Archive for the ‘South West Scene’ Category

Pamela Anderson and Vivienne Westwood were out on the razzle in Wimbledon on Monday night and lucky for them they got to meet yours truely

You may remember in one of my previous posts on Pammy, I did mention that one of my Christmas wishes was to get a photo of her and I, well, let me just tell you that wishes do come true, especially if its to do with a "genie" and not only did I get to have a pic with Pammy but I got a double whammy as I got to have one with Vivienne Westwood too, at the same time Lets just say I pretty much fulfilled many a 20 something year old boy's dream.. YAY!

It all started when I popped into Bar Sia for a drink, I was standing outside having a smoke and thought, let me pop around the corner and see if I can get a glimpse of Pammy as she was exiting the backstage door, along with a few other fans. I stood infront of the black Range Rover that was obviously waiting there for her. The next minute Pammy comes through the door and instead of getting into the car she starts walking in my direction around to the front. She said " where are we going?" I was just a little stunned at this to say the least and said, "huh, aren't you getting into the car?" to which the dude who was helping her along said they wanna get to the pub across the road called The Wibbas Down Inn ie. Weatherspoons, so I walked with them and as we got to the door I shook her hand and said its an absolute pleasure to meet you, to which she replied it was lovely to meet me too haha yeah I can imagine we went inside and she sat down at the table, her mates sat down aswell I stood behind her at the bar getting a drink when the cordoned off the area with a velvet rope… with me inside, I thought geez this is pretty damn schweet! In the end I managed to get in a bit of chit chat discussing what vultures the paparrazzi were, as you could see them all lining up at the window desperately trying to get a shot. One seemed to get a bit upset with me cause every time I saw him try take a shot, I'd do a bit of a Gene Simmons KISS face obviously screwing up the pic haha

As they were getting ready to leave I said to Pammy and Vivienne that I didn't mean to be a bother but I would really appreciate it if I could get a pic with them, so I gave the camera to Pammy's manager and this was the result…

I'm sorry but I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am hahahhahaa

Both Pammy and Vivienne Westwood come across as really nice people, you would think that someone in Pammy's shoes would come across a bit bitchy due to being hassled all the time, well in my experience, not in the slightest, she really had time for anyone that spoke to her. Vivienne Westwood seems like such a nice down to earth person, she's awesome

This is right up there with the time I managed to sneak myself backstage at a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert in 2006, got to meet the guys, had a long chat with Ulf from Ace of Base who then took me along to the Chilli Peppers after party at Movida in the west end… in a pair of baggies, sneakers and a T-shirt!

Geez I Love My Life

- Marky Mark

On Friday night myself and Huncle cruised over to the new Joe Cools in Fulham, London for their opening night, the place rocked however it did have a few teething problems which can be put down to opening night woes.

We rocked up at about 8:30pm and the place was already heaving with a decent portion of the saffa population in South West London, as there were familiar faces everywhere I looked. Instantly I knew this was going to be one hellova night. The bars were pretty crowded but managed to organise a drink from a mate who was just about to get served, so we decided to have a little snoop around. Now obviously with it being the venue of the old Zulu's the layout was kinda familiar, well sort of in the sense of the rooms themselves, the stair cases and bathrooms which would obviously be there since they didn't tear down the building down and build a new one. The main entrance has now changed to the other room where Zulu's had a bar which is now on the opposite side, that led into the dance floor area with the stage. The ground floor dancefloor is still there due to the size of the room with a DJ box where the stage was. The old main area is still a main bar area however instead of having the bar along the wall it is now a huge round bar in the middle of the room. Going down stairs you enter another bar area which has also changed the bar along the back wall into a square shaped bar against the same wall. Walking on through, the old main dance floor is still there but has had a major face lift which some nice black and white tiles put down, and the old DJ box is now a shooter bar with the new DJ box on the opposite wall. I had to laugh when I saw the two poles in the middle of the dance floor because those two poles have probably seen more of women's inner thighs and cleavage than most guys I know Moving on into the other bar area where they used to have the bar in the corner, this has now moved to the other side of the room also in a square shaped bar.

The decor itself is very well done out, you can see alot of bucks was spent into getting it to look like it does. Alot of carpeting on the floors and walls downstairs give it a softer classier feel. If you've been to a few of the owner, Guy Van Der Post's clubs in SA, you'll know what I mean, he tends to use a similiar decor style which always looks great. If you liked what he did with the Grand when they revamped it, then you'll love this, similar but effective.

