HOW DO I HATE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

This is a misquotation of one of the greatest love poems ever by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:-

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

I’ve used it because the level of hatred that’s invaded our lives is peculiarly visceral not just here but in America too. There seems no middle position to be taken between Trump and Biden or Johnson and almost anyone. But where did well-mannered debate go? Down the plughole, I guess, with De Bono and his book “I am Right and You are Wrong,” which in the current climate should be retitled: “I am totally right and you are an utter scumbag.”

I had some hope restored to me when I saw that Save the Children had conducted a decent sized survey (with some 5,000 8-14 year old children) and that 78% had declared a desire to help the disadvantaged and do good. (Well of course they did.) The Junior Week Magazine turned this into a crusading slogan “It’s Cool to be Kind.”

Why can’t we think about and listen to what others say? Why can’t we be kind? Because, here’s rage: “there’s no point in listening; I know what you’re going to say and it’s garbage.” I once said that to an utter scumbag (sorry, to someone with whom I had a slight difference of opinion) but I’ve matured since then. I even listened carefully to Piers Morgan’s interview with Donald Trump on the recently launched Talk TV. Trump was not unimpressive but there was something missing. No empathy; to him no-one else matters; he knew he was right and anyone who disagreed with him was stupid. He was a grumpy know-all yet still  admired by a lot of Americans. 

He described saying to Putin that if Vladimir put a foot wrong he, Trump, had a very big button which he wouldn’t think twice about pressing . Allegedly Putin said “really?” and Trump said “Yes. Really”. It was just a strongman show.

I wanted to pursue briefly this strange world of disillusion, repulsion and hatred and how it influences behaviour. 

Social media has, of course, made it worse. There’s a new vocabulary of hatred spawned from that. We have trolling, ghosting, cancelling, gaslighting and hate-speech. We live in a tumultuous world of hyperbole. Agreement is “Hund p” (or 100%) never any reflective nuance. It’s hate or love. Yes or No. Never a hint of “maybe.”

This trend grew stronger with cantankerous interviewers on the BBC Today programme. I now listen to Asmir Mir and Stig Abell on Times Radio who are pleasant but somehow still seem to extract the truth. With a smile not a snarl. 

Here’s that Browning poem in full. I hope it proves an antidote to what, chances are, will be another bad-tempered week.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.” 

 

A BLACK AND WHITE WORLD? NO THANKS

When 10 year old tweets by debutant English cricketer Ollie Robinson were revealed it was disappointing. But when Tom Harrison head of the ECB said “it had zero tolerance of racism and sexism” it was awkward. Zero tolerance like the frequently used “I agree with that 100%” boxes the speaker into a corner of intolerance and certainty. 

A young man, through retweeting feeble jokes about sex and Muslims when he was 18, may become history. But pity poor Tom Harrison who’s left himself open to criticism for being intemperate. In disregarding the mental health of poor Ollie (mental health of young cricketers is, after all, top of the list of concerns by the establishment).

Avoid that word “zero.” 

Are we aiming for a kind of unrealistic Utopia with “net zero carbon emissions” by 2030? Anyone who isn’t strongly aware of the perils of global warming is deluded but a quick reduction to net zero is probably unachievable and may have unexpected consequences.

And have you noticed medical attitudes and views on drinking alcohol. 

What was once a “use your common sense” view by doctors became a not-to-be-exceeded figure of 28 units per week apparently plucked from the air. More recently this has dropped to 14 units per week with the caveat that zero units per week is the real safe limit. 

Ironically researchers from University College London (UCL) and Birkbeck, University of London, found that over one in four doctors binge-drink and 5% meet the criteria for alcohol dependence. 

So with zero and 100% representing the poles of much thinking it’s unsurprising we have so much rancour and extremism in today’s world. When someone said to me recently “all Tories are the same – on the take and mendacious” I mildly reeled off a list of Tories who were not like that whilst conceding others were culpable. What happened then was we gradually agreed there were some terrible people in all the parties but that many occupied the middle ground of selflessly trying to do their best for society. Yes, we agreed about 50% with each other. 

We are apparently about to be subject to a trade war with the EU. Megaphone diplomacy at work. In the past such nonsense would have been dealt with quietly behind the scenes. Whilst the results, looking at history, were often disappointing, now negotiations are conducted through the media in public gaze. 

