SPRING IS SPRUNG, THE GRASS IS RIZ....

The current lockdown is creating problems. Government, and through them the police, have powers not seen since the Second World War. Sometimes this goes awry as when a police constable, surely not destined for early promotion, was recorded in York rebuking people for sitting in their own front garden and when park benches have been taped up.

My own recent experience in our private, communal garden has thrown up two, differing views. Most stridently, the need to rigorously enforce government guidance, limit the time people can spend outside and restrict the extent of children playing.

Less stridently but just as insistently the need to apply common sense, respect for one another and to enjoy the weather and the beauty of Spring. Freedom first. Control second.

Everyone I know has applied social distancing, social isolation and caution. What’s impressed me most  is the speed with which a large number of retailers have adapted their businesses to home delivery services.
Points of view from Mark Ritson, a former professor of marketing and a writer for Marketing  Week, are usually insightful and useful. He consistently and punishingly puts social media in its place. He praises well-thought-through brand strategy. His weakness is he swears so much. Saying fuck a lot isn’t very professorial.

He’s written recently to say nothing will f**** ** change after coronavirus ends. We shall revert  – as ever –  “back to normal.” This is not an academic reflection it’s a self- opinionated thinker swotting a fly. Mark is the Nigel Farage of business thinking. Sometimes right, often wrong, always abrasive. But things will change – not for everyone, obviously -  but enough to create a seismic trend to society. Here are a few possibilities:
- The economy – the worst recession since 1930. Some say a “scale disaster.”
- Our attitude to the environment. A big bonus.
- Our shopping habits.
- Commuting behaviour and attitudes to working from home.

- A boom in start-up businesses (partly because of unemployment increases.)
- More businesses thinking the unthinkable and pivoting.
- Less marketing or as it’s now described “colouring in” (sorry again Mark).

I was recently asked if I thought the surprising surge in the FTSE might be caused by markets anticipating a postponement or cancellation of Brexit.

I said that I thought Brexit was irrelevant but, more importantly, so increasingly  was the EU. Rich and relatively Covid-free Germany is proving intransigent to the pleas from Italy, Spain and – increasingly – France to help their neighbours. As a one-time ‘remainer’ and Europhile I’m sad to see this. Unless the rich can help their struggling partners and act like part of  a  ‘Union’ the EU seems rather pointless.

Do I sound grumpy?

Tom Stoppard noted that social distancing legitimised the way he always wanted to live. Part of me agrees with that. But it’s been such a gorgeous Spring I’ve forgotten how awful it must be living in a city.

And isn’t Spring amazing?

It’s dem birdies.

A PLEA FOR RECOGNISING REAL TREASURE

I am not one for nostalgia. The allure of steam trains, pipe smoking and warm beer seems to me massively overrated. UKIP may look fondly backwards but hankering for the past doesn’t create a useful platform for developing the future. Indeed almost everything about the present seems to me a massive improvement - from restaurants to transport to houses everything has simply got cleaner, cheaper and more efficient.

But three times this week I felt a little twitch of affection for long lasting treasures which were they not here we’d be really sorry.

The BBC is obvious enough but the way this organisation is currently reinventing itself is astounding. Dr Who was always good but now it’s reaching Shakespearian levels, similarly Sherlock which has an intellectual power and narrative drive we see seldom except in Stoppard.

And it stretches to C-Beebies - in my days the poncy-voiced lady said accusingly “are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”. She terrified me. Even John Humphrys has become human on the Today Programme as Cherry Owen in Under Milk Wood asking Mrs Cherry Owen (played by Cerys Matthews) to “give us a kiss”. This, after being called a “silly sausage “by Johnny Rotten in an interview. What fun. What a brilliant apostle for change “Auntie” has become.

And then the Co-op dubbed a joke company following the escapades of the Reverend Flowers and the departure of top management. But you know something? Following the Tesco story and the way the city is walking all over our grocers something stands out. The Co-op may be flawed and foolish but at least it’s authentic in its foolishness. It’s like the Archers full of humanity not behaving like a crooked MBA. Its latest advertising for its bank (proof its feet are made of damp clay) - “ethics, values and a tattoo parlour” is dreadful.

Beware a person who says “...trust me. I’m honest”. But beware a London ad agency for leading the good old Co-op down the smooth ad campaign route. The Co-op is authentic, real, has values and some great products. Focus on the facts and the stories but not in glossy ads. The Co-op is not nor should ever be glossy. But I still it love it warts and all.

And finally people: the diversity I recently saw in Shoreditch which more resembled New York than the London of cosy Soho. Or the laconic conversation I had in a Brighton Lidl about the weather with a quite large lady whose basket seemed alarmingly full of pies.

The Treasury has confirmed what we lovers of immigration have always known (immigration, by the way, creates what has always made the country we live in what it is- a brilliant mish-mash of talent, diversity and resourcefulness.) The Treasury news is this: immigrants bring a net £20 billion to the economy.

£20,000,000, 000 - thank you.

The BBC, the Co-op and our people - human, imperfect and brilliant. We are so lucky.