The vibe was awesome, its always good to see multitudesof familiar faces when a new place opens because not only does it increase the likeliness of having a banger of an evening, but it also sets your crowd standard and likeliness of going back because you know its a good decent crowd. My only complaint throughout the evening which also seemed to be common feedback that I got from a number of people was the difficulty getting drinks from some of the new bar staff, although you could see the more experienced staff were on the ball. I had my own episode down in the bottom back bar where I was left standing for 35mins waiting to get a drink where the bar lady would get to the guy next to me on my left, then skip me and serve a person a few people down to the right, once was ok, the second time agitating, the third time I was starting to get annoyed, during the forth time just as she was skipping me I waved both arms out and called to which I got the reply, "I have to serve them first" I thought, really? how does that work if you are serving people from left to right in a sequence, I looked for a mirror to see if I had "Don't serve me" written across my fore head or a massive leaking chorb on my face that she couldn't stand to look at. Now those who know me will know me as an extremely patient person reinforced with the fact that I know what its like working behind an extremely busy bar, I've been there, some will remember PharSide's Pigs Nights back in the day… ja, nuff said but for the first time in my life I completely lost it and went absolutely nuts at the bar lady and the barman when they stood infront of me pouring drinks, to which he replied sorry they were really busy, so I said fine but how many times is she gonna skip me before I get served? its not like I was hidden behind any beer taps or anything like that. At the time this was happening, a friend who was helping behind the bar that night heard me venting my frustrations, ran across from the other side of the bar and in record time, got me the two drinks I'd been so patiently waiting for. Now given it was opening night, new tills, mostly new staff who may be inexperienced in a high demand bar, its not uncommon that something like this could happen so I'll put it down to a teething issue, coupled with the fact that I know that the management are more than well aware of the problem so I have every faith that after Friday night, we'll see a massive improvement next time round no doubt.

The door staff seem like a good bunch of guys to the extent that I actually felt quite welcomed when I walked through the door which is quite rare but always a good thing when it happens, I reckon this may have something to do with the head doorman coming across as seriously decent oke when we were handing our tickets in at the door.

The music is pretty much exactly what most saffa's will enjoy from a commercial point of view, which is a main catalyst for an awesome night as it caters for virtually all tastes. I even found myself squeaking a takkie downstairs at one stage

The jol closes at 1am which is obviously down to licensing laws governing the area as this was the same for Zulu's, however it does give you enough time to catch a few dops in Wimbledon for an hour or two before heading home or the location of where your walk of shame will commence in the morning

All in all, it is an excellent jol which is definately going to be a massive hit here in London, good music, good vibe, seriouisly good jol!

Well done guys! It Rocks!

- Marky Mark

Pamela Anderson performs as the Genie in Aladdin at Wimbledon Theatre which turns out to be an awesome show and I got to see it… YAY!

Myself, The Phreak and Waine took a stroll a few doors down to Wimbledon Theatre last night to watch Aladdin, featuring special guest star Pamela Anderson as the genie and I must say, all three of us, thoroughly enjoyed it. The show is around 2.5hrs long which flies through and the gorgeous Pammy floats down from above the stage 50mins into the show. The show really keeps you going all the way with constant local humour and getting the audience very involved in true panto fashion, also not to mention in my case, my heart flat lining every time Pammy made an appearance onstage.

Pammy really is just insanely gorgeous, at 42 she is just as hot as she was 20 years ago when she first appeared on the cover of Playboy, its actually hard to come to terms that she is that age because I tell you what, if The Jen wasn’t around, I think Pammy may just have a chance with me

Despite what I read in a newspaper by some boring pompous dumbass critic who thinks he knows something about acting, I'm a normal person just like everyone else in the audience and I thought her performance was brilliant, she did really well, no complaints whatsoever. She cracks a few jokes which stem from her life of fame which gets a good chuckle from the crowd. Did I mention her outfit is damn fine too she doesn’t have a leading role as such so her performance is understandably short but that’s the way the story goes and that’s how it was written.

Her stint lasts for two weeks and I heard she had a pint at Weatherspoons (Wibbas Inn) opposite the theatre the other night, so I’m hoping she pops around the corner to Bar Sia next door to the theatre for “A Can of the Best” one night before she leaves, as other guest celebrities in productions at the theatre do.

