Anyone who knows Andy Green of GREEN Communications will be aware of his never ending ability to turn madcap ideas into reality and next week sees the launch of his 'Stupid Aid – make stupidity history tour' which aims to show delegates how to work smarter in a stupider world with a flexible approach to creative thinking.

The five day tour kicks off on Monday 3 September and will see Andy visiting fourteen different locations from Edinburgh in the north to Southampton in the south taking in all major cities in between.

The 45 minute sessions aim to redefine stupidity not as low intelligence but as a form of inflexible thinking we can all overcome and most importantly the campaign events are a fund raiser for children's charity Barnardo's.

The Stupid Aid tour is being organised in conjunction with regional groups of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and Chartered Institute of Marketing. Ticket prices are just £25 and are available from www.stupidaid.com

Here's Robbie & Nicole paying homage to Frank & Nancy.

OK, nothing to do with events but tonight’s the night for what in my opinion is the best thing on telly at the moment. Channel 4’s Costa Chaos has been following the most unlikely property developers ever in the shape of B-list goth guitarist Rocco and dipsy dreamer Dawn as they stagger from one crisis to another in Southern Spain.

The upshot is that they’ve bought a villa just outside Barcelona (despite not having the cash to pay the mortgage) in a vain attempt to run some kind of boutique rock and roll hotel. What little property developing actually takes place is secondary to how unbelievably flakey these two are at everything but they really do make fantastic TV…

Costa Chaos Friday 8PM Channel 4

Update: Dawn & Rocco have a website

Yesterday the world lost Anthony H. Wilson, broadcaster, founder of Factory Records and one of the most eloquent and influential mavericks of his time.

Everyone in Manchester in the Seventies knew Tony Wilson. He was a reporter on regional television news and also somehow sweet talked the station into giving him a late night music show called So It Goes which gave the Sex Pistols and many other groups their first exposure on TV.

I first met him in 1978 when he stepped in to persuade staff at the old Virgin Records on Lever Street to sell me their display copy of a Pistols T-shirt. The following year at one of Joy Division’s now legendary Bowdon Vale gigs he gave me and a friend a letter allowing us into The Factory in Hulme to see Swiss group Kleenex and The Raincoats. As it happened, the bouncers took one look at it and said you’re not old enough and we had to listen from outside but it’s the thought that counts…

Later in life I married former Hacienda go go dancer Nicky Pennington to the sounds of Factory’s The Durutti Column in Jamaica. I asked her this morning about her memories and she recalled lots of messy nights at the club and Tony holding court at his city centre flat into the early hours. Needless to say the details are unpublishable…

It was through Nicky and a mutual friend that more recently we had the pleasure of a few visits from Tony as he loved our village and the fact that his dog William was allowed inside our local pub. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask obscure questions about Factory but he always seemed genuinely happy to indulge my interest.

The one thing we did share was a love of the author Kurt Vonnegut. This extract is from his breakthrough 1969 book Slaughterhouse 5 in which the central character Billy Pilgrim is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore –

‘The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.

Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is “so it goes” ‘

Here's a few Youtube links - Tony on The Factory and a documentary clip. Also Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007.

Screengrab from So It Goes 1976, Granada TV. Extract from Slaughterhouse 5 published by Triad/Panther Books.

We’re just back from a three day stint at the Boots hair care event at Eastwood Hall near Nottingham where we were managing the showcase presentations for Imetec’s new Nutriheat hairdryer.

Over 300 electrical consultants from Boots UK stores were given a daily audience with hairdressing guru Trevor Sorbie and a spectacular light show from France-based techno jugglers Feeding the Fish alongside videos and demonstrations of the product.

It felt slightly ironic to be working on a hair product but as Trevor’s top stylist Ian Carmichael said, with a face like mine I don’t need hair. I'm not sure how to take that one!

Thanks go out to all at Vivid and also to Chris P from LAS for technical assistance above and beyond the call of duty.

Here’s Martha and the Vandellas although it could easily have been Radiohead.