We gotta get out of this place...

It was 1965. The Animals.

We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'Cause girl, there's a better life for me and you

These are the words which became the theme song of the Vietnam War and are burnt into my brain.

Every time I get away for a break, note - not a positive thing like a “make” but a break, a destruction of something that works I resolve it’ll be the first of many. Never is. 

This one’s hardly a summer holiday. We’ve already had one of those but as I recall – a rather fuzzy memory -  I had Covid and spent most of the time asleep. No, this is a retreat to a quiet apartment overlooking a nature reserve and a stream.

In Canterbury for glorious choral music, Elizabethan architecture, lazy lunches and bison. Virtually extinct in Europe and pretty well unknown in Britain these creatures, the heaviest living wild land animals, are like powerful demolition machines. In a rewilding experiment  at Wilder Blean in Kent they are turning jungles into parks. And a baby bison has just been born so things are looking up.

And everyone else seems at it too. Good friends have just returned from a brilliant trip to and around India. It’s strange that when I was there a few years ago it seemed somehow familiar as though I’d lived there in a previous existence. It smelt wonderful and mysterious and was exciting in a way China, although fascinating too, somehow wasn’t. Poetry as opposed to prose.

And our daughter, son in law and grandchildren are in New York doing what we all do in the most thrilling city in the world. Walking. Walking. Walking. Walking through diversity. Chinatown. Harlem. The Financial District. Brownstone buildings. Central Park. The High Line. The Staten Ferry. Broadway diners where resting artists are now waitresses who suddenly burst into song. The biggest burgers ever. Whale sized Lobsters. And Walking. Walking. Walking.

What we missed through the drab days of lockdown was travel, experiences and change. In those same as, same as days of imprisonment that sixth sense of discovery and change was turned off which was tragic because ultimately it’s that sense which we need and which turns us on when we get weary.

So we are getting away because there’s a better life than Brighton great as Brighton is. But right now it feels like this dirty old part of the city where the sun refused to shine. Living in Brighton is like a never ending dish of scampi. Delicious but occasionally I need steak or – can this be me – tofu. 

I’m looking forward to rediscovering deep sleep and getting rid of mental cobwebs. I’m also looking forward to learning a few new things – I don’t know what yet but when I find out I’ll be sure to tell you.

Have a great week. Have fun. Plan your next adventure.

APOCALYPSE SOON!

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, speaking to the House Treasury Committee said: “I’m afraid the one I’m going to sound, I guess, rather apocalyptic about, is food.”

I was apoplectic when I read this. Governors of the Bank of England have in the past been more circumspect. The word “Apocalypse” describes the “complete final destruction of the world as described in the Bible Book of Revelation.” And we’re not there Andrew, not even close.

We seem to have lost the art of balanced argument and nuance.

Try this for Prime Ministerial understatement - Harold MacMillan in 1958 following the resignation of his Chancellor of the Exchequer and several others in the Treasury team just before his leaving on a Commonwealth tour, said“I thought the best thing to do was to settle up these little local difficulties, and then turn to the wider vision of the Commonwealth.” 

Last week we decided to abandon “apocalyptic Covid caution”.

So we went to London, visited Home House drank a refreshing few glasses of vino verde, strolled up Marylebone High Street bought some books in the delicious Daunt’s and ambled home on a busy train; then celebrating the Brighton Festival we made visits to the theatre and two amazing concerts in swift succession plus supper at Bills. There was barely a mask in sight anywhere; people hugging each other; smiles, laughter and sunshine.

No pandemic? Well actually there have been 239 cases in the past week in Brighton and Hove and in total a cumulative 96,000 (out of a population of 280,000). We are well on the way to achieving, if not herd immunity, pandemic saturation. But now 2 ½ years into this virus we know more but still not enough. The WHO data suggests that all European countries and the USA performed similarly in terms of “excess mortality” (that’s how this abnormality is measured. It’s the number of deaths – from all causes – that occur during a crisis that’s beyond what would be expected in typical times.) 