Boris karate chops Macron

One of the most popular views amongst many is that we should have complete transparency in politics and at work. Isn’t this rather like preaching the benefits of complete nudity? Both can be rather embarrassing.  Seeking transparency is like insisting on seeing work in progress. Any artist will say this is not the way they work because too much transparency inhibits creativity.

We all have too much information to process, too many views and probably far too many blogs. What we need to become are better listeners and more considered thinkers. Before we act we should think and avoid making silly boxing-ourself-in-a-corner comments. 

At University we learnt to balance arguments and take an-on-the-one -hand and on-the-other-hand approach. For instance, before dismissing Donald Trump as an obnoxious buffoon we’d benefit by considering how it is and why it is that nearly 50% of Americans think he’s wonderful.

The lateral thinker Edward de Bono died recently. He above all thought the world was neither black nor white but a pleasant kind of pastel yellow – the colour of opportunities.

He also satirised certainty in his book “I Am Right You Are Wrong”.

I agree 100%.

HOW ARE YOU - REALLY?

I’ve often been asked this as though my cheerfulness masks some fatal illness or means I’m in denial. It’s clearly absurd to be anything other than doleful, depressed and despairing in a world ruled by a tiny virus that’s killed over 1 million people so far . How can I be fine? How can I be content? 

The world apart from that, I hear, is in a dreadful state. The list is long: climate change, Trump, Boris, Brexit, Trump, Syria, unemployment, Trump.  There is no hope.

But this makes no difference. I still refuse to be morose.

My good humour was reinforced by reading Humankind – A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. He has form as an optimist having also written Utopia for Realists - And How We Can Get There. He examines the world from the two opposing perspectives of the  pessimist Hobbes and optimist Rousseau. 

I loved his observation that we’ve become addicted to a very dangerous drug that’s ruining our morale and our health. That drug is news. There’s too much of it. And Trump is right…too much is fake. Bregman says human beings are attuned to two biases. The first is the ‘negativity bias’ whereby we are conditioned to fear the worst. Back in the early days of humanity that fear helped us survive. Better to run like hell than say “nice pussy” when a Sabre Toothed Tiger appears. 

The second is the ‘availability bias’. If something is readily remembered because of its horror, violence or sheer drama we are led to feel it’s more commonplace than it is. Take air disasters. Remembering, as we shall, the relatively recent Boeing 737 Max crashes we may be circumspect in our judgement of flight safety, yet flying has never statistically been safer.

Thus our tendency, like Victor Meldrew, to say “typical” when something bad happens. Yet it probably isn’t typical at all.

But amidst all this  Bregman believes that deep down nearly all human beings are decent and kind people. That when something bad happens like the Blitz or Covid they stick together and are good and helpful neighbours. Only a few have their eye on the main chance. Only a few are selfish and predatory.

The most significant failure in the handling of the Covid situation is the reluctance of Government to believe that most people will self-police and help encourage others to be sensible. The incidence of the virus in Folkestone is the lowest in the country currently and this residents believe is because they look out for and look after their neighbours. “Mask” they cry if someone isn’t wearing one.

But ironically it’s the neighbourliness that in some places has been positively discouraged. The ‘U’ in ‘EU’ has been conspicuously absent. Each country ploughs its own furrow and has its own data, strategy and attitude. Bizarre that the two ‘European’ countries in closest accord on Covid have been England and France. Macron and Johnson apparently (Brexit aside) get on tremendously well especially on their tactics to mitigate the pandemic. 

We need to talk more and foster togetherness. That’s what real human beings do and always have done. Recently I was asked to join a “working party”. I blanched at the prospect. Yes I was cheerful but I was becoming a hermit and that’s no good. We shall not easily change guidelines or laws right now but our future will depend on creating a much greater collegiate spirit. There is no place today for a long term strategy and plan; things are too uncertain. There is just the need to share (good humouredly) the will to keep this rocky old show on the road. Together.

And yes. I really am all right.

WHAT SORT OF WORLD HAVE YOU CREATED FOR ME GRANDAD?

I spend a lot of time nowadays thinking about the future of our grandchildren and great nieces. This is not our world - it’s theirs and we are just looking after it for them for now .

