IS IT MAYDAY, LACKADAY, OR HAPPY DAYS?

 Is it Mayday, Lackaday or Happy Days?

Things aren’t going so well in the UK.

We’re getting close to panic which would mean crying “mayday.” We’d prefer to be regretting where we are but putting up with it which would be “lackaday.” But “happy days” are some time in the future I’m afraid.

It’s become something that’s up to us to deal with – you and me - in the absence of the prospect of any kind of strategic leadership from the embattled government and hesitant opposition. We’re in, as I’d call it, a “leadershit crisis”. 

So what can we do? Get angry, get involved, make a noise, talk to other people about it, meet and quiz our MPs, but, most of all, conduct our businesses and affairs in a much more resolute and positive way. Finally try to ignore all the media because with their short termism and over reaction they get in the way of progress.

Here are my ten personal strategies to consider in making us feel a little better:

1. Resilience. We need to build our resilience to setbacks. In retrospect the reactions to Covid were excusable as nobody quite knew what we were dealing with. But the lockdowns have had an irreparably negative impact on our behaviour and our response to risk. We seem to try to avoid it totally instead of trying to understand it and manage it. We cannot thrive in a “cottonwool” world. But that’s what we created between 2000 and 2022. We simply  mustn’t do that again.

               

2. Optimism and positive thinking. By all means let’s be optimistic. Being upbeat is good, but we shouldn’t get drunk on optimism. Boris Johnson had only one gear which was “boosterism” and self-promotion.  As PM it didn’t work, couldn’t work and he became a shameful figure. He’s given optimism a bad name.  Tough but positive thinking is a more acceptable  way of describing optimism right now.

                  

3. Realism. The journalist Matthew Parris is often wise and his plea that we squarely face up to painful truths about taboo subjects like the NHS, are words of wisdom. We  can still be positive in the face of danger (apart from many politicians who seem terrified of the whips, number 10 and losing votes). Getting to the truth, painful or otherwise, is always our strongest way of solving problems. 

                  

4. “The people” can be wrong. They were wrong in 1933 in Germany and in the UK in 2016.  The lesson of Brexit was assuming a democratic vote was stronger than truth. Too many of us accepted the will of the people ahead of the lies they were fed. Worse - the issue was too serious for a weak Prime minister to rebut so he didn’t fight the nonsense. We’ve suffered deservedly. But being intelligent and pragmatic we can resolve the issue. Being smarter economic partners of Europe would be a sensible start to recovery despite the crossness that would get from ardent Brexiteers.

            

5.  It isn’t easy. Spurn people who offer what I call “superglue solutions,” solutions that work instantly and apparently permanently. When anyone says “it’s very simple, quick and easy to fix” disregard them. My wife says I used to say this a lot. No more. Life is just a little bit too complex now as Ms. Truss discovered to her (and our) cost.

  

6. Momentum is vital. If you’re in business try to create momentum and a sense of movement, news and action for your brand and your company. If you aren’t in business just refuse to get stuck in a rut. In business, momentum is something the big “supertanker” businesses find hard to create. So beware if you’re a big “supertanker” brand or market leader. Watch out for competitive, nimble destroyers, small and agile craft who have less to lose and lots to gain. 

            

7. Get to work. I’m currently reading more about our mental health than productivity. Yes, of course mental health matters but so too does productivity. Since lockdowns my sense is we’ve become just a bit lazy. After Covid the people  who were economically inactive grew significantly, many of whom were unlikely to work again. Many of these had long term heath issues but many didn’t. Surely we must all improve our work ethic to make ourselves more successful.  

              

8. Your customers – love them. The customers you have or have recently gained are more precious than those you hope to get. Customer loyalty is a prize too many businesses disregard (to their cost). Loyal customers need special attention especially when, as it is now, the going is tough for them - as well as you. Don’t relax your love, care and attention for them. They need you, not just your products. The harder you try to build your relationship with them the more of them you’ll keep. On a more personal level don’t take anyone for granted – your spouse, your relatives or your friends. It’s time to refresh friendships.

