Why would it? I was born in December, raised in Manchester, prefer city breaks to beach holidays and did a year’s training in the Arctic tundra in order to become an SAS operative.

Alright, some of the previous may not be true but I’m still a hard as nails northerner at least so should be able to handle rain, sleet, snow or a bit of extreme cold.

Or at least that’s what I thought.

Turns out after three months of sniping, moaning, cynicism and righteous indignation, I’m not just an angry man but was waiting for a bit of sun to lighten my mood.

As temperatures hit 20°C earlier today I became positively chirpy – full of the joys of spring, singing along with the birds outside our office and ploughing through work with a smile.

Apparently, research backs up my belief. Two-thirds of office workers in a recent survey admitted to feeling depressed on account of their lack of sunlight during working hours.

But although the sun helps to cheer people up and maybe even increase productivity, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place really.

Good weather makes everyone want to toss aside all their responsibilities and make a dash for the door and it’s more palatable spending all day in the office when it’s gloomy outside.

So, in tribute to all those with time on their hands this afternoon, here are my top tips for activities to suit this sunny day:
- Skipping merrily through a meadow
- Making daisy chains in the park
- Skimming stones at the seaside
- Eating strawberries and cream
- Beer garden

I know which I’d choose. Enjoy.

When he or she allows news content to be dictated by Google searches of course.

Not the best punchline I admit and if you’re still waiting for the pay-off, you’re going to be waiting an awful long time. But in 2012, this is exactly the situation we find ourselves in.

If you’re a marketer, an advertiser or a web head it might be seen as a stroke of genius but if you’re a journo – a grizzled ex-hack like myself – it’s pretty abhorrent.

Still, my disapproval means nothing though when the Daily Mail have shot to the top of the SEO charts by adopting this Google-led approach.

In January, it was revealed the Mail Online had become the most read newspaper website in the world, overtaking the New York Times – the same month it totted up almost 100 million visitors.

 This was achieved by monitoring trends on Google News and then churning out stories depending on the hot topic of the day.

In the main, those stories centre around celebrity scandal and downright fluff, which is why the Mail Online has become one of the most popular gossip sites worldwide, rivalling the likes of muck-shovellers omg! and TMZ in the US.

Sometimes, already-published stories are even reworked and republished online in order to generate traffic through a topic which is already trending.

It’s hard to deny the Mail’s success in growing their website but this sets a dangerous precedent for journalism at a time when the industry is already reeling.

If content is being dictated by search words and social media trends then the stories are no better than those appearing on myriad tiresome and uninteresting blogs dotted all across the web.

The news agenda should be shaped by the news of the day, not idle chatter about which dull celebrity wore what outrageous item of clothing at which disgustingly ostentatious club on an inconsequential Wednesday night in London.

Trust in journalism will never be revived if the industry continues to churn out the same banal tripe and that will have a knock-on effect on our own profession.

PR needs strong journalism in order to thrive itself but what chance do we stand if newspaper content is written off as disposable nonsense. Hopefully that will change but I can’t see the impetus coming from inside journalism itself.

Well, technically it was Georgia that the creator of modern soul couldn’t banish from his thoughts but what’s a little artistic licence between friends?

Anyway, following on from last week’s Twitter twaddle, I’ve embarked on more social media musings.

Too often the phrase ‘social media campaign’ conjures thoughts of huge viral campaigns, elaborate Facebook games and expensive apps but what about the little people?

One of the more impressive social media campaigns in recent weeks probably slipped so far under the radar it might as well have been belly to the floor wearing an invisibility cloak. Then again, grime artist JME isn’t exactly a name that resonates in the marketing world.

But regardless of his profile, the young music entrepreneur from Tottenham, North London pushed his recent single (the name of which is probably a little too blue for this blog) to number 41 in the UK music charts without a record label, without a street team, without a significant spend on promotion and without significant radio play.

Unlike Justin Bieber or Rihanna, JME doesn’t have the force of an unstoppable marketing machine behind him but what he does have is a business brain and a Twitter following.

The beauty of social media is its accessibility – its free, easy to use and provides users with worldwide reach – so JME has been able to harness his underground star power to build a loyal following, who in-turn have become online advocates.

The artist’s 170,000 followers were encouraged to buy the digital version of his single, take a picture of the download and tweet it to him. In return, JME ran a series of competitions for his followers, giving away caps and clothing items from his own range.

Similar campaigns were run on YouTube and UStream but, more than anything, he simply engaged with his customers.

Understanding the needs and desires of his fans, JME interacted with them on a daily basis, never letting a tweet go ignored. If a fan tweeted they had bought his single, he thanked them for it, if they tweeted a picture, he retweeted it on his own feed and if they asked a question, he responded.

As a result, a song with no chorus that features a swearword in its title made it to the brink of the UK Top 40, so big up the little man.

Coming from a generation that was permanently glued to the goggle box, this news came as a bit of a surprise.

Whether it was Transformers, He Man, the A-Team or some other equally banal macho garbage, I always found something on telly to occupy the hours while I was growing up.

Now, it seems, young people are tweeting minute-by-minute updates on the minutiae of life or jumping onto YouTube to watch the latest viral vid of a cow playing a banjo before logging on to Facebook to find out what their mates are complaining about today.

But look beyond the stereotypes and it’s easy to see why social media has become such an important pastime.

Unlike television, social media provides near full control over what you consume. Find out what likeminded individuals are listening to via Twitter and then watch their music videos on YouTube, share photos and recall good times past on Flickr or interact with friends, foes and random lunatics on Facebook.

Social media is a gateway to all manner of fascinating content, which can help to educate, inform or entertain, and there are inevitably opportunities for the PR industry.

Too often, social media campaigns are seen as a box-ticking exercise where existing content is shoe-horned into 140-character dispatches. It doesn’t matter how many ‘likes’ you have on Facebook if you aren’t providing content that encourages people to engage and interact.

Many newspapers are a cautionary tale of what can happen if technology is not embraced and plenty are still playing catch-up when it comes to the internet – completely unaware how to diversify from traditional methods of disseminating content and creating revenue.

As an ex-journalist, I waged many a war in old school newsrooms where dinosaurs greeted the topic of social media with a grunt, a shrug and a scowl, but its influence will only continue to grow in years to come.

That’s not an attitude our own industry can afford to take.

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