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M: Hello and welcome to I’m Talking To You Stupid, occasional conversations with disrupters from the world of advertising. I’m Winifred Melmotte and with me today is Ray Carrington who, along with his partner Michel Bailly, founded the legendary Agency Boomboom. Welcome, Ray.

RC: Hollow.

WM: I can’t tell you how delighted we are to have you with us today. Perhaps we can begin by you telling us a little about the origins of the agency.

RC: Shirtainly. I trace the beginnings back to the night when Michel and I had an identical dream. I dreamt my ears exploded and I had to start listening through my kneecaps. Michel dreamt he made a wagger with a dolphin that he could beat him in a foot race.

WM: Those are not the same.

RC: Hence the colitination of our brains, befoxified by the chameleon coincidence of dissimilarity. That these non-identical identical dreams should appear as if by Doggy goddy ordinance fed into our idea of what our agency would be. How could two imaginings that are exactly the same be so dissimilar? There could only be one answer: Everyone dances to his own personal boomboom. This became our mantra so we had a sign made and put up on our office wall.

WM: Saying everyone dances to their own personal boomboom?

RC: No. Ours said Knowledge! Knowledge! Knowledge!

WM: And did it inform your work from then on?

RC: Michel and I made a point of never looking at it. Neither of us has gazed at that woosome wall in over fifty years.

WM: Interesting.

RC: No it isn’t.

WM: Let’s move on to the work. One of your first campaigns was for Go-Goji the energy drink. Tell us about that.

RC: Simplicality itself! We travelled by tandem bicycle and placed hidden cans of other energy drinks inside bushes outside hospices all over the country. When the terminally ill or their helpmeets found the treacherous cans they would cry out, This is not Go-Goji!

WM: And did they say that?

RC: There is no evidence that they didn’t. It was a disappointment campaign classicola. Confusion and heartbreak entered the atmosphere. For weeks we all breathed in the anguish of the cheated dying.

WM: And Go-Goji?

RC: Goji-gone.

WM: Did you feel responsible for its failure?

RC: Kanyeshne! It was pleasingly insuccessful. But I have to say that we still felt like bedragglified whores, accepting payments to service others’ fantasies. So we moved on . . .

WM:  . . . to the Anti-Amusement Movement?

RC: Yes, Winnie, my darling.

WM: Tell us about that.

RC: Well the AAM consisted of one member and reluctant leader named The Blue Guess.

WM: Who was a stand-up comedian, yes?

RC: Who is controlling this narrative? A version of you or a version of me?

WM: Sorry. Go on, please. The Blue Guess . . .

RC:  . . . had no commitment to this movement at all. All approaches for membership were repelled violently as were any offers of publicity, interviews, marketing, anything. The Blue Guess was absolutely committed, though, to remaining totally anonymous. But anonymous in public. Anybody can hide out in their BOODWAR! and be unknown but it takes a certain gift to be able to hire a hall at the Edinburgh Festival each year and do everything in your power to make sure that nobody sees it.

WM: Did it work?

RC: How could it? It was a shimmirror, une bow rev. But a few festival stragglers . . . drunks or deeply confused tourists from countries we no longer hear from . . . were bound to wander in. The Blue Guess was determined to put on this Anti-Amusement routine every year until the performance was seen by nobody but it was doomed to remain—if I may spend a little of my own coinage—an impossible dream.

WM: And Agency Boomboom’s involvement?

RC: Michel and I were looking for an outlet for our campaigns for three products which we did not want to be seen by the public. So our interests and The Blue Guess’s were aligned.

WM: What were the products?

There is no response.

WM: Ray?

No response.

WM: Oh of course. It is that time. I should tell listeners that one of the conditions for conducting this interview was that there would be a thirty minute silence at a time of Ray’s choosing. So . . . we will resume when that is over.

Silence.

For thirty minutes.

Until.

RC: I must admonish you for the forewarning of the silence. It completely ruined the effect. But perhaps that is why I am a creative and you are . . . what? a tawdry gossipmonger.

WM: I’m sorry?

RC: Yes, I give you the gift of offence. Think nothing of it . . .

WM: Erm, thank you.

RC: Knee-chee-vo, mon coeur de candy! But to answer your vopros: A household cleaning tool that folded up to the size of a five pence piece; a t-shirt that could only be worn inside out; and a book of Greek fables rewritten so that no lesson could be learned.

WM: So how did The Blue Guess agree to help with these campaigns?

RC: We persuaded The Blue Guess . . . incidentally, should you ever meet The Blue Guess then I umplore you not to ask where the name came from . . .

WM: Because?

RC: Promise me! It is for your own safety.

WM: Yes. Yes. Sure.

RC: You won’t regret that decision, believe me. SOOOO . . . we persuaded The Blue Guess to insert slogans for these products into their Anti-Amusement act. They had to be assured that the slogans were not amusing in the least and would in no way lead to word of the movement becoming more widespread. Nor, it goes without saying, would The Blue Guess’s spoonsership lead to any sales of any actual product. I can honestly say here: promise made, promise kept.