What a bloody awful job we’re mostly doing. Brexit – crash there goes all the china! Trump being voted into office - ouch that’s our dog and cat both run over – fake road kill! The Italians veering to the right – Mussolini tortellini!

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We’re the caretakers of a wonderful world  who’ve gone to sleep, woken up woozily and then in a panic made a series of sloppy mistakes so serious that we’re going to go hoarse saying “sorry”.

We’ve created our world of walls that doesn’t listen enough (cover your ears darlings …. la-la-la-la ‘can’t hear you!’) is selfish, unjust and grumbly. Theirs is better. Luckily the youth we’ve let down so badly are here to rescue us.

Airbnb and Uber demonstrate the asset-sharing concept  but are grown so big the values which inspired them have drowned in dollars. Expect there to be new and more socially sensitive versions of ‘sharing’ to emerge. In Copenhagen public transport and car hire with businesses like “Let’s-Go” and “Car2Go” are so easy and cheap (around 30p a km) that no one wants to own a car.

It’s really very simple – friends share their possessions and our next generations will be much friendlier than we ever were.

Pendulums swing back so expect a resurgence of libraries in a modernised form (not those grim council-run places) communal centres of shared learning and inspiration.  Places where you can eat a simple meal, drink a glass of wine and quietly read for an hour in a comfy chair.

We are talking about a simpler less materialistic world with less emphasis on flashy possessions. Not good news for old fashioned retailers and superstores. But great news for foragers of food, fun and fashion. Minimalism sounds a bit too austere for what I have in mind - think Shaker-stylish rather than Puritan-shabby.

I see the arts as becoming more important because making art – poetry, pottery, painting or live performances are just so much fun. I foresee more people abandoning career ambition for a richer lifestyle. Denmark, the happiest country in the world, is happy not least because of its sense of social support, its freedom to make life choices and its culture of generosity.

One other thing will be people seeking is global experience. No longer is there or will there be an attitude of “my home is my castle” but rather “this world is my oyster”. So many 20 + year olds go to Athens, Istanbul or Barcelona for a weekend….less expensive than going to Leeds and more fun.

This will be their world. Why does it sound so much more fun and so simple? Because it will be.  Let’s applaud and help them get there.

STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF!

This was the name of a 1966 musical. It’s how most of us seem to feel right now. In common with millions I have the strangest feeling that I’ve left something somewhere but I can’t remember what. The old certainties have gone.

It’s very much not a time as described by Robert Browning in his poem ‘Pippa’s Song’:
“The lark 's on the wing;
The snail 's on the thorn;
God 's in His heaven—
All 's right with the world!”

Not only can I not get off this crazy world, I can’t get away from my e-mails, texts and constant phone calls from people I don’t know calling and asking “What arrangements have you made about your Health Insurance…?”. Just hearing that brings out the hypochondriac in me - an alter ego groaning wistfully just below the surface.

It was time for a holiday. A long one. In our favourite place. Venice.

A time of quiet, artistic inspiration, beauty and certainty. All around the architecture is a confident 500 years old.

And something other worldly happened there.

I learned to read again. Suddenly the contemplative, written world became an essential part of my daily life. Books and especially novels replaced e-communications.

I learned to relish the ceremony of food, not just the taste but the going out and having time to munch my way slowly through gnocchi made in heaven. Meals that made me giggle with pleasure.

And something else strange. Spritz. In the British climate there’s one drink that has me squirming with distaste. Campari. It’s bitter. It’s red. It’s horrid. It has an improbable 86 mystery ingredients including chinotto (a small bitter orange type fruit) and cascarilla (Sweetwood or Croton bark from the Caribbean. It has narcotic properties.  We are warned darkly by doctors it has “side effects”).

In Venice as the heat built up I lived on those “side effects”. It was delicious, refreshing and saw me though the pitiless heat of Heatwave Lucifer. Lucifer racked up temperatures of 40C and humidity up to 70%. Between the heat and Campari I was anaesthetised for almost a month

So I got off the world.

A world of catastrophic Brexit negotiations, British politics dominated by people like Corbyn and Rees Mogg, world politics dominated by Trump and Kim Jong-un. Our destinies are being determined by buffoons. Getting off the world was good for me but now I’m back.