If you are able to get tickets for the performance I’d definitely recommend that you make a plan and go see it as it’s definitely one of the better shows I’ve seen, with constant laughs all the way through.

Hopefully one of my Christmas wishes will come true and I can get a photo of me and Pammy haha

- Marky Mark

A lot of people have been asking me lately about PharSide, why I do it and whats my game plan, so here's a little insight as to what PharSide is, how it came about and why I do it

So where do I start? Well, I guess from the beginning of course…

The name PharSide, comes from the the famous or infamous PharSide night club in Pinetown, South Africa, of which I was involved in for a short period of time. I decided to pack my bags and make the long haul trip over to the UK many moons ago and see where it would take me, I got home one night after a decent boozing session and found myself doing some drunken purchasing… I seemed to have a habit of doing this, sometimes even forgetting what I'd bought until it arrived in the post a few days later… a prime example of this was a racing steering wheel with full action feedback and floor pedals for my computer car racing games. So one night while I was a drunken mess, I thought it would be a bright spark idea to purchase the domain name, PharSide.co.uk, just for shits and giggles….. and so it began

At the time I was living in a houseshare in Richmond Avenue, Wimbledon, with the likes of old school mates, Brad "BreadBoard" Hogg, Adam "The Fellow" Smallman and Trevor "Maverick" Webster. Our houseshare like many others, was one boozed up party house with something of an event happening virtually every night of the week in or out the house. Most notably was Brad's 24th birthday which was a house party that I'm sure Wimbledon itself will not forget because OMG!, madness in every sense of the word. I think I still have a video lying around somewhere of Adam being hurtled down the passage lying face down on a skateboard in a game of Human Ten Pin Bowling which included a series of empty beer cans lined up down the passage, however as he could not see in front of him he plowed head first straight into a heavy cabinet, we all cheered with laughter and surprise that he didn't crush a few vertebrae in his neck, because damn you should have head that knock… he did have a massive lump on his head though We decided that since we have this domain name, why not build a PharSide House website where we'd upload photos and stuff to show our mates back home in SA just what a jol they were missing out on. We even had little business cards made that we'd hand out to potential female sleepovers while we were terrorizing Wimbledon on nights out, lets just say the staff at KFC at the time absolutely hated us, they hated Brad more cause he always walked out with the straw container along with all the straws. Unfortunately we had to move because the owners wanted their house back, possibly because the neighbours may have let them know how much fun we were having, so we moved to the house in Springfield Avenue known by many a friend as the crash landing pad when they arrived in London. A book can be written about this house, trust me Although shortly after, I moved in with my ex which made room for The Phreak and Waine to become members of the board at Springfield Avenue, BreadBoard decided that London wasn't cool enough for him anymore and he cruised on back to SA. So the site stayed dormant for a while until we broke up and I moved into "The Pimp Palace Haven of Love" in Worple Road, yeah thats the flat with "WOOT! WOOT!" written in white paint on the wall outside facing the road. I decided to revive PharSide, but this time not keep it bound with a house, but for all my mates. As you can imagine, the photos that went up week by week were of absolute carnage and debauchery. I was later joined in the flat by none other than Darryn "The Boschman" Bosch, and although Jeff "Fai$al" Cox was an honorary inhabitant of Springfield avenue, he practically lived at "The Pimp Palace Haven of Love". The carnage continued, photos of debauchery continued to go up each week, at times I would take a walk down memory or should I say, not so much memory lane taking a look at some of the pics and it occurred to me that anyone actually looking at this website, must think we are absolute raging alcoholics! Although I don't think we were very far off to be honest. After a few years, we had to vacate "The Pimp Palace Haven of Love", as the owner wanted to turn it into a home office. It was possibly a blessing in disguise for the sake of our health, although it was a very sad time for us. Due to The Boschman's relationship commitments at the time to Taryn "Little Possum" Lombaard, she had had enough of our shenanigans and put her foot down (at least someone was sensible), so they moved in together and we went our separate ways. Unfortunately due to the depression of the end of a awesome era, PharSide was somewhat neglected and resembled a nostalgic dilapidated wasteland where civilisation was once present.

