Andy Flemming’s Cannes Diary: Bono and the levitating tissue

Andy Flemming, creative director at M&C Saatchi is in Cannes. He writes exclusively for Campaign Brief.

11:48pm Someone’s broken the sink in the men’s toilets at the Carlton. I have absolutely no idea how they did it. There’s just a big hole where it used to be. Why someone would want to, I don’t know, jump up and down in a sink is beyond me but they did. There are three really pissed off girls mopping up what was presumably a fountain of water and muttering in French. There’s also a huge queue of desperate men waiting to use the toilets but won’t because the three pissed off girls aren’t leaving. I go anyway. I have no shame.

12:10am I’ve been told me that if you tell the Carlton bar staff you’ve won a Lion you get free drinks. To be absolutely honest, someone should tell the bar staff not to leave bottles of Rose in ice buckets all over the place because people are just grabbing them.

8:00am Surprisingly not hung-over. This is probably due to the fact that my new Samsung, the one with the long battery life I keep banging on about, ran out of battery at about 12:20am. And my sister ate an undercooked sausage so she went to bed early anyway.

8:20am I have to wear the same shorts again. I’ve been wearing them on and off for about three days. This is mainly due to the fact that I can’t return to the dry cleaners – this was made quite clear by the owner after our ‘incident’ a few days ago.

9:00am I’m pleased to see that the dogs are now using the front lawn of the hotel as their toilet. Either the owner’s wife reads Campaign Brief or they just go everywhere. I think they just go everywhere.

9:10am People like to beep their horns when they see pretty girls. I’ve seen whole queues of cars all frantically beeping when a sexy girl walks down the Croisette. I’m not sure what they expect them to do. Jump in? Disrobe?

11:00am Having a salad with my sister who’s still suffering the after effects of eating the undercooked sausage. The salad is approximately the size of my head. I think the woman who wrote ‘Why French Women Don’t Get Fat’ should order a starter in Cannes. They’re fucking huge.

11:45am It’s ‘Innovation day’ in Cannes, and I’ve bagged an early seat. Well, I stole it. People leave their shirts on chairs to reserve them and fuck off for hours. We’ve all started just handing the shirts back to them when they come back and refuse to get up. The guy who invented the Dollar Shave Club is on. I was taking copious notes and underline the quote ‘Great things happen when your ass smells great’ as I think it’s really funny. I’m going to try and use it in conversation later on.

12:00am Every single seminar starts off with a well made film that ALWAYS features people taking pictures of something with smart phones and smiling with wonder. This one’s from a viral company that are so damn good they enable us to ‘reach for the stars.’ It’s extremely cheesy, but a guy runs onto the stage and explains it means that they’re going to send one of us into space. There’s a ripple of excitement until the guy says it’s in eight months and based on hits. We thought it would be today. He then does a magic trick with a levitating tissue and just fucks off without going into any details about the space thing.

1:00pm I’m not going to go on about what’s being said as it’s genuinely, genuinely brilliant (and very moving in parts) and huge amounts of people have messaged me because they think this is quite funny. The talk about a revolutionary way to change qualitative research based on neurological impulses is fucking extraordinary but it’s not exactly a giggle so I’ll leave it to my other esteemed diarists to explain it.

3:34pm I’ve been to seminars every day and they’re timed to the SECOND. However, Bono presumably wants to be fashionably late so his session’s been delayed. This might have something to do with the hundreds of photographers who are standing in the way of the stage. Ooooh. Here he comes. Cue a thousand phones being held up.

4:00pm Bono and Jonny Ives are talking about the RED charity and want to know if anyone’s got a great idea to help it make more money. Baring in mind that this gigantic auditorium is filled with some of the greatest creative firepower on the planet, the first audience suggestion to ‘get people to use direct debits’ seems a little underwhelming, but Bono thinks it’s a great idea. He seems like a nice guy. I always thought he was a bit of a knob but that’s because I’ve never seen him just having a chat. Jonny Ives doesn’t say much, but when he does it’s a bit odd as I’ve only ever seen him talking with a white background with a new phone in his hands.

6:00pm Sitting in my hotel room banging this out. It’s probably the last one I’ll do as I have to leave in the morning. Cannes has been amazing. Sure, there’s a whole pile of drunken weirdness around the periphery but the talks, experiences and seminars have been, for the most part, extremely inspiring. If anyone wants to get in touch, wants a job or needs a major fucking event diarised in a relatively amusing way you can get me at flemminga@mcsaatchi.com.au

6:10pm To the Gutter. Figuratively, literally. You can decide. Au Revoir.