I recently learnt the key to our happiness, as as determined by the Japanese, is “Ikigai” - it’s our reason for getting up in the morning. The keys we’re told are taking pride in what we do; focusing on small things that bring us joy; getting up early and starting the day well and about being fully absorbed in everything we attempt.

This sounds more promising than mindfulness or hygge.

So I’m not going to get off the world. I’m just going to make my own, small world a place of greater joy.

I'M A CUSTOMER

Like so many leaders in the past, like Jack Welch and Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy, Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, had a folksy way of distilling management wisdom. He said.
“It takes two weeks for your employees to start treating customers the way you treat them.”

This makes you wonder how the management of United Airlines treat their people. The story of the week was not that of Bomber Trump but the ordinary (but extraordinary) story of a Doctor who’d paid for his seat, had been checked in and then allowed to sit in his seat and do up his seatbelt being dragged bleeding and broken nosed from that seat because they wanted it for an employee and had arbitrarily chosen him to “de-plane”.

Think about it.

United must have managed to create a culture of utter hatred. The idea of beating up someone who’d given you their money to fulfil a contract is just so weird as to defy analysis.

They had a problem - the way to solve it was crudely by money. They wanted people off the plane so they could get employees to another airport. An airline like Virgin (maybe) and South Western (certainly) would have turned it into a win-win game:-

“Do you want $2000 plus an all-expenses-paid night in a top hotel and a first class flight to your destination tomorrow? All you have to do is give up your seat, so raise your hand….your names go in a hat and the lucky ones win.”

Have we lost the art of marketing? Have we become stupid?

United will rue this and their top team will be punished. But consider this first response from their CEO:-

Well Oscar this is an upsetting event and we apologise for having to re-accommodate you in the dole queue. As regards the passenger involved well it was his fault apparently for refusing to leave the seat he’d paid for. That’ll teach him not to stand up for his rights.

Yet some experts in the aviation business say the incident unavoidable given the regulations involved.

Recently - it was Sam Walton again - I read this:-
“There is only one boss - the customer - and he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

If you don’t feel valued as an employee or as a customer bad things will happen.

It was not a good week for business ethics with Aspen Pharmaceuticals trying to achieve a massive price hike on cancer medicines.  Leaked internal e-mails depict the company as unscrupulous and prepared to actually destroy cancer pills if the Spanish Health service thwarted Aspen’s price increase. Meanwhile at Barclays CEO,  Jes Staley, is in trouble for having broken their rules in trying to unmask a whistle-blower.
The media, on the other hand, had a great week teaching CEOs to behave properly…or else.

Or else what?

United’s stock value fell by $1 billion this week.

I'M WORRIED ABOUT PEPPA'S DADDY

I worry about today’s role models. Are we creating mini-Trumps , Farages and Beyonces by allowing and even accepting as normal their strange, rude behaviour? I don’t think our children are stupidly impressionable but they are influenced by those they see on TV. Not only influenced they also learn their words by heart and mimic their actions.

Take the Peppa Pig family. I’m very concerned by the laziness of Daddy. Not only does he seem to do little but he lounges around and says he’s worked hard so he must relax. He spends a lot of his life goofing off and mucking up. He falls out of trees and is a general incompetent. He’s a shocking layabout of a role model who should be spending more time sorting out that ghastly cry baby George whom I suspect is crying because he thinks he might end up like his father.

Topsy and Tim have a father who constantly seems to be coming back from work in the middle of the afternoon. The twins and their oh-so-nice parents live in blissful sunshine with never a cross word.  Their ambition to “be friends forever” makes ‘Love Actually’ look a rather grim movie in contrast. Their sense of entitlement is affirmed in the words of their theme song
“We can be anything 
If we close our eyes and dream.”

“Oh no you can’t!” I want to shout “you have to work really hard to get anywhere at all.” The absence of any work ethic here fills me with despair. I was brought up on a diet of westerns where the relentless mission to succeed was huge. This was Rawhide:-
“Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though they're disapprovin'
Keep them doggies movin', rawhide
Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, throw an' brand 'em
Soon we'll be livin' high an' wide”

On such stuff were men made and “gals” had their place
“Wishin' my gal was by my side…”

My slightly satirical view of our world has a few serious thoughts underpinning it. We are creating the future by the kind of images we show now and we have a polarised choice between the pastel world of Enid Blyton and the extreme right wing of Breitbart.

