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.

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.”