Some of the precautions taken like paranoid hand watching and surface disinfecting have been shown to be futile as preventative measures. Most importantly carrying on pretty much as normal like Sweden did seems to have been more effective than the more restrictive lockdowns in Germany. How did we do? The UK did averagely well or badly, depending how you look at it, although Scotland seems to have performed rather worse despite Nicola Sturgeon’s insistence on sustained tougher restrictions.

Taking a balanced view it seems fair to suggest that getting on with life, going to work, going to the theatre, cinema, restaurants and so on is the way forward. “Circumspect normality” we’ll call it.

So what about China and their “Zero Covid” strategy? The “big whites” (the Covid Inspectors dressed all in white with huge powers) have become very unpopular although infection rates have recently dropped. But so too is their economy. Bloomberg (gloomy Bloomberg) expect the Chinese economy to grow by only 2% this year compared to the USA at 2.8%. If so, this would be the first time China has lagged behind the US growth rate since 1976 and this despite a $5 trillion stimulus.

Possibly it’s a short-term correction but it’s also a lesson. Your economy will slow if you lock everything down.

Back to the Governor: another lesson is our overdependence on food imports. We’ve failed to focus on and have faith in domestic food. In 2020, the UK imported over 46% of its food. That’s got to change to avoid future supply difficulties.

Spoiler alert: But no apocalypse

REGAINING OUR SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE

One consequence of this extended lockdown is to make us lose our perspective. We’re like someone in the Truman Show (the 1998 film about a TV reality show) or, worse, we’re in Ambridge and part of the Archers – “an everyday story of country folk” as it was cosily described.

Being stuck in the same place with nothing to disrupt one’s sense of time, space or thought makes us very short-sighted. Giles Coren, restaurant critic and columnist, for once got it right when he described his strange feeling of being out-of-sorts with a return to freedom. 

We are all, to a greater or lesser extent, undergoing Stockholm Syndrome – becoming  enamoured of our captors and place of captivity. Hence the high percentage of voters who want the lockdown to continue and why Frau Obergruppenführer Sturgeon has her subdued subjects daily enthralled in Scotland.

Our world has shrunk. Shrunk through Brexit. Shrunk through a lack of travel, of novelty and through the media we consume. The lack of perspective extends to a tendency to embrace conspiracy theories.

A friend told me, Britain was becoming like the Third Reich in 1933 -progressively eliminating all opposition and creating nationalist symbols – like a new Royal Yacht and a new school song. 

(By the way here are the lyrics of that song:

“We are Britain and we have one dream.
To unite all people in one great team.
Strong Britain. Great Nation. Strong Britain. Great Nation.” 

Dear heavens. This must be a joke foisted on us by the Daily Express.)

But the biggest joke happened on Friday with that picture of the Handcock snog in the Sun. How did the Sun get the picture, how much money changed hands and what sort of security exists in government following the Cummings exposures and now this? Do I care about the intemperate, hypocritical Matt’s behaviour? Since he broke his own rules on social distancing, yes. Henry Kissinger said “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” Hancock proves that point I guess.  He’s in company with Lloyd George, John Profumo, John Major, David Mellor, John Prescott and many others. Resign? Yes, he should have resigned immediately instead of prevaricating. He was a distraction. But is no more. Let’s move on and regain a sense of perspective.

I read this misquote from Mark Twain in Patrick Kidd’s piece in the Times (most of Mark Twain’s sayings are made up apparently) that politicians were like nappies. They should be changed frequently and for the same reason.

Our perspective on one big issue has been changed by Covid. Many people have got closer to nature, to birdsong and to the green of our country. The climate change agenda has moved on hugely over the past year or so.

But the big issues we now face are what our strategy should be post-Brexit. Surely not to act as playground bully or try to be master of the universe – because we’re not. We’re moderately important economically but it’s time we became the voice of reason and perspective not playing gunboat diplomacy in the Black Sea.

Restoring proper conversation, listening and thinking and being considered and courteous sits more happily than sabre rattling. Good relations with China, especially China and the EU, America and Russia are what we should be concentrating on. 