Another two years passed and the fire grew inside me until one day I was browsing a well known Cape Town blog (respect to Seth Rotherham and his blog, 2OceansVibe.com for giving me the inspiration) when my head burst from the pressure and as the smoke cleared, a little light bulb burnt brightly… that was it, why hadn't I thought of it before, this was the next stage in the life of PharSide, it had grown from a houseshare website which only included the housemates, to a debaucherous photo website for a large group of friends.. and now after a long wait to let its liver and kidneys heal, its time for it to branch out even more, for every young saffa in London living the dream.

So much for the history lesson… and that was the extra short version haha So since Mid-September 2009, PharSide has flourished into a lifestyle blog  catering for all you Saffa's living it up in London, mainly South West London at the moment. Although saying that, whether you are in South Africa or even a saffa living in Alaska for that matter, you can still relate to PharSide. As you've probably seen now, PharSide has a mind of its own, there is no set direction or aim here, it directs itself, and it goes where you want it. PharSide is for everyone, it is there to provide you with entertainment, tell you where the jols are, let you know whats going down and all in all help to make your London experience that much better, its for all of you. Why do I do it? well why not? it entertains me to entertain you. I have had the biggest jol since the day I arrived in this town and it hasn't stopped, I want to share that with everyone because the bigger the party you have, is the bigger the party I have, which is the bigger the party we ALL have… kapeesh? I've been asked quite a lot where I find the time since I still work a full time job… well my friends… I decided I never really watch TV, so it is now taking up space in a shed at my parents house in Kent…. much to The Jen's disappointment as you can imagine but yes, you will not believe how much free time you have when you aren't glued to the TV all night Honest truth, I don't miss it and I don't even think about it…. although The Jen does keep reminding me

Since the new site went live in September, the amount of people visiting the site has increased day by day and sometimes at a rapid rate, obviously depending what I've decided to rant about on any given day, in the last week or so I've been peaking at ±700 unique visitors a day which was completely unexpected and given the time frame with zero money spent on advertising, I think thats pretty damn good after just 2 months… best of all its growing and growing. The awesome amount of compliments and support I've got from people is astounding. Just on Tuesday for example, I was standing outside Wembley Stadium before the Springbok vs Saracens game and an old friend, Hayden Cryer saw me, he said to his mate "This is Marky Mark, this is PharSide!" his mate then told me that because of my Durban curry review for Down South he trekked up there himself to have a taste and really digged it. Thats the kind of thing that keeps me going with this, thats the kind of thing that drives me, by making sure everyone is having an awesome time and enjoying the experience, because like I said, if everyone is having a jol, then yours truly is also having a jol… I enjoy writing articles and let people have their say in the comments because what I find half the time, is people are thinking the same thing I'm thinking but just waiting for someone to put it out there and say it… as you can imagine this snowballs into quite an eventful discussion at times. I enjoy speaking my mind and as you've probably noticed by now, once I start, I can't stop So if you dig PharSide and you dig what I'm doing, and if you want to be kept in the know, then become a fan of PharSide.co.uk on FaceBook and/or follow PharSide on Twitter (links top right)…suggest it to your mates if you want to, get them in on the action. Remember, sharing is caring and if you don't dig it and don't dig what I'm doing, then no-one is asking you to hang around and ever come back… simples

So if you are new to the whole PharSide vibe, have a read through the previous posts, it'll probably take a while, there's already been 69 before this one, but from what I hear, its worth the read

Thanks for all the support guys! You are all the best! Thanks for making PharSide what it is so far because without you it wouldn't be that way I'm amazed and I'm loving this ride!

Keep Living the Dream!

Okay, Over…brssshk!

- Marky Mark

As advertised, "The Saracens and their guests, the Springboks, meet and greet party with the players" but there were no Springboks… well at least any current ones…

You may recall that an article was posted with a flyer last week for a meet and greet with The Saracens and The Springboks in Wimbledon (View article here). We were all led to believe that The Springboks themselves would be there as stated on the flyer… Well my friends, I'm afraid this certainly wasn't the case. Infact, nothing could be further from it.