We should, of course, show people what a better world looks like but for sure don’t frighten the beejeezus out of them by creating visions of a terror-threat-future but don’t get too soppy either.

 I quite like Peppa Pig as it happens. It has a pleasantly good natured set of ethics bar one. Unless Daddy starts working really hard and appearing only briefly - “got to get this website ready it’s really urgent” - the next call he’ll get will be this:-

“Hallo, It’s the Danish Bacon Company. Can you pop by there’s something we want to talk about”

And no Daddy, it’s not a new website they want. Check out the next episode “Daddy Pig brings home the bacon after another hard day’s work.”

ARE YOU REALLY WORKING HARD ENOUGH?

“The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”

Those were the words of President Trump at his inauguration.  Yes those were the words of President Trump at his inauguration. Have you noticed, whether for emphasis or whatever, he repeats himself….constantly saying the same thing twice.

“The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”

There you go again.

So is the USA embarked on four years of blood, sweat and toil? Will Trump be dragging people back to sweaty manual labour like coal mining whilst the rest of us are in driverless cars moving towards the inevitable digital economy?

In Japan this week there was something of a panic surrounding people working too hard. 50 hour weeks, they say, are killing people. They’re considering stopping work at 3pm every Friday so people can go shopping and stimulate the economy. Yet 50 hours is only a five days from 8am to 6pm. Every executive I know does at least that.

The myth that any work in excess of 40 hours a week is counter-productive is as arbitrary as the weekly alcohol limit of 14 units for men and women unless you’re Spanish and male when it’s 35 units. “Aclamaciones!!”

Hunter/Gatherers in the distant past only worked a 22 hour week. And now some of us are envisaging a virtually work free life waited upon by good looking robots. But I actually don’t get what all the fuss is about. If you get it even vaguely right there is hardly any distinction between work and play.

But there are times when being a workaholic just seems misplaced. I recently heard about a friend who had undergone heroic surgery on his heart. I asked how he was doing to be told he was not doing all that well especially as his recent promotion meant he had to work even harder.

Like that lady in a senior post in Intel saying: “I have this work/life balance thing nailed.
It’s work, work, work.” But acting busy rather than enjoying being busy is tiresome.  Alpha Go is an Artificial Intelligence system owned by Google. Against expectation it beat the “Go” World Champion Lee Sedol recently. Philosopher Mark Rowlands got it perfectly when he described the game at its most intense:
“There is the joy of focus, the experience of being completely immersed in what one is doing.”

And that’s what real work is like.

Leisure on the other hand can be rather boring. Read a Jane Austen novel and reflect on how tedious having nothing much to do in 1800 was for many of what are the now-busy middle class. Certainly small town social politics in places like Chawton where she spent the last twelve years of her life seems rather depressing.
The real trick is in wanting to do what you have to do. Because involvement is always better than being disengaged.

Just as Barack Obama will already be discovering.

A WORLD OF LIARS

This isn’t just another let’s-be-nasty-to Trump piece although I thought the comment made by Freddy Gray (Literary Editor of the American Conservative) was pretty good:

“In his anger, shadiness and batty orange campness, Trump looks like America’s answer to Hugo Chavez.”

I hope he’s wrong given the current state of Venezuela.

What I want to think about is truthfulness.

When the Leave campaign in the UK Referendum created a blatant lie - ‘give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week’ - it struck a chord with many voters. Only after their victory was it stripped from their website and grudgingly acknowledged as a “mistake.” Not a “lie” a “mistake.”

Politicians don’t “lie” any more they “mis-speak.” And isn’t it interesting that an MP isn’t allowed to say that another politician’s lying in Parliament - even when they are?  If they say it, they’re dismissed from the chamber?

But Donald J. Trump is in a different class altogether. And why this should concern us and, regardless of its consequences, we should stand up against this appalling charlatan, is the example he sets for the future generations. How do you say to young children “don’t lie” when they now can, and having more courage than we ever did, will reply:  “why not? You lot do it all the time. Look at the US President”?

In a moment of arcane philosophical reflection the Managing Director of M&C Saatchi, Tom Firth, said this:
“This is post-truth politics, so you can literally say pretty much anything you want as long as it fits with what people think is true”…or, I’d add “what they want to hear”.

