STANDING OUT

I’m a traditionalist. I love books, the smell of them and being surrounded by a lot of them. My wife noticed as we walk along a street in Brighton I’ll say “lovely house” and she’ll look and always through the window there’ll be a wall full of books. I love libraries and their protocol of whispered conversation and the rustle of a turning page. Libraries feel like places discoveries are made or a new insight revealed. They are full of unspoken ‘eurekas.’ That silence of reading is wonderfully deafening.

Over 180,000 books are published each year in the UK, more books published per capita and available than in any other country in the world.

And it gets worse. Nearly everyone I meet nowadays says they have a book in them. Should we be unlucky enough for it to get out and be published we should hold that wannabe author down and push it back in as fast as possible.

The problem is being noticed let alone read. The huge Waterstones in Piccadilly is daunting for any author and should help cure their urges to write. So a series of authors have put swear words in their titles to stand out:
Here are just a few:

Humans – a Brief History of how we F*cked it all up
Poems for a World gone to Sh*t
Get Sh*t Done
Everything is F*cked
The Subtle Art of not giving a F*ck
No-one gives a Sh*t about your product
How to be f*cking awesome

I’m depressed in the same way the late David Abbott, that most urbane of advertising professionals, was with the emergence and laddish launch of FCUK – ‘nudge , nudge wink, wink’ they seemed to be saying – ‘I swore in the High Street’.

I much prefer Jane Austen’s Emma to its possible rewritten version for the 2020s ‘F*cking Supercilious B*itch’. But stop. Am I being eccentric and just antiquated in my views?
I think the occasional imprecation has a brilliant, electrifying and redefining effect. If - in the midst of the recent Royal furores - the Queen were to have been overheard to snap “F*ck it!” it would have been understandable and, because so shocking, have perfectly and concisely reflected her pent-up frustration.

In Mrs Brown’s Boys, recent winner of the British Comedy Awards (not a popular win amongst the literati that one) the word ‘fecking’ is in such constant use it seems like a form of punctuation and has no shock-value at all. Whilst in 1963 when Kenneth Tynan said ‘f*ck’ on National TV it was akin to Brexit, coronavirus and an earthquake all at once in terms of nuclear impact.

Originally I’d wanted to call our recent book ‘Start Ups, Pop-Ups and Cock-Ups’  which was deemed too risqué by the publisher. Craven? Mistaken? Maybe but a least they were taking a view about manners.  The writers who announce themselves with F*ck and Sh*t are taking an unpleasant short-cut.

Being noticed is one thing. Being any good is something else.

WHY BEING A BIT AWKWARD WORKS

I’ve even gone so far as to espouse rebellion, something Thomas Jefferson perhaps unsurprisingly recommended. There’s simply too much dumb acquiescence going on right now in business and in politics. I keep on hearing this dire word “alignment”. Alignment behind Prime Minister May’s manifesto by her Cabinet is horrifically servile. Thank God for Ruth Davidson the only Tory with an awkward brain. This manifesto was crafted by Nick Timothy (as my mother said never trust a man with a beard.)

Awkward is about asking “why?” Children can be awkward in their genuine attempts to unravel adult totalitarianism:

“Why?”
“Just because I said so. Now be quiet”

Hey, that sounds like a Cabinet Meeting.

But most awkward of all is democracy. Those who praise the strong stable leadership of Erdogan or Putin are discounting the fact neither accepts any attempt of truth being spoken to power. Working in a democracy is tough as it involves give and take and constant compromise. In a democracy you have to listen and you have to be patient.

So imagine the dismay that poor perplexed Donald Trump must be feeling as his attempts to impose his will on an American Constitution are thwarted so publicly. He actually thought being president was like being CEO. As a wise commentator recently put it:

“Somehow he seems to lack the skills that the job requires”

Those skills include patience, diplomacy, guile and charm.