I’ve heard lots of nonsense over the past weeks from politicians who should know better. We have a bigger role to play than the Sun, Express or social media – what a pernicious force for mischief that is. Let’s be civilised, sensible, kind and try to gain a real sense of perspective.

HOW ABOUT SINGING FOR A CHANGE?

It’s odd how a tune you haven’t heard for decades suddenly leaps into your mind together with the lyrics. This happened to me last week. It was sung by Bing Crosby in a successful 1949 film called ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’.

“La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

We're busy doing nothing
Working the whole day through
Trying to find lots of things not to do
We're busy going nowhere
Isn't it just a crime
We'd like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time.”

The film based on a book by Mark Twain explores the clash and chemistry of two cultures 1500 years apart. In a way it’s a story of our times with that song an anthem to Covid and its effects. 

I’ve felt as though I was “busy going nowhere” recently. The Brexit negotiators on both sides of the table must have felt the same too.

News from around the world is a mixture of déjà vu (will I be allowed to use French words in 2021?) and aimlessness.

The virus has taken hold of parts of China – again- and airline crew have been instructed to wear nappies as the use of aeroplane loos is discouraged. Nice.

Germany, until recently a paragon, has such serious rises in infection that Christmas may be called off. Angela Merkel addressed the nation in tears begging increased caution as daily infection rates neared 20,000 and peaked last week at 23,000. 

Meanwhile California is in Covid crisis with three regions, San Joaquin Valley, Southern California, and Greater Sacramento under the Regional Stay at Home Order.

In Sweden their policy of relaxing restrictions and hoping for herd immunity, so appealing to many as they ate and drank cheerfully in restaurants, has bluntly failed.

Meanwhile the anti-vaccine movement is gaining strength in the UK and USA. In the UK one in six will not accept vaccination with a further one in six sitting on the fence.

Depressing news but leavened for me by a story of waiters in pubs in Britain where you can’t order drinks unless you are eating a main meal encouraging customers to leave food on their plate so they can order more drinks claiming, as the food congeals, “I haven’t finished yet”. 

But aimlessness met despair for me last week when once again Venice flooded. I am exceedingly fond of this city and everything about it apart from the acqua alta, the seasonal tide rises which devastated Venice last year. The controversial flood defence, the 78 mobile barriers of the ‘Mose Project’, have been used twice recently to good effect but weren’t in use on December 8th as stronger than expected winds and high water in rivers flowing into the lagoon created another flood in the city.

The aimless Venetian officials explained that no one had forecast it was going to be such a high tide, that raising the flood barriers was an extreme precaution as it disrupts shipping and – anyway – it takes 80 personnel and 48 hours to erect them. Bah humbug. I just don’t believe this. This is a classic case of being busy doing nothing. Venice deserves much better.

On a lighter note, Brighton has low rates of Covid infection and this has been maintained for some weeks. Infection amongst students, usually a high-risk group, is also low. There are no floods. The sun’s shining. Locally grown food is available and selling well. We are prepared for anything and though some of us might like to be unhappy “We never do have the time.”

“La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la”

1 + 1 = BANANA

I read a teasing piece about poor Diane Abbott this week. I find now as Labour party regimes change that I miss her good heartedness and her arithmetical loopiness. She once missed out some noughts in describing how much a proposed recruitment of police officers would cost annually allowing her interviewer to splutter:

“So you’re going to pay them just £300 a year each?!”

The piece I refer to said:

“Diane Abbott says she has symptoms of Covid eleventy eight.”

We are living in arithmetically lunatic times. Imperial College who’ve been in the forefront of mathematical modelling for Coronavirus, overruling the government experts and winning the  battle for data salience have come out with a variety of numbers.

Their estimates that really hit the headlines with a bang were 500,000 would die unless the strategy changed; then  20,000 would die if it did change and now that  2,000 might die adding that was because the strategy they’d urged was working.

Let’s put this into perspective. Annual deaths in the UK are some 550,000 of which some 17,000 on average are from ‘normal’ flu.

