Don't stop til you get enough

Can the Jackson brand rise again to the heady heights of the 80s? If tickets for his new London show are anything to go by, maybe. The ten initial dates announced at the O2 in London quickly rose to 50 by general sale, and each ticket was sold out in 11 seconds. It may have been twelve years since he last toured in the UK but baby dangling, criminal charges, court appearances and lack of music has done little damage to his popularity. There must be some worries about his performance (and that no body part flies off mid moonwalk), but if he gets it right, it will be some hell of a show. Not sure his merchandise will fare quite as well (who's gonna wear his t-shirt in public?) but when it comes down to it, the product is unbreakable and people will temporarily ignore the circus that is Brand Jacko. Aoww!

Going to do the Hoovering

Genericised trademarks are trademarks that were for specific products but have lodged so deep into consumers concious that they are often used for so much more, including a whole brand category. Hoover is an obvious example (being shorter than the more accutrate but cumbersome vacuum cleaning) - but this article is a list from A to Z. Some that you know (Photoshop now stands for any type of photo retouching) but others that are unexpected (Astro Turf, Jet Ski, Microchip). Ford tried to do it with the Ka, but you just can't force it. As usual Wikipedia have an article as well.