This evening I excitedly rushed back to Wimbledon in order to get there early so that I could at least get to say Howzit and have a chat with some of the players before it got too busy. When we got down there, we noticed a couple of the South African Saracens players, but no sign of a single player from our victorious XV anywhere in sight. As the evening panned out, it seemed the only "Springboks" that were there and with no disrespect to them, were Cobus Visagie and Wikus Van Heerden who "used" to play for the boks some time ago, but nowadays play for The Saracens, so all in all, it seemed to be a few Saracens players "and none of their guests". Ex-Sharks player now playing for the Saracens, Brad Barritt was there and The Jen got to chat with him for a bit.  During the evening an announcement was called where since I hadn't seen any of the Boks, I expected someone to announce that due unforeseen circumstances something had come up and the guys couldn't make it or were running late, but to my surprise, they thanked everyone for coming along; announced that there were a couple Saracens players in the venue and hoped we have a good evening… nothing whatsoever of the elusive Springboks. Eventually we left at around 10pm, quite disappointed to say the least amidst many people asking that one question… where are The Springboks?

So I think you probably get the picture, there were no Springboks, only two EX-Springboks who now fall in the category of Saracens players, and nothing said about The Springboks that were clearly advertised on the flyer. To be quite honest, I know it usually costs big tom for the guys to do public appearances, however due to the circumstances of them playing a few friendly's over here you may have thought otherwise, or at least had a couple of the okes there which I'm sure most people would have been happy with. Its not uncommon for them to make an appearance since they did rock up at Clapham Grand last time, with the legend that is John Smit even busting the decks during the night. I know most of the main guys were on a plane to France this evening, but to blatantly advertise that The Springboks are going to make an appearance and not follow through is rather disappointing, even knowing for certain that you are no doubt going to disappoint people is a bit beyond me, wasn't it as clear as day that this is what would happen? Its quite obvious that there were no plans for any of the current Boks to make an appearance to the extent that it is doubtful that the Boks even knew anything about it, because if there were concrete plans for it then we would have certainly got an apology from the organisers this evening. Seems a bit of a sneaky one to pull a crowd in my books.

Although this may not entirely be the venue's fault, as it may have been organised from outside of the venue, however at the end of the day, we have got some questions that need answering.

These are my views of disappointment based on fact of what appears to have been blatant false and mis-leading advertising.
Have a look at the advert via the link above and you be the judge.

Big Thanks to the Saracens players that came down, it was good to be able to meet you guys however sadly for some people this was overshadowed by the let down of expecting to see a few Boks but didn't.

Comments please

- Marky Mark

Wimbledon club comes clean on their promotion issues

If you aren’t up to speed with yesterdays rant please read this post before reading this story because if you don’t you’ll be left rather confused. It’ll be like watching the last two movies of Lord of the Rings without watching the first to know what on earth or middle earth should I say is going on…

As some of you may have noticed, yesterday I had a bit of a rant about a certain business harassing people on FaceBook spamming friend requests and hijacking peoples friends lists including my own in order to increase their popularity in the area. You may have noticed later on in the day that the management of the club in Wimbledon released a sincere public apology for what had been going on. This was the apology…

Managment says:

October 13, 2009 at 2:56 pm

Good afternoon all,
Firstly I would like to apologise profusely to all who feel that their facebook accounts have been abused or ‘hacked’.
Although I don’t wish to pass the buck, or shift blame I would like to inform you all that we made the HUGE error of out sourcing our promotion and FBook accounts. This will not happen again.
This gross misconduct has only been brought to our attention in the last week.
As far as sending out events are concerned, I apologise for any over use of this too and on the one occasion that I can think of where a few mails where sent out for the same event, this was, unfortunately my fault for not knowing exactly how to do this in one go, and thought I was sending a few at a time.
Once again, our sincerest apologies, and rest assures the person employed to do our promotions and profiles is no longer.
If anyone would like to respond with any further issues please feel free to email us concernedfbusers@live.co.uk

Now I’ve got to say this and like I said yesterday, that took some balls, I must say I quite respect that.
For them to come straight out into the open from under the hale of gunfire to stand up in front of a large portion of their potential clientele and say, you know what? We did cock up and we cocked up badly, we are sorry and this is what we have done to correct this massive cock up, is something that needs to be appreciated. When I saw that come up yesterday I thought, there we go, that is exactly what everyone who has been hassled needed to hear and a degree of respect is due for that. They could have launched an endless chain of ridiculous excuses blaming this and that or not apologising at all but I think its fair to say what they said was right and the apology is accepted in my books. Mistakes have been realised and justice has been served and the problem eradicated.