If the current catastrophe is less devastating than ‘normal’ flu by that margin why am I incarcerated, forced by fear to drink my wine supply as rapidly as I can. What a ghastly epitaph this would be: “He left most of the wine he had untouched. His last words ‘bring me a very large bottle of claret’ were unheeded as he was judged delirious.”

Delirious?  I was furious.

But arithmetical insanity reaches new depths when it comes to money. Our new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak (a winner if ever saw one) pulled off an astonishing coup in delivering a budget, an update a few days later and then a further two updates with numbers as I recall of borrowings from £12 billion to £200 billion to £500 billion to “Infinity billion”.

He was trumped by the American President a few days later with a two trillion dollar bail-out for America and a demand that the country got back to work by Easter.

Biden is still ahead in the polls but the results are volatile and Trump keeps on slipping closer or, more likely old Jo will slip behind. If he wins he’ll be 78 – I’m younger than that and regarded as “at risk” and if the truth be known probably gaga – “fetch me my claret nurse”.

Not to be outdone China will doubtless come up with a quadrillion bail-out next.

A quadrillion looks like this; 1,000,000,000,000,000

Yes guys it’s roll-over Saturday.

In the UK, for laudable reasons,  we are taking on unbelievable debt. But do we realise what follow?
Well someone soon  has to pay for all this, and that someone is you and me. On my shaky calculations (I’m in the Diane Abbott league arithmetically) we’ll need to find just over £23,000 per working person in the UK to pay that off.

Arithmetic? We are heading for capital ‘A’ austerity again. Capisci?

CARRY ON WORRYING

The funniest  film they never made would have been about hypochondria. I speak with great authority. Had there been a degree course in the topic when I went to University, many years ago, I should have certainly got a first, and for my piteous groaning, a straight alpha. Compared with many my health would be judged as pretty good but deep inside I know I am on the brink of some obscure ailment. And of course I also regard this as being quite funny too. I may be a hypochondriac but first of all I’m a comedian.

Since early this year I’ve had a wheezy cough and cold which has been disabling . As I’ve piteously groaned in bed taking to heart the medical advice that to recover I must rest and checking my temperature with a thermometer that is clearly under-reading,  I reflect on health.

A new coronavirus has hit Wuhan in China (some 800 km. west of Shanghai). It’s linked to Mers or Sars and there have been an estimated 1700 incidents and a few deaths.  I’m pretty certain this is a mild strain of what I’ve just had. I applaud my own courage and return to reading my latest copy of Undertakers Weekly.

Generally world health is improving dramatically. Recently I read that the average human temperature, which today is 37C, was probably 1.5C higher in 1800. As the planet warms, humans cool. This is probably because our immune systems are less frenetically warding off a host of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, measles and so on. Additionally our ancestors had inflammation in their bodies producing proteins called cytokines that ramped up the body's metabolic rate, thus generating heat.

Our temperature controlled lives, mostly at around 20c indoors, means we have less need to heat up which is yet another factor.

So Dickens, Keats, Shelley and the rest were “hot” and unwell most of their short lives. Dickens, that inveterate night walker, often covering 20-30 miles in a walk describes illness in a way with which we can identify. The description of Joe the Fat Boy in Pickwick papers has led to medical analysis up to 160 years later into narcolepsy. Being slightly unwell may not be a deterrent to creativity and success.  Byron at 36 found therapeutic bleeding weakened  him when he was ill, persisted and so died. But he got quite a lot done in his short life.

I’m feeling rather better already but I keep on recalling Mr Woodhouse the father of Emma, Jane Austen’s heroine, whom she described as a valetudinarian – the only time I’ve ever seen that word. It means a person who’s unduly anxious about their health.

C’est moi.

We’re  all getting healthier but also getting more anxious. About our weight, about our alcohol consumption, about our state of mind and  about newish causes of death – sepsis now exceeds cancer as a cause of death.  All I can advise is, if in doubt, rest. And stop worrying…….Goodnight. 

HOLD UP THAT GLASS AND THINK...