Another take on the US Election was this from Peter Thiele, co-founder of PayPal:
…“the media takes Trump's remarks literally, but not seriously. Trump supporters take them seriously, but not literally. "

Which is all very well and very smart but it worries me to death as do all the apologists and gurus who are currently analysing Trump’s campaign and pronouncing him a genius marketer.

Sorry. That just will not do.

His campaign was a cynical piece of showmanship full of lies, monster over-claims and bigotry. He’s an impressive TV performer. His Apprentice series in the USA on NBC got audiences of 30 million I heard.
Hang on. No. It was the highest rating TV show in the history of US TV reaching 100 million people and winning a Palme d’Or at Cannes.

No, it didn’t. But the lie once spoken captures the average attention.

There are very few people like my friend Leon Kreitzman who will always say “hang on let’s examine those numbers for a bit to see if they feel right.” So here’s today’s formula. Lie first and repent later. Exaggerate, embroider and hype. Oh  for heaven’s sake I spent years in advertising so I know about that but it really will not do as a strategy that’s acceptable any more in an increasingly credulous world.

We’ve got to stop it.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

I discovered that Donald Trump’s father had an extraordinary middle name - Frederick Christ Trump. It makes my own - Martin - seem rather drab in comparison although being in the company of Scorsese, Amis and Luther King is a consolation. I recall once running a seminar for some Unilever Management Trainees. When it ended their leader said: “Will Jesus say a few words of thanks to Richard”. And up stood this Colombian…perhaps Trump Senior wasn’t so abnormal.

When I was younger I had an irrational urge to own a dog and call it “bollocks” so I could go down the street calling its name as it playfully ran ahead of me. The acid question regarding names is this - would the You Tube video of a stout man trying desperately to get his dog under control in Richmond Park have gone viral if it hadn’t been called Fenton?

Certainly the Beckhams think names matter. Here’s what they call their children: Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper Seven. Harper Seven? What a great name for a Special Agent - a male version of Modesty Blaise or the hero of my as yet unwritten thriller - Armitage Shanks.

In marketing the experts were dismissive of two brands that emerged in the late 1980s. Werthers and Mueller, the first a caramel flavoured cream candy and the second a range of yoghurts. The general view was the Brits wouldn’t put up with German names … well ”Vorsprung durch Technik” to all those experts.

Similarly when Mars decided in a policy of global alignment (those words bring the Brexiteer out in marketing people) to rename Marathon Bars Snickers and Opal Fruits Starburst, Catastrophe was foretold - the marketing book of revelations was quoted

“and they gnawed their tongues for pain ….and repented not of their deeds.”

Actually Mars seemed a bit penitent themselves and the apologia they issued by way of a press statement must go in history as the definitive piece of corporate squeamishness:
“We know that changes of brand name do not happen on the whim of a brand manager, without reference to the people who really matter, in this case Opal Fruits’ consumers.  Presented with the rationale for the name change and the reassurance that it is only the name that is changing, research shows (as one would expect) opinions ranging from the very positive to the very neutral.”

The “very neutral” is my favourite expression of all time.

But the best thing ever said about name changes was by Alexei Sayle in the 1980s

"You know what they're going to call the replacement for the Cortina? They're going to call it the bloody Sierra. Sierra don't mean nothing to a working man like me, does it? Not like Cortina..."

Alexei Sayle - strange name! Is Brains a great name for a beer or Helena Rubinstein a great name for perfume? We get used to names and even the oddest like Sweaty Betty become household names in time.

HELP THE RADAR'S DOWN

Bad news for bookies, pundits and psephologists - the old fashioned way of predicting through balancing talent, achievement and form has gone out of the window.

As they might say in Iceland:  “Við þandir Englandi. Svo mikið fyrir mannorð þeirra.“

Does anyone know what’s going to happen next? We got the prospects for Corbyn, Brexit, Leicester City and Trump wrong. We seem to have lost our touch. Just as “Big Data” arrived to allow us to forecast with greater sureness something weird has happened.

Unpredictability rules OK …or have we just lost the plot?

The late founder of Body Shop, Dame Anita Roddick, said:

“Running a company on market research is like driving while looking in the rear view mirror.”

