star may start to see here exposure limited, so to speak.

Now, I’m not some kind of  modern day Mary Whitehouse and I do risk sounding like a grizzled old grump here but I applaud the move.

I have no problem with music pushing the boundaries and artists certainly can’t please all of the people all of the time but the recent trend towards slightly risqué performances and content is just downright distasteful.

Does Rihanna sing about S&M as a means of artistic expression. No, it’s just base titillation, engineered to maximise publicity through shock value.

I do realise I’m only adding to the mountain of publicity by weighing in on this debate but seeing young kids copy the actions and words of these artists makes me extremely uneasy.

Any measure, whatever small, is fine with me.

Before you ask, no it wasn’t dancing, multi-coloured monkeys with heads like Jammie Dodgers – I still don’t have an igloo what that ad was all about – but something was missing.

Picking up a bottle of Scottish brewers BrewDog’s staple product, Punk IPA, I was more than a little disappointed to find their manifesto had disappeared from the bottle.

For the uninitiated, BrewDog’s marketing was focused on taking the mickey out of the very people buying their product. Central to their campaign was a message on each bottle which included the sneering words, ‘It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to appreciate the depth, character and quality of this premium craft brewed beer’.

BrewDog have always been about pushing the boundaries of brewing, mocking anyone who didn’t agree with them and having fun while doing it. Their branding was a stroke of genius if you ask me.

Now the manifesto has disappeared, possibly because it was a little too much sarcasm for the mass market to handle, and I really don’t know how to feel about it. Hopefully the quality of the product won’t go the same way.

Have a read of the old bottle’s manifesto here.