Small is going to win

I’m about to write a book together with entrepreneur Rachel Bell on entrepreneurship and start-ups. What I’ve learnt from the many interviews I’ve done is that small enterprising businesses are much more interesting than business behemoths. Well, you might say - we knew that, but what was less clear perhaps was the behemoths do brilliant process creation, impressive risk management, consistent production. We have never until recently had such efficiency. Cars that don’t break down. Do you remember how printers in offices were always failing? That’s history. We make things now that work time after time.

But out there in the sticks someone small is trying to create a better ice cream, an alcohol free beer with an alcohol, beery kick, an ad agency run by seasoned, empathetic professionals, a food company inventing in flight foods you’re going to enjoy and a lot of people with great apps and tech ideas to make our lives work better. Thousands of innovators making stuff that tastes disgusting until one day – oh rapture – their umpteenth recipe clicks and they create the best tasting vodka you’ve ever had.

I’ve seldom been more excited than I am now by a new generation of self-starters. 70% of university leavers want to start their own businesses now rather than join a graduate trainee scheme at Mars, IBM or Accenture. Freedom. Innovation. Disruption.

This is just one small step by man but (potentially) a giant leap for mankind. Suddenly now in 2019 enterprise and innovation are being unleashed.

Retail is dead; long live retail

Stand outside any outlet in the high street or shopping centre and ask yourself three questions:
- What’s it for?
- Who’s it for?
- Why is it performing like it is?

We are told there has been a dreadful downturn and that online trading is the reason why. A few years ago Justin King then MD of Sainsbury’s declared that out of town superstores were the answer; the high street is dead he said. Wrong Justin….think again. The cards are being dealt at random right now. Online is doing well, sure. But smaller, interesting stores are doing well too. Dull, drab and overpriced stores are (surprise, surprise) doing badly.

The quality/price axis has shifted and stores like Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, Iceland and the Co-op are doing relatively well. Homebase, Carpetright and long gone Toys-R-us are/were horrid places to shop. Waterstones has rediscovered its mojo whilst HMV lost theirs. Jarrold’s of Norwich is exciting. Debenhams is dull. And so on.

Walking through the Brighton Lanes where so many of the shops are independent and quirky is fun and inspiring. They are, to use the marketing cliché, “sexy”.

Don’t listen to the industry cynics. Retail is reforming, transforming and the bright, light and interesting outlets are doing OK. Contrast M&S with Zara and the M&S problem is sharply exposed by Zara’s lightness and colour.

Gadgets, gimmicks and gimmicks
 
2018 was the year when we realised the monster tech companies were frail too. Will Facebook actually be around in 5 years? Will Google? Will Tesla? Will Apple? Facebook in particular is floundering and demonstrating the kind of moral incompetence an Enron or Carillion did in their day. Mark Zuckerberg is going through his own “memento mori” moment.

But the stream of inventiveness from the extremes of silly, funny and incredibly useful is growing not only in silicone valley but all over the world. Check out the Didi Chuxing Technology Co. In 2018 it became the second biggest start-up company in the world  having taken over Uber China and raised $4 billion in a round of funding. Its market capitalisation is currently $56 billion with over 100 investors. Didi is just six years old.

The good news is the US tech hegemony is beginning to fracture. Change is happening everywhere. Even to Amazon. “Alexa what sort of Christmas did Amazon have? Alexa. Alexa!” Alexa crashed over Christmas because its servers were overloaded.

I promised not to indulge in prophecies  but here’s one.  Category killer Toys R Us was global leader in toys and baby merchandise in the 1980s . Today it’s dead. Everything is cyclical. Watch this space.

The final part will follow around 10am gmt tomorrow...

THE OUTSOURCING MYTH

For years MBAs have been preaching the virtues of outsourcing. But the Asian temptress has started getting a bit expensive with wages going up currently in China by well over 20% a year.

Alix Partners, the global consulting firm, said in the Economist in March that if China's currency and shipping costs were to rise by 5% annually and wages were to go up by 30% a year, by 2015 it would be just as cheap to make things in North America as to make them in China and ship them there.

Trouble is the jobs and skills have been largely turned off in the States as not needed.