                

9. Be better not wacky. We hear a lot about the need for innovation nowadays, probably too much talk and not enough action given our collective, dismal track record in investment. But continuous improvement (this is the Japanese concept of Kaizen which stands for continuous improvement through evolution not just innovation) is what we really need. Breakthrough innovation is unusual and often resembles a solution seeking a problem rather than vice versa. Let’s focus on getting better not just getting interestingly different. After all “New Improved” has always been a compelling sales claim.

10. Make a resolution. 2023 should be our year for breaking the insidious grip of “doom-loop thinkers” with our own tough, positive thinking – “pragmatic optimism” if you like to call it that. It’s not the year to retrench, slow down or seem weak. One of the long term effects of Covid has been to undermine our ambition, make us lose our nerve and leave it to opportunists to make money. Happy Days will come, possibly by 2024 if we manage to be resolute, invest in the future and have self-belief in what we do. And remember pragmatic optimism. Pessimists just hate it. But so do competitors. On the other hand those close to you at work or at home should love it. 

               

         Happy New Year and remember hard work works.

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...

HOLD UP THAT GLASS AND THINK...

Is the glass half full, half empty, completely empty or broken? As an irredeemable optimist who always looks on the bright side of life I really haven’t known where to look for the first time ever. Uncertainty is a malevolent state of being and right now I’m not even sure there is a glass. We should probably read Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ a brilliant satire on the flaws of optimism where he rousingly refutes Leibniz’s thesis that all is for the best in all possible worlds.

It isn’t and this is not the best of times. However all is not lost. So many good things have happened in 2018 and just focusing on the constipation and squalor of politics is short-sighted. Here’s my take on what 2019 might look like. These are not predictions so much as observations about change. So let’s lift our heads up and feel good.

The smell of war (or is it just fireworks?)

There’s a whiff of cordite in the air. It must have been like this in 1913 when the irritability built up and the lack of certainty made people yearn for something to clear the air. Rupert Brooke in his poem ‘Peace’ put it like this:
“With ….. clear eye, and sharpened power, 
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, 
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary”

“Old and cold and weary” describes how many people feel right now. But there’s an increasing view that what’s been going on is just a political story “told by an idiot full of sound and fury and signifying nothing”.  (Shakespeare, Macbeth)

Grumpiness is in our DNA. In 1641 in Britain a Civil War started which we are beginning to realise never quite finished. When people stop debating and sharing ideas they usually start punching each other. This is when any sense of strategic intent or forward planning disappears. As ex-heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson put it:

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

But this awkward, argumentative country usually gets on with it and plays the cards its been dealt mostly in harmony even if it’s uncomfortable harmony.  What’s going on right now is a firework display not the battle of Ypres.

Only one cheer for democracy

EM Forster wrote a book called “Two Cheers for Democracy" in 1951 – that’s a long time ago but some ideas don’t change. In it he questions the hierarchy of power and says  - “I believe in aristocracy - not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky.” I sense that a democracy that brings us Donald Trump and Brexit may get only one cheer. We accept as an act of faith that democracy is the only good form of government. And here’s the good news - soon there’ll be a 46th President of the USA who will have been “in power” for either 4 or 8 years. Robert Mugabe was President of Zimbabwe for 40 years. That’s why democracy works. Half the world has been democratised and has the ability to oust its leaders. Maybe we’ll look back on this decade as one where the people voted irrationally just to prove they could.

Part 2 will follow around 10am gmt tomorrow...

GET OVER IT - IT'S JUST A BIT CHILLY

I don’t know if you ever saw “The Day After Tomorrow” a 2004 film about a superstorm that engulfed the Northern Hemisphere in a second ice age.  North America is evacuated  and its population flees south to Mexico which, in delicious irony, closes its borders. Apart from Dennis Quaid the cast is pretty well unknown and looks convincingly chilly…that’s a post- apocalyptic New York below.