Awkward is also about being persistent and trying to ensure that the downside and potential for problems is understood and anticipated. Here’s how Sir Kit McMahon, one time Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, put it:

“No time is as usefully spent as that spent guarding against disasters that do not in the event occur”.

Life is awkward. We are not masters or mistresses of our destiny. We are constantly surprisingly and irritatingly mugged by little setbacks. It was like this over 50 years ago:

Interviewer: “What is most likely to blow a government off-course Sir?”
PM Harold Macmillan: “Events, dear boy, events”

My own bit of awkwardness relates to books.

I spent my long and idle life building a quite decent library of a few thousand books. When we moved house and downsized somewhat, the few thousand books wouldn’t fit in. I tried hiding them in cupboards and keeping some (no idea which ones now) in expensive storage.

Belatedly (this is where patience comes in) I’ve decided to adopt a process of zero based book collecting. If I shan’t ever read it or refer to it, if it isn’t central to my core interests and passions, if it isn’t a “friend” whose absence will be noticed and depressing and if it is too big and weighty (no one needs the complete works of anyone…the complete includes stuff that a good editor would have discarded) they are sold, given away or destroyed.

Last awkward thought: time is too short to be tyrannised by people, music, art or books.

GETTING THINGS RIGHT, GETTING THINGS WRONG AND HURRAH FOR ENGLISH

My recent piece in praise of real books got a ringing endorsement in the Sunday Times in a piece by Robert Collins entitled "The Book Bounces Back”. From a Viking Invasion sales increase, raping, pillaging and plundering real books in 2011 when e-books registered sales increases of 366% this fell back to 20% last year. Meanwhile sales of e-books fell in the USA and Barnes and Noble’s Nook is having a ropey time. And Facebook users in the UK fell by 600,000 last year. Is common sense prevailing?

It’s also good to get things wrong. The One-Stop Travel Shop previously conveniently based at Brighton Station has relocated to splendid new premises in the centre of the City over ½ mile from the station. I was livid and predicted a disaster.

I was wrong.

It’s full. Tourists love it. It’s been a brilliant way of putting integrated travel advice in the heart of the city.  Mind you the Sales Executive there whom I knew confided “it’s a bit weird…we haven’t got used to it yet”.

And now two from James Arnold Baker whose nephew sent him these. The first a wonderfully simple way to understand the fiscal cliff in America

Simply imagine the US Fiscal situation as a household budget

• Annual family income in 2012: $21,700
• Money the family spent in 2012: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

But the outstanding balance on credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts so far: $38.50.

This does not look good Mr Obama.

You need to cut your spending and increase your income. A lot. OK?

The second demonstrates why English is such a great language.

It’s about the “Burger Problem” and I’ve been hoarse with laughter as a result of these:-

• Went to the fridge to check my burgers, and they're off! .....
• Tesco PR people are having a mare
• New kids’ food found in supermarket.....My Lidl Pony
• Has this been going on furlong?
• I always though Tesco burgers were good......well, good to soft in places
• Sounds like these Tesco stories are being made-up on the hoof
• Just got a batch of 200 Tesco burgers cheap, it only cost me a pony
• Despite the scandal, Tesco say burger sales remain stable

www.colourfulthinkers.com

WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE WRITE A BOOK?

I’ve just finished a book called 'Brilliant Marketing' for Pearson.

42,000 words each scraped somewhat painfully from my brain.

I’ve had nightmares about Google, Nike, Apple and Bose who at various points appear in the book.

I’ve read more books and articles on marketing than most people read in a lifetime.

And all the time my enthusiasm for growing share and transforming markets has been performed to the tap-tap of the grim reaper nailing up the coffin of the global economy.

You try being upbeat when for incomprehensible reasons the world is going bust.

Marketing to some would seem a deckchair re-arranging occupation but is it?

Maybe, just maybe putting marketing rather than financial instruments at the centre of our lives might be a smart thing to do for the next generation.

It also happens to be something we are rather good at.

http://www.richardhall.biz