They will be soon.

But this week I saw some good news from Stoke-on-Trent. Burleigh Pottery is alive and well at last and across Staffordshire, pottery businesses are beginning to revive. Businesses like Emma Bridgewater whose owner laments the outsourcing trend which led to losing touch with buyers, customers and quality control.

A few years ago I was talking to a Chinese apparatchik from Sichuan who confessed that Chinese quality was a problem. He said workers set off focused but then got bored and standards slipped. In fact in China the trick has been increasingly to invest in state of the art machinery not skilled labour and this by definition levels the cost playing field. But the potential plus that manufacturing here has is the existence still of some skilled workers.

Look at the automotive business in the UK. Look especially at the triumph at Jaguar given proper levels of investment in plant.

The flight from manufacture came in part from a generation of graduates and MBAs who preferred spread sheets to factories and who, quite simply didn’t want to get their hands dirty. The ideology went rather further than that. Provenance of manufacturer was judged unimportant or an issue for marketing to solve. Why should champagne come from Epernay (or even from France) or whisky from Scotland or our organic food from Britain or anything from here apart from apps and computer games?

It may very seductive to hear our future lies in the knowledge economy and that farming, manufacture and added-value-stuff are redundant to our needs but it isn’t true.

The moment of truth is approaching.

Making stuff matters and where it’s made matters too.

Alfred Brown makers of worsted cloth from Leeds are more and more visible in M&S and Charles Tyrwhitt.

From Brown to Bridgewater Britain is changing.

DISCONTENT, LOWERING CLOUDS AND STERN ALARUMS

It was winter that did for Jim Callahan’s government in 1979 and now it’s this winter that’s putting a spoke into GB Limited.

We’re told that the people are disgusted appalled and sickened by the fat cat pay packets and bonuses. We’re also told that top executives at Davos are genuinely very angry about all this and that bankers can’t work in the current populist climate in Britain. But as Dave our leader said once “calm down dears, calm down”.

What made America great and is making India and China great now is the ability of anyone to get rich by doing well. So we too should applaud the success of a Dyson, Sorrell or Foster - and their wealth.   What equally we should be cross about is tax avoidance and pay rises just for being in a big job.  But in the end the levels of pay have to be left to shareholders and remuneration committees.

I  personally think some people earn too much and some too little.  Tube Drivers (although the word “driver” is a little extravagant, perhaps, now everything’s controlled by computer they tell me) earn £52,000 a year. But they’ll say people Stephen Hester like earn 20 times as much. But let’s start talking not about what we do and what we earn but how well we do what we do. Let’s talk about winning and not whinging - all of us.

Bankers are a special case because as Rod Liddle observed just as people who run sweet shops sample a lot of their wares and get fat so bankers run money shops and get rich on the stock. And now finding themselves a bit unpopular they and top businessmen are talking about moving away.

But where will they go if they flounce off abroad?

Zurich, Paris (obviously not Paris), Bonn, Monaco, Guernsey, Luxembourg?

Are you crazy? London has the buzz, the shops, the theatre, opera houses, art galleries, restaurants, schools, nice houses, civilisation and so on. London inspires. The other places are retirement homes in contrast whilst London rocks. So they’ll stay. Their wives will make them.

But the issue should be how “together” (Messrs Cameron, Osborn and Clegg) do we create a climate for winning, for growth, for wealth, for jobs and for talent?  Stop pandering to a misguided crusade for business-bashing. Get the over-paid to recognise they’ve looked greedy and get them to show humility.

Calm everyone down.

Most of all whatever else, have the courage to do what it takes to make Britain the best country in the world to live and in which to do business. And I mean “whatever it takes.”

