I’m shocked no-one in Scotland tried this video stunt yet (and peeved I never thought of it) – a team at Double X magazine decide to try and emulate the guys from Mad Men in their drinking during a working day (HuffPo link). Result? They get gassed, say that it was completely unproductive and all the good ideas they had were beer-influenced. So it looks like the team in Mad Men have the edge.

It’s a fun watch and it brought back some memories for me… of art editors coming in pie-eyed and still able to design and draw some fantastic layouts for pages, of drunken teams of reporters getting a tip-off five minutes before a paper was off-stone and still managing to make it the splash and of a couple of PR stunts devised in the pub that by next morning were worked up into full-blown successful PR campaigns.

(That’s the other shameful part of the video – the exec from Slate who goes home because of the noise from the team. WTF? Newsrooms are meant to be noisy.)

But it does bring back the old question of alcohol fuelling creativity. I’ve always maintained that a relaxed after hours meeting can lead to some great ideas (as well as some howlers, but you need them as well) but it’s a fool who believes that just sinking two beers or whisky shots is going to make them a Grant Morrison or Don Draper.

Of course, that’s just reminded me of something else….