Reality Bites (It really does!) - On to Plan B

Well, Mr Fry might appear at first glance to be terribly rude.  I’m sure he’s just terribly busy, and gets thousands of “Spruik me! Spruik me!” requests every day. So much so in fact that the small print on his Blog shows that he really has his act together on public contact:

Contacts The management for Stephen receives many enquires and requests. In all instances you must contact only once. Replicating your request across various contacts creates confusion. In order to ensure you contact the correct person. Please follow the list below carefully. Professional engagement of Stephen Fry Hamilton Hodell Limited Fifth Floor 66-68 Margaret Street London W1W 8SR Telephone: +44(0)20 7636 1221 iPhone/Blackberry/Android friendly: +442076361221 info AT hamiltonhodell DOT co DOT uk http://www.hamiltonhodell.co.uk Press requests of Stephen Fry or SamFry Limited Members of the professional press seeking to to interview Stephen should contact Hamilton Hodell Limited using the details provided above. Press enquiries relating to the business SamFry Limited and UnTied Artists Network should make that enquiry to Andrew Sampson andrew AT samfrylimited DOT com Please ensure you address your email to Andrew as unaddressed email will be deleted. Stephen does not have personal publicity management. Twitter requests of Stephen Fry WARNING: When Stephen tweets a URL to a given website, up to 500,000 people will attempt to visit that website within one hour. Very few websites can manage that intense traffic. If you wish to asked Stephen to Tweet about a charity or special event which points to your/a website, it must be able to capable of taking 600+ calls per second to the website’s server in order to be able to stay live once Stephen’s Tweeted. Please check with your website server provider. Many providers will simply say “Yes it is”. You must double check with a technician for your website. There are three waves of capacity within that hour with the 2nd wave of retweeting generally as strong as the first original Tweet. Requests for Tweeting must be made through the professional agent contact details above. Emails or phone call requests for paid or product Tweeting will be ignored. Charities Stephen supports many charities and requests for support. If you wish to make a request please contact Hamilton Hodell Limited using the details provided above. Fan Mail & personal letters Stephen cannot be contacted by email personally. Please address mail in the following manner. Mr Stephen Fry c/o Hamilton Hodell Limited Fifth Floor 66-68 Margaret Street London W1W 8SR Fan email cannot answered but Stephenfry.com very much welcomes your participation on this website through Stephen’s Twitter feed, forum and blog.

Wow, no random emails, no contact to which you can reasonably expect an answer unless you’re press or charity, no product tweeting (which unfortunately, this campaign will be construed) – all that’s left is snail mail! Talk about pushing fertiliser up a steeply graded incline! It’s all quite disheartening really, added to which I read this on his blog:

Over the past few months I have bought and been sent some of the latest, loveliest and lousiest arrivals in the world of smartphonery, iPoddery and assorted digital devicement.

So, pestering him has been done, and we’re not the first; in fact, we’re among, by the looks of it, the slowest to have this idea. 

Are we to be so easily thwarted? No, say I! 

When faced with the impenetrable silence of Dingoo Digital Shenzen, did Booboo slink away and cry: “Linux on that glorified MP3 player? Meh!”?

When naysayers declared that PSP emulation was impossible, did Ulrich go: “Well that’s it then, 2D for me, all the way!”?

No, we shall not be cowed by Stephen’s management, or begrudge him the walls he must have to face life as a celebrity! We keep alive our fantastical vision that behind the wall of Hamilton Hodell Limited lies a curious gadget lover like, well, you and me, who only needs to get his hands on one of these, to succumb to its charms. 

This is what I’ll do then:

• Pledges remain open until 26 December 2009!
• Come 26 December, I’ll make up whatever difference in dollars there is, and order his Dingoo!
• All who pledge will get an official, Dingoo-Scene once in a lifetime, never to be repeated collector’s item “I chipped in for Mr Fry’s Dingoo” Certificate … ah … emailed to them in PDF.

I have to say that, even after all that, it not improbably that our Dingoo is going to get lost among the hundreds and thousands of other gadgets that find their way to him. But you miss 100% of the shots you never take, right? Is that really the sort of Dingoo user you want to be?