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

What the Leveson hearing should be mentioning is not just the hacking which is very naughty but the pall of gloom journalists have been trained to exude as this is criminal. Like Death Eaters they are none of them capable of raising a smile or a flicker of joy. But isn’t joy for chic flicks or romantic novels? Did any of the great military commanders of history feel joy? Isn’t rage, ambition and determination what matters? Would Churchill have talked about joy? (Actually yes.) That simple little word most brilliantly distinguishes the truly human from the oppressed or cynical. When Juliet says “I joy in thee” in Romeo and Juliet she reaches a higher plane by far than love or fancy; a simple unfettered emotion of unconditional delight. CS Lewis’ Autobiography of his early years is called “Surprised by Joy” which vividly describes the emotions of children on their voyages of discovery. Joy is what’s missing in most jobs, most cities, most countries and most people. Without joy we shall never find the capacity to create and unite. Our joy in living should be like the emotions unleashed by the feel-good movies of the 80’s and 90’s (Pretty Woman, Four Weddings and so on). Joy like oil keeps human machinery working. I was talking to Jason Brooks, an Associate of Leaders Quest, who identified China’s need to discover joy as well as success. Joy would engage their souls not just their minds. I heard this on Radio 4 on Saturday. Jo Wilding created something called Circus2Iraq and took her troupe of clowns to occupied Iraq to bring joy to children. A similar group has gone now to Palestine and Beirut. Her book is called “Don’t Shoot the Clowns”.

That is active joy, an inspirational strategy to change (for a while) the way people see and think about things. They made play of it which was apparently a let-down but who needs a play when the real thing is so great? My own joy was in hearing the story. Initiatives like Carmel McConnel’s Magic Breakfast (providing breakfast at schools for children in poverty), The Big Lunch - getting communities to get together and have lunches of friendship and joy and the Clowns in the Middle East are creative ways of promoting the legitimacy of unalloyed joy. A lot of reasons to be cheerful. www.colourfulthinkers.com

WHAT A WASTE...

Seamus Smyth is one of the brightest people I know. He used to work for Shell. Now he thinks a lot and is a kind of intellectual social entrepreneur. He also has very long hair which I miss in the deep thinkers of today who tend to favour baldness. He said this when I asked him what 2011 and beyond held in store:

“The mission to give people more of what they actually want and need, rather than what people make will intensify to a degree that we’ve never seen before as WASTE will become the world’s common enemy.”

I recalled seeing a piece in Fast Company about the iPad wars noting that as many as 80 tablet devices were debuting at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Seamus is right. Over in China, Taiwan or Japan factories employing thousands of people are working away, trying to keep busy and screaming at their sales forces to sell more. What they make is irrelevant. It’s sheer and utter madness.

The voice of marketing is being deafened by the sound of production making “stuff” – most of it not quite what people want. The God “growth” is what fills the minds of City analysts and the media. So Tesco must be trembling in shame for its appalling  1% yoy decline  for quarter 4 2010  whilst Sainsbury is a brilliant A* student because of its +3% growth. Please.

We are wasting a lot of things right now:
·    Resources - the intelligence to rein in on making the unsellable
·    Space - the unneeded buildings we could flatten and turn into parks
·    Our talent - the bright young minds that will remain unemployed and losing the will to think when we could be coaching them into being thoughtful citizens of the new world
·    Day to day waste - all manner of activities in big companies that use up time and money to no good effect (getting people at the coal face of any business to remove waste would save billions and  they would be savings not cuts)
·    Hubristic plans - expenditure on big and irrelevant capital projects – like the high speed train link. It takes 2 hours Euston to Liverpool by train. Who needs faster than that?

The penalty of the quest for economic growth is extravagance and waste. In a so-called age of austerity it’s a brilliant moment to reduce what you do that has no obvious beneficial effect and to spend a bit more time thinking.

Seamus is right. Waste is the common enemy.

THE NEW NATIONS

Brazil, Russia, India, China South Africa. A disturbing slowdown in growth for China and India to only + 5% to + 6% in 2009. Life is going to harden for them.

Watch out for the power of the emancipated new middle class. The web is shaking China as we speak because some 300,000 web users are breaking ranks, speaking about poisoned milk, bureaucracy and other stuff. And the authorities don’t like it.

Try to learn as much as you can and visit one or more if this is possible. If not devour the papers and books on these nations. They are the future.

Next - 'New America'

http://www.richardhall.biz/