The Media and The Media Online publisher, Sandra Gordon, finds some great advice on cookery and life, and an excellent guide from SA’s radio guru.
The Agony Chef
I was expecting Kate Sidley’s debut novel to be as serious minded as she is. Judging by her column in Sunday Times Lifestyle I knew it would be well written and probably witty. What I didn’t expect was a cookbook-cum-advice column-cum-very funny series of essays on life’s little dramas and how to solve them through your stomach.
Sidley describes the content as recipes and advice for life’s pickles and predicaments.
Each chapter begins with an introduction followed by letters to Agony Aunt Delilah. Here is an example:
Dear Delilah,
Are there any particular foods that are aphrodisiacs?
Gary.
Her answer to Gary’s pitiful question starts thus:
“To be honest with you Gary, there is no specific food that will make a girl fancy you if she doesn’t already. Only tequila will do that – and then only for a limited period of time.”
What follows is a selection of recipes designed to help the hapless letter writer with his challenge.
The key to coping is through satisfying your stomach mingled with a large helping of laughter. The Agony Chef takes care of both requirements.
The book is delightfully conceived and written, and easy to dip into and out of. The recipes are wholesome and an instant salve for life’s many faribles (grudges).
Radio advertising: A sound investment.
Radio guru Stan Katz has published a very useful pocket book that should be required reading for anyone interested in entering the hurly burly of radio advertising sales.
His grasp of the intricacies of radio and its role as a major advertising medium is extensive and backed by experience that is deep and broad, coupled with an intuitive understanding of how consumers relate to radio.
Katz has based the content on 10 key principles, from understanding the business of radio through to harnessing the power of response radio. There is a large dollop of info on Stan and why you should read the book.
The illustrations, however, are predictable and should have been replaced with some of his memorable one liners, many relating to media and radio in particular. Remember the outstanding one-liners featured on a billboard campaign he and his ad agency ran to advertise 702 to consumers? Remember: ‘Truth Decay’, ‘Mental Floss’ and ‘Warning: No head rest’, to name but a few. Priceless, and they would have shown what it takes to promote radio – something his successors have failed to do.
This story was first published in the December 2012 issue of The Media magazine.