Although other promoters must not think that they are in the clear, as part of this rant was also directed at promoters with what I mentioned yesterday, spamming people with loads of messages for the same event. I hope this has given you a bit of an insight to the negative effect that you are having on yourselves, because at the end of the day the more you hassle people with the same thing, the more they aren’t gonna wanna listen to your shit in the future… simples   so keep it tidy and you’ll find people will respect that and actually take note of what you have to offer next time without heading straight for the ‘Delete’ or ‘Mark as Read’ function before opening as I tend to have to do on a daily basis. The successful ones are the ones that do things right and I hope Gareth doesn’t mind me using his crew as an example, but DirtyDubbin tend to do things properly (“But I receive loads of stuff from them Marky Mark” I hear you say) the truth of the matter is that they have quite a shitload going on so its quite obvious that you will, but what you will notice is that you may get an event invitation for an event but then get a reminder closer to the time for that event which is still within reason… not 10! So for existing promoters and up and coming promoters this should give you an idea as to how people feel about being harassed all the time on FaceBook, people are getting really tired of it. So do it properly, do it smartly and don’t be shneaky shneaky about anything because as much as the amazing promo gurus that you may think you are, people are not stupid.

So guys, problem solved, hope everyone is happy now. I just want to say a big thanks to the club for taking the criticism so well and I’m sure some of the gunfire yesterday has sparked off a few ideas where things can be improved, which is good in a way because most clubs never get to hear it themselves, yet everyone else does.

Might even pop a few of your weekend specials in tonights “Whats Going Down in London Town” post for being good okes about it, so email me details

- Marky Mark

Local companies want to cash in on your FaceBook friend lists… Every Saffa in Wimbledon in particular should read this…

Incase you’re not all there or completely oblivious to what goes on around you,  you may have noticed that FaceBook has fast become an absolute marketing goldmine for companies around the world.

Companies are moving away from buying large lists of out of date email addresses to spam the world trying to get people to buy their products and services and they have moved full force into social networking. Now this is pretty much a global overview and you wonder just how local it can be to you, well its already going on around you whether you know its happening or not. However there are certain people who blatantly abuse this priviledge and don’t use it responsibly without quite thinking of the consequences that may be waiting for them and quite unbelievably can’t see it until its smacking them right in the face. Now what they don’t realise is that abusing the social networking scene can ruin you faster than you tried to abuse it. FaceBook for one is quite a dangerous tool that needs to be treated with respect and used responsibly, because it can either make you and it can very surely break you, you can quite easily become a social outcast quicker than you can blink because remember, just about everyone that you have some sort of relationship with in the real world is reading your every move like an up close and in your face book… excuse the pun

So why am I speaking about this? Well I have a pure example, there is a certain club here in Wimbledon that seems to be abusing the benefits of Facebook and really and truly seems like they are doing this blindly with no plan; no thought process and no idea what is going on in the background, in the sense of what the people who they feed off in the area are discussing both online and offline, because for alot of people I’ve spoken to, it is seriously pissing them off. I won’t name the place, purely for the fact that hopefully they may read this and realise exactly who they are (which shouldn’t be too difficult) and for most of the people who have been harrassed with multitudes of friend requests already will know exactly who I’m speaking about. This at least gives them a bit of leeway to cut back; rethink their strategy on it and salvage their increasingly tarnished name amongst the local social scene.  Now I wouldn’t cause such a fuss about a club sending a friend request and if you wish, accepting it or ignoring it knowing that from past experience, depending on how aggresive they are with their advertising, there is a possibilty that your inbox in just a few days, will be filled with nothing but promo after promo, just from the one club. Now I do believe there is a fine line between advertising your jol and being a damn right nuisance causing the reader to scurry for the ‘Leave Group’ or  ‘Delete Friend’ links and there are very few promoters that stay within reason but it is true that some do and those are the successful ones, why? Because they didn’t drive you mad with loads of spam, meaning 20 messages for the same flipping event, party or drinks special.  The problem comes in when after you’ve ignored the friend request, literally minutes or if you are lucky, hours later you get another damn friend request from the same frickin place, so you ignore it and the same thing happens again. You then block it but then a few days later you get the same blerrie friend request again.  Eventually you realise that the way you got this one is because they have now signed up for another profile for who knows what reason, probably cause the previous one got deleted by FaceBook because of people reporting the spamming of friend requests. After checking my FaceBook blocked list, I now have 3 profiles blocked after getting spammed and all three are from the same club in Wimbledon. Now this is where it gets interesting…. as if getting loads of requests wasn’t enough, for those of us who have a large number of friends on our friends list this becomes quite a target for these types as in my case, I had my mates at work (in Canary Wharf) asking me why the hell they are getting loads of friend requests from a club in Wimbledon when they live no where near Wimbledon… I soon realised that they had gone through my entire friends list and added everyone I know because they didn’t need to be my friend to see the list in the first place. This behaviour really hacked me off and I’d be in my right mind to name and shame them but I won’t for now, well at least until I get one more frickin friend request from them and then its going up in black and white, but I have now blocked off my friends list from non-friends because quite honestly my friends are not there to be exploited and even if  money was offered, I’m certainly not gonna sell out my mates or even my own mother since she’s on FaceBook too (hey! anyone who FaceBooks my mom will get dealt hahaha ) But seriously, do we need to start protecting our friends lists in the future to protect our own integrity and to not feel embarrased when our friends are being harrassed by people who have no idea what they are doing and where we are the only probable link between the two? There are alot more subtle and affective ways to marketing or advertising on FaceBook without stepping on people’s toes, it really doesn’t need to be blatantly abused