But that’s what all the big institutions have been doing for a long time.  Headhunters select candidates on the basis of where they’ve been rather than what they might do. Hence their arrival into (and thereafter departure from) similar jobs to the ones they’ve had before, showing how efficiently we recycle senior executives. The biggest change in our world is that mass movements like epidemics-of-extreme-opinion happen faster than we could have imagined in older and slower times. Apathy is dead. The silent majority has started to shout.

Some of the things that we couldn’t have imagined - everyone uncomplainingly wearing seatbelts, smoking being banned in virtually all public spaces, adult smokers down from 46% in 1974 to 19% in just 40 years and plastic bag aversion…. what’s effectively a “fine” of 5p per plastic bag has produced an 80% decline in uptake in Tesco alone.

The thundering herd embraces games and fashion too - Pokémon-Go for instance where the groundswell of excitement may burn out but the appetite for the next PG will be waiting for more.  We’re told we need leadership. Well, look at the leaders. Are the Trumps, Le Pens, Wilders, Putins, Erdogans and others what we really need in a civilised world? Aren’t they all just part of a wave of militant nostalgia?

We are spending so much time focusing on the past,  looking in that rear view mirror, rather than exploring the future.

But what we aren’t doing is looking at and listening to what Martin Lindstrom calls “small data” (author of “Brandwashed - Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy”). His thesis is small changes and phenomena make the difference and anticipate the tidal wave that creates trends. Like people beginning to think that smoking looked unfashionable and unusual was what it took to prick the nicotine bubble.

Radar can help us predict the future but having a sense of conviction as to where we want to go and being determined to get there matters more.  A long time ago Sarah Lee had a great idea for promoting their cake mix. “Just add an egg” they said.

We need to find the egg that’s missing in our lives and then - well - just add it.

AGE SHALL NOT WITHER....

On Sunday summer kicked off and we had one of those balmy bumble-bee-buzzing days. As I sat on our balcony catching the whiff of burning BBQ meat I began to drift off in that I’m- floating-away-like-a-balloon way. My last cogent thought was it would be poor form if our world leaders were caught doing this. We expect them to be at it thinking and strategizing 24/7/365. As I slept I imagined George Osborne (45) was in the Treasury surrounded by economists plotting our future.

But in America come November the candidates for the world’s top job will be two months shy of 70, 70 ½ and (if you include Bernie Sanders) 75. So chances are they’ll be snoozing quite a lot. As will Putin (64) - he sleeps in late apparently. Age derided by some - a client of mine described Jack Welch as an “old fossil” (81) doesn’t seem to have damaged Warren Buffett (86) too much.

Anyway maybe snoozing lightly and thinking about stuff is a good way of sorting out complex thoughts. Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman (82) whose award was for his studies of the human-mind, believes our just sub-conscious is operating at its best when left alone to do its work. (My best work is often done when I’m asleep.)

But something strange is happening in America. Not only are the candidates rather odd as well as old in a country where glamour is one of the most highly rated qualities - hence the adulation of JFK. They have Trump intent on “winning bigly” and Hillary snatching defeat from victory’s jaws and Bernie - think intellectual Corbyn (67) -  who has grabbed the imagination of youth by things like:
“If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist”

But given that age isn’t an obstacle or not the obstacle that it once seemed why, oh why didn’t Josiah Bartlett stand (aka Martin Sheen (75) of “West Wing”)?

Maybe we’ve just got the age thing wrong - wisdom is one of the greatest under-used assets. And wisdom increases with the perspective of age for some whilst the ability to create is undimmed.  Roger Daltrey, (72) co-founder of the Who still has “magic in his eyes” and still performs so long as he thinks he’s “got it”. So do the Stones (Jagger will be 73 in November) and so does Bob Dylan (75) and Leonard Cohen (82).

Maybe, just maybe all these old fossils have something to offer that would prevent the hyper-active get things moving at all costs.

We need our Vardy’s (29) up front and doing battle but we also need Claudio Ranieri (65) - the Leicester City Manager - managing the affairs of state, guiding and inspiring their young talent.

 As he says:

 "I am happy when our fans are happy, when our players are happy and our chairman is on the moon."

(All ages shown are as of November 2016 - US Election month)