I was gripped by the plausibility of the horror when I saw it…at least the first part… as the storm did its work.

Last week I thought about the film again as the Siberian weather swept across Britain in what seemed like a kind of divine punishment for prevarication on Brexit. There was a photograph of the snow clouds hitting London that CGI couldn’t have bettered.

My first pragmatic reactions to all the fuss was to behave like Dennis Quaid – called Jack Hall in the film – a great name for a hero – and get out and teach the beast a lesson.

Life had to go on as usual. But then I slipped on black ice near the house and in a graceless pratfall landed on my head on the tarmac. A real banana skin moment when your life flashes before you accompanied by a symphony of bad language. I limped home to sympathy and a ban on going out until the ice had gone.

So life has slowed down and I’ve been thinking about how much better we’ve got at dealing with disaster. There’s a myth that amongst we overly self-critical  Brits that we can’t cope with a bit of “weather”. Just go to Germany or America when the weather turns nasty. They stay at home apart from the odd intrepid skier. Their world stops. I’ve been impressed by our weather forecasts , by the frequency of updates and by how hard the transport system has tried to keep up with the game.

Maybe we should all take stock.

We are such a miserable bunch sometimes. Yet we are one of the most resourceful and independently minded countries in the world. Let’s use this climatic hiatus to plan what our business will do that’s amazing this summer. Or what painting, poem or novel we’re going to create.

The prospects for tomorrow are so amazing that my head hurts…or maybe that’s just the tarmac speaking to me.

Storm Emma  is on the way and all I can think about is that irritating minx Jane Austen’s heroine Emma Woodhouse whose sickly father Mr Woodhouse is one of my favourite, ghastly, self-obsessed characters in literature. His attitude to alcohol is especially irksome:

“… what say you to half a glass of wine? A small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you."

But there isn’t anything that weather can throw at us – we Jack Halls – that we can’t deal with – after all this is just a bit chilly. Nothing to worry about.

2018 AND THE FUTURE - SOME THOUGHTS

I quoted Sam Goldwyn recently who said it was difficult to predict…especially the future. So only a brave man (or a fool) would try but here goes anyway.

Coping with change

Everything around us is in flux yet just pause for a moment. Wasn’t this Christmas quite like last Christmas? Wasn’t it mostly more of the same? For sure 9 year olds got laptops when they used to get a Space Hopper but 3 year old girls are still playing with Sylvanian Families which was launched in Japan in 1985 - 32 years ago.

In the midst of chaos we are sometimes prone to exaggerate the speed and scale of change. Look at all the trends below and then aim off a bit - change does not always mean revolution. Things take longer to register than we sometimes think. Management thinking about first-mover advantage is usually exaggerated. Watch and wait is good advice. Change is normal but the momentum that leads to radical change takes time.  

Where and how we shop

2017 is already being described as the most chaotically difficult time on the High Street for a decade with early and significant price cuts. Debenhams, House of Frazer, Curry’s and Argos are cutting deep to avoid drowning.

Online will continue to grow but I do not believe the admittedly overcrowded high street is finished yet. Look at the performance of those who continue to give a magical shopping experience. As time passes expect to see traffic-free shopping streets full of street theatre and pop-up shops. So long as shopping is exciting people will go out to do it and enjoy it; as Harry Selfridge said:  “Excite the mind, and the hand will reach for the pocket.” Yet Amazon continues (rightly) to terrify all retailers by their remorseless progress and stunning logistics. Many old fashioned retailers are history but online is not the only future. Above all remember the rise and fall of e-books.

How we get around

Every time I see a car park I reflect I’m looking at the past. I know very few people who now drive in London. With buses, the underground and over-ground so frequent and comfortable why would you drive? There are plans to make the western side of Oxford Street pedestrian only in 2018. And by 2020 the whole street west and east will be car-free.