I’d seriously like to see a few comments about this… so get cracking, I’ve had my rant so start commenting below and get your point across.

- Marky Mark

And it seems Bar Sia is the only Wimbledon club that Watershed targets

Do a search on Google for ‘Bar Sia’ and you’ll notice the results for Bar Sia come up, however look to the right of the page for the Google paid keyword placement ads and you’ll notice The Watershed hijacking keyword searches for Bar Sia. I went a step further and did searches for other local clubs in Wimbledon such as the Walkie; Ponana etc. And it seems that Bar Sia is the only club that Watershed target, whats up with that? Is it because Bar Sia is one of the only privately owned clubs on the Broadway as if it would be pointless to target bars and clubs such as the Walkabout; Ponana; Henry J Beans owned by parent companies that own chains of bars. I’ve got nothing against The Watershed at all, it used to be my second home at one stage and the manager Richard is an absolute legend, but it puzzles me why they’d waste their money on Google Adwords when to be quite honest, the clientele that visit the two clubs are completely different crowds. With all due respect to both clubs, Bar Sia does pull a slightly older and prodomenintly Saffa crowd where as The Watershed tends to have a younger more English crowd which seems to cater more for students. The music styles vary somewhat in the sense that Watershed can be more focused on the rock/ commercial club tracks side of things whereas Bar Sia is more your House/Electro side with different DJ’s booking sets every week. I think Watershed would have better luck using marketing tactics on the other place in Wimbledon which seems to be pissing off alot of people lately particulary on FaceBook which I’ll cover in a later post as from what I hear, quite alot of people in the area are getting just a bit cheesed off about it.

Watershed Adwords used in searches for Bar Sia

- Marky Mark

So it turns out that a Wimbledon bar known as The White Hart down on the Kingston Rd / Hartfield Rd junction thought it would “cash in” on the saffa population in the area without quite thinking it through correctly…

The Phreak sent me this newspaper clipping she cut out of one of the SA Newspapers here in London which struck up a bit of confusion…

Nice Try

The confusion rose where that same day our good friends over at VDP Group namely our main man, Guy Van Der Post, who is behind many well known clubs all over South Africa, one being Joe Cool’s itself, sent out a message to the members of the Clapham Grand Facebook group advising that he would be opening a Joe Cool’s here in London at the venue previously known as Zulu’s in Fulham. I contacted Guy and expressed my concern. As it turns out, Guy was already well aware of The White Hart’s intentions and had subsequently had his lawyers put the The White Hart’s management up against a wall. In the end The White Hart backed down and accepted defeat on the matter, but not before sending out a city-wide advert in a prominent SA Newspaper advertising their “Grand Opening”.

Bit cheeky of them to give it a go and turn out red faced, but whats even more cheeky is they actually stole the logo for their ad straight off the Joe Cool’s website…EISH! check here

All I can say is, White Hart……that was a FAIL!

(more info to come on the real Joe’s opening in Fulham in November so keep an eye out)

- Marky Mark