WM: Do you remember the slogans now?

RC: amopbopaloomopawopboomboom; a topbopalootopatopboomboom; and aessopbopaloobopaesopboomboom.

WM: And the effect of the campaign?

RC: Extremely targeted word of mouth. Some 34 people saw the act that year. Who knows who they spoke to about the products?

WM: Well there is no evidence that they spoke to anybody.

RC: Well there is no evidence that anybody has ever bought a Volvo.

WM: I think there is . . .

RC: Well we shall just have to shagree to disshagree. The fact is here we are still talking about the products and the campaign two years later.

WM: It was thirty years ago.

RC: Ah, tempura phuket.

WM: And about the products . . . erm, I know this is a delicate matter . . . but did any of them exist?

RC: Ya ne ponimayu.

WM: Like, if I went into a shop or went online and tried to buy the mop or the book, would I be able to?

RC: There would be no harm trying.

WM: But would I succeed?

RC (laughing): As if you could go into a shop and buy, say, a Snickers bar!

WM: But I could . . .

RC: Adorable that you think so but I beg to differ. We’ll have to . . .

WM: I know, shagree to etc . . .

RC: But allow me to throw you a lebenslinie . . .

WM: A . . . ?

RC: It is . . . to use a word that I am sure you are fond of . . . it is TAROO! that Michel and I decided early on that the future for Agency Boomboom lay in the field of self-commissioning.

WM: Meaning?

RC: Meaning that we refused to be hidebound by devising campaigns for products that relied on companies to manufacture them. We refused to bend the knee to that kind of pressure. We decided to free ourselves from, if you like, the capitalist imperative which seems to be mired in the third dimension Stuff you can see and touch and use, money, money for that drearsome stuff, money for gebabblifying about drearity, all that.

WM: A bold move for an advertising agency.

RC: Benny the cat tibby, my child.

WM: And this decision led to a whole raft of campaigns for products that didn’t . . .

RC: Please, don’t embarrass yourself. If they didn’t exist then how could we be talking about them? The more people went in search of the dirt bikini, the ironing board car, the ice cream with the same melting point as tungsten, the toe hairpiece and on and on and on, the more they came into being. The more it strengthened Michel and I’s resolve to never again try to force anybody to think about buying a so-called TAROO product manufactured by sschwein. And the campaigns thrived. They thrive. They live on till today, long after the products ceased to exist even if the process of extinction began long before the campaign was designed.

WM: And money? Where does that come in?

RC: If a product is—let’s say—hard to find, if the marketing is—let’s say—largely unseen, then there is a chance—a glorious chance—that zero money is made by anybody. Knee-chee-vo!

WM: Interesting. And, if that is the aim, it leads me on rather nicely to my next question. How do you respond to the view that Agency Boomboom is more art project than advertising agency?

RC: Harry Umf is my response. This is not a view, this is an accusation. A calumny spread by margarine salesmen. I cannot believe etcetera etcetera. We abhor the art world which is riddled with Charlotte Tans. Knee-yet! We are—and this is hard to swallow for the prostitutes and self-debasers in the inDUSTry—but we are a business that has no interest in the profitability of any company, least of all our own. And we are hated for it.

WM: I can see how the traditionalists might find it threatening. It is a unique approach in an industry that is normally seen as an arrangement between a commissioning body and a creative grouping that is paid to promote . . .

RC: Yeezus. Let me stop you there before you make a bigger fool of yourself. You are talking about capitalism at its most tacky. Look at this shiny thing you idiot, see how easy it is to find, go out and hand over some cash and another idiot will give you this in exchange.

WM: Well that is the basics, isn’t it? All my other guests have adhered more or less to that model.

RC: And I am willing to wagger that they chunderundered on about ethics and principles, all the while maintaining a scandalous wouldn’t-it-be-slavverly commitment to visibility and availability.

WM: I guess . . .

RC: There can be no ethics in a contract between any two entities! There can be no ethics in a contract between any two entities!! There can be no ethics in a contract between two entities!!! It is difficult enough to maintain purrity when the contract is with yourself. The purrshoot of purrity is a solitary hunt in an inhospitalable jungle. You should see the inner struggles an adherent to purry boomboom has. Until you have personally faced down self-dissent then you can have no idea what I am talking about. It’s not easy to tell your nearest and nearest that I am wrong. Listening to me say it to me is even harder.

WM: But you have a partner that you talk to, surely? Where is Michel now, by the way?

RC: He was killed in a duel eight years ago. Or he has just gone out for a haircut. I forget which. In any case we haven’t spoken since we shared our dreams.

WM: And now it is you and I that have to stop speaking! We are nearly out of time! So soon. Is there anything you would like to add before we end the interview?

RC: What interview?

WM: Ray Carrington, thank you for joining us today.

RC: Murky.