Cheap-to-hire bikes will grow in availability whilst cars will diminish as will speed limits. Driverless cars are a brilliant idea that depends for success on being tested in a fully driverless-car town. Until then they are on the drawing board. They are as much the immediate future as Sinclair’s C5 was. But the demise of the internal combustion engine is much closer than we thought. Do not buy a new car unless it’s a Tesla or a hybrid. Or buy second hand saving depreciation and the carbon that goes into a new one.

What we experience most keenly

Live shows are what turn us on whether it’s football, a top comedian, singer, band or a theatrical show. And they’re getting better. From ‘Hamilton’ to ‘Scrooge’ the excitement is growing. And there’s evidence of remarkable price resilience. Better to pay £150 for something amazing than £50 for something that’s merely good. And good heavens! The idea of saving up for a great experience is actually catching on.

 

Our grandchildren and parents went to ‘Lapland, Windsor’ and gave us rapturous feedback. Expensive but the magic was magical and memorable. Put your money into life-changing experiencing

Where and what we eat

As you may know I live in the food start-up capital of Britain (and maybe Europe.) Name a type of food or provenance of food and you’ll find it in Brighton. Our appetites are changing faster than one could have imagined. We want less sugar, less salt and our nirvana is brilliantly-tasting-healthy-food. Traditionalists are lamenting the three course simplicity of the past as we turn to tasting menus, small plates with small matching-wine glass accompaniments.

That’s what the wealthier do. Meanwhile Aldi and Lidl - now seen as value-food-markets not down- and-dirty-discounters - through a combination of great quality and price are eating the rest of the food retail market.

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The food market as a whole is undergoing transformation. If brands don’t innovate they die. No one is safe. Nespresso until recently ruled supreme but when their pod patent ran out players like Taylors of Harrogate with better tasting coffee took over. Reviving the dying can happen. Kellogg’s, for one, is a brand transformed. “New Improved” is the mantra of survival in fmcg.  Change is good. Embrace it.

Where we keep our money

As the UK’s financial sector has grown and become the most successful in the world, dwarfing Continental Europe’s, we can be sure the EU membership will be united in opposition to it. Only when it’s been drastically weakened in Brexit negotiations will we realise what we’ve lost. Meanwhile at home 11.5 million of those who are over 65 or small retailers, more used to using their local bank will find them, like the Dodo, a thing of the past as the banks close local branches. Meanwhile most of us will watch the switchback performance of Bitcoin with utter bewilderment. The banks as we knew them are in the past as is cash. Life is simpler for us this way they say.

Technology and those new brains

As technological marvels emerge with increasingly magical innovative ideas something has changed. Time travel - “yeah, yeah….invisibility cloaks - been there, seen that…” Techno-boredom is our current state. Especially when so much of it does, admittedly cleverly, what old solutions did cheaper and nearly as well…noise reducing headphones versus ear muffs…the former win on sex appeal rather than practicality.

Technology will suffer from being too clever for its own good. As for AI - watch this space…don’t assume it’s going to replace human resourcefulness yet. Companies will start to look very hard at their inflating technology budgets. The rest of us will start resisting new NOT improved tech.

Medical breakthroughs will dominate the news

But technology is transforming medical science. The speed of development in potential breakthroughs in the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Leukaemia and more, have filled and will continue to fill the news. The use of augmented reality in the treatment of eyes and ears are transforming prospects for many and the development of a drug called Erenumab could change the lives of migraine sufferers.

Virtually all medical conditions are benefitting (and sooner than we could imagine) from the momentum that technological advances have brought.

Where we live and how we’ll do it

Youth is showing us how. Rent, don’t buy; keep it simple with minimalist furnishing. Small open plan empty living spaces; small dark, quiet bedrooms; nice, generous bathrooms; fewer possessions; fewer clothes but good brands; your top 50 books not more (all paperback); good technology (proven not high tech); great mattresses; a big table to sit around, graze and talk. The big suburban mansions are for the hedge fund dinosaurs. Life is for living, friends, sharing and comfort.

And it’s a base not a permanent place. The world is where you live and learn, not your home.

