IGNORANCE IS SOMETIMES BLISS

When you don’t understand something it’s better to admit it than to bullshit. After years of fiddling at the fringes of social media in common with several acquaintances I have decided to become antisocial. No more Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Twitter. I didn’t really understand them anyway except as a medium for sounding off.

We shall not miss each other.

But there was one occasion in my life in 1972 when despite a complete failure of comprehension, I changed someone’s life.

I was in advertising and one of my clients, James Arnold-Baker, who was Managing Director of a big record company called Record Merchandisers called to say he needed an urgent piece of advertising to promote the just released record of a Scottish unknown and his appearance in the biggest Woolworth Record Department in Glasgow. I asked him to send me the record. The artist was a scruffy banjo player called Billy Connolly. The record was called Billy Connolly Live!

I played the record, but I could barely understand a word. It sounded something like this punctuated by coughs, grunts, “fek dis” and banjo sounds:

“BANJO MUSIC – Oh fekin twat.....meh ahse twand...pie on cwarp ...fwackin hell...fwackin lad spit! – AUDIENCE LAUGHTER AND CHEERS...hot panna ...outavinda what penny throw...aaaggh...pennies...aaagh fekin larf doon ma breeks piss ahsel ... feckin darfme - AUDIENCE ERUPTS”

I wrote a conventional brief for the creative people, hyping the cultural strength of this new star.

“What Bruce Forsyth is to The London Palladium Billy Connolly is to Glasgow”... shameless.

But the creatives refused to create an ad because my client or I was “taking the piss. No one can understand this. Stop wasting our time”

So, I wrote the ad myself – an enthusiastic presenter saying where, when and why Billy would be on a given date followed by excerpts of Connolly and audience laughter. I managed to get as many what I supposed was the “f” word in as I could. And no one complained and Sauchiehall Street was jammed solid with eager crowds to meet Billy and buy the record.

From banjo player with a gift in chat to superstar comic in 30 seconds of nonsense.

Ignorance can be bliss.

Or, of course, the reverse. Seldom can political missteps (starting with the Patterson fiasco) have been conducted with such cocky assurance that nothing could go wrong. The word “sleaze” has become inextricably linked to Tory. It’s started and will go on...too late to stop ... the sleaze wagon is on the move - the product of Government failure to understand the media would use this hook on to which to attach every Tory story.

Most of us are weary of the Covid story. Many think it’s yesterday’s news, that we know all we need to know, that the beast’s been conquered, that it’s party-time. 

Take it away Shakin’ Stevens: 

“Snow is falling

All around me

Children playing 

having fun

It’s the season

Love and understanding

Merry Christmas everyone”

Hmm .... talk to people in Bavaria, in Austria, in Holland, in Norway and Sweden. Covid is back with a vengeance in retaliation for their having taken its disappearance for granted. Bavaria has declared a “state of catastrophe” with intensive care units close to collapse. In Germany nearly half the new cases are amongst the vaccinated due to the waning efficacy of vaccinations over time or to a new variant.

Politicians there are talking about restrictions including isolation/house arrest for the unvaccinated; there are mutterings of the unspeakable – lockdowns.

All this the product of incaution and ignorance.

So, a not so Merry Christmas may be looming.