Big and small are both beautiful - it’s the guys in the middle I worry about

In the business world the big will (for now) remain big, avaricious and bigger. 3G, Apple, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft will all grow until they trip and then their fall will be vast - think Yahoo, Enron, Woolworths, Medici Bank (1494), South Sea Company (1720), Lehman Brothers and worse.

In the meantime the small entrepreneurial geniuses will create, invent, disrupt and be bought by the big sharks or when disruptors become more creative. Interesting things will happen like (for instance) Airbnb applying their marketing to supporting new, bright sexy restaurants in all the cities in which they operate.

Whatever else don’t be flabby and middle sized. Middle of the road is where the road kill is. Small is still the most beautiful because this is where wealth, creativity and independence exist. But you need to be resilient, brave and hardworking to survive and thrive.

A desire for self-improvement

I keep on coming across young and not so young executives learning new skills and languages. Increasingly it’s specialist-skill that matters. An arts degree says nothing much - good to do - mind expanding for sure but an alpha plumber, brilliant tango teacher, extraordinarily successful exam coach, spectacular Pilates teacher, inspiring guitar teacher or the osteopath whom everyone recommends is worth a lot more in the long run. We no longer live in a world of intelligent careerist/generalists. There are no longer long-term careers as we knew them. Today we are constantly seeking new ways to learn new skills so we can improve our chances in life.

But if we can’t carry on learning and keeping ahead of change we’ll struggle. So learn something new in 2018.

The world of work

So a job for life, a career and life skills are all outmoded. Work is increasingly based on projects, short term contracts, interim assignments and the need for flexibility. For the more mobile young who are happy to up-sticks and fly to Mexico and then Singapore for specific jobs this is fine. We are creating teams of people like the skilled professionals on film crews who coalesce as a team on making a film and are unemployed again when it wraps.  In today’s world you’d better be good and be known for just how good you are…average is not going to be good enough.

Today we are all mercenaries. And that’s fine. Just look for the opportunities around the world.

The media and the visible persuaders

There used to be just two heavyweights - BBC and ITV. Now we have Amazon, Netflix, Sky, BT and shortly Facebook and Google. People are watching more TV not less because the stuff on TV is so riveting. But old favourites like Crocodile Dundee (a 1980 film) still work - it topped the 2017 Christmas ratings with a 21 million viewership. Advertising - to one who once worked in it - seems as rich as ever in experiment and humour but without those jokes and one liners of the past. We are watching a battle of the Titans for talent and creativity, especially in writing. Now the great scripts are going to the small not the big screen; tough days in Hollywood; tough luck for them not seeing it coming.

 

And as Rhett Butler said in ‘Gone with the Wind’ (on TV over Christmas): “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn”…just so long as the content keeps on improving.

Big, bad government

Democracy has become a tainted concept when the liberal elite discover it’s producing such bizarre and unexpected results. Like Trump, Brexit, the Five-Star-Movement in Italy, Sebastian Kurtz in Austria and so on and so on. We, in the UK, may soon have a Marxist leaning government. Bad news for those who’ve seen what Marxism has achieved in Venezuela or, closer to home, in Dieppe. Government virtually everywhere (to use those chilling words used often at school) has been “disappointing”. But the point of democracy is that we all have a voice. And our voice can change things. Philip Collins in the Times said: “At the end of an uninspiring year, British politics is broken”. But by using our voice we can repair it.

  

Sometimes we seem too prone to use our voice to try something new just for a change. But as all is not well we need to create a new centre of reasonableness….and good manners.

It’s our world to improve and probably won’t but (more hopefully) will…

We are so lucky. We are able to do unheard-of things - medical, in travel and mind-changingly experiential stuff; we have a wealth of food, drink and entertainment. We are (relatively) wealthy and getting wealthier over time. The two most restricting purchases in the past - houses and cars - are things we don’t really need to possess. We have the freedom of the world to explore and enjoy (today a return flight to New York from Gatwick on Norwegian cost only £314).  Everyone has talent. Focus on yours and go for it, improve, learn and change to stay ahead. Be optimistic and whatever you do use your vote. Democracy is empty if you don’t. And here are some words of encouragement from Emma Duncan Editor of 1843 magazine: “Amid the gloom over Brexit disputes and sex scandals we forget how tolerant, safe and prosperous our country is.”

The sun is rising on a New Year. Enjoy it.

BACK TO SCHOOL

For many of us, sixteen of the first twenty years of our life are defined by Michaelmas, Easter and Summer terms. And so it is that around this time of year the smell of autumn - Keats’ “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” and back to school paraphernalia fill all our minds.

The three phases for me in a work schedule work are :-

• Back to school - renewal, new classes, new teachers, a new syllabus and above all change. In that remorseless run up to Christmas the agenda for change is omnipresent.
• New Year  resolutions - and even if we aren’t exactly wedded to these the need to self- appraise and set goals burns in our souls as the skirl of New Year bagpipes fades away
• Spring clean - this happens as the first sounds of woodpeckers and doves fill our ears in May; time to clear out, renew and simplify

But it wasn’t until I went to America in their fall and realised what a big and colourful story it was as trees turned golden, red, orange and sienna.

As the process of new school discovery started over the last week that familiar feeling of looking at a clean sheet of paper struck me.

One of my grandsons, the elder one aged 8 described the pressure of being in year 4. He made it sound like Finals Year at University as he reflected in tones far older than his years how it was going with his new form teacher.

“She said she’s going to make sure we learn in every available second. We used to play more now it’s maths, maths and more maths. I’m feeling tired and a bit depressed.” 

Shades of Mrs Trunchbull.

I felt tired listening to it. When I was 8 we played a lot. I wrote stories about journeys to Canada where I fought off Grizzly Bears and ate tomato sandwiches. We sang songs, went on nature walks and I wondered if I’d get to see Isobel Black’s knickers at playtime. I remember a complete lack of stress although there was an underlying  terror that one would get caned for some inadvertent misdemeanour.

Matthew Arnold in his poem the Scholar Gypsy captured then, in 1853, what I think is truer today, 160 years later:

“O born in days when wits were fresh and clear
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames
Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims”

In the long ride to Christmas which I see has already been well trailed - my wife is buying Christmas cards already -  I worry that I am having more fun than my grandsons and great nieces who seem tyrannised by SATS and homework.

I love the call to action but doesn’t  laughter,  frivolity and dance have a place too?

I recall my mother once grimly saying “life is real and life is earnest”. She was way ahead of her time.

JOHN HUMPHREYS - YOU'RE FIRED

This is about laying the ghost of John Humphreys, icon of negativism and whingeing, a born-again Victor Meldrew, the dreary voice of constant dissatisfaction. Occasionally though, just occasionally, a letter of complaint cheers one up. Here’s an extract of one written to NTL – it went on in similar vein for pages:-

“British Telecom – w*****s though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.”

It’s been the endless quest of the miserable, negative and of course the media to prove how limitlessly inadequate we in the UK are. Take the weather for example? Useless, hopeless, shameful compared with the continent. Hmmm!!

Here’s a letter from a Dutch lady in Tuesday’s Times describing her recent drive to Britain:

“The roads were appalling in Holland, pretty bad in Belgium- particularly the enormous potholes on the motorway – and not much better in France….. (arriving in Britain) I was pleasantly surprised to have a smooth journey on three motorways without a lane closure in sight. On the other hand my eldest son is stuck in a motel in Germany as conditions are impossible on the autobahn, and my husband spent four hours travelling 20 miles as the Dutch trains went, once again, into meltdown.”

A very Happy Christmas to everyone who thinks on balance everything in Britain is in pretty good nick from the NHS to the gritting system to the academic achievements of our young people to attitudes to work, life, family and friends. And a particularly stupendous New Year to all those actually looking forward to 2011.

To the rest of you and to you John Humphreys, especially, bah humbug and though it grieves me to say it….good luck in that puss filled mire.