NARRATIVE MATTERS

The meeting rooms of the business world are full of executives talking about their “story” and the “narrative flow” from one set of results to another. Often their version of events sounds like a child accused of telling “stories”. Stories are the PR versions of the truth; spins on selected facts. As an ex-advertising man myself I recognise this world.

So too did Charles Dickens who said:
“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait”

But that’s the problem, as Prince Andrew may find out; and I’m still not sure why he did that interview on TV on Saturday night. The trouble is he’s just stoked up the furnace. We are now waiting for more. The story that won’t go away has been dragged from the back of the cupboard.

And what was Boris thinking of? He is the story right now and he needs to control the plot. Instead he hung himself out to dry by appearing with the BBC Breakfast Time presenter Naga Munchetty who wanted to know if he’s ‘relatable’. Pundits say, as word, it’s a “modern peculiarity”. She was never going to go easy on him or even be sensible but he got tetchy instead of aloof, amused or even asking her: “are you all right? You seem a bit tense. Don’t worry. Let’s talk about things that really matter to voters.”

Venice. The Venice we love. It’s just been flooded really badly. The ‘aqua alta’ occurs every year but last week it was ‘aqua-molto-molto-alta’. It’s not a new story; bad floods have happened six times in the last century. What I love is the esprit de corps of the Venetians, they way they buckle down and the way they publicise their bravery and indomitable attitude. They tell their story so well and so vividly that the money floods in after the water. Every time.

When I read the, admittedly rather variable, reviews of a restaurant in Tooley Street in London called Story I wasn’t sure if it was quite me. It sounded fanciful and pretentious (apart from a rave review in the Guardian).

That story and the real story in my experience weren’t the same. This small, relaxed and beautiful place, strangely fashioned from a large public lavatory (there’s a metaphor here about the world in which we live) was everything you want. Tables far enough apart for no neighbour intrusion, attentive and charming service, enough waiting for the story of the meal to unravel smoothly.

After the canapés which they called snacks – all unusual and brilliant – there was a snail ravioli (yes, I had my doubts but they were dispelled to the extent of my saying – “with pasta like that I could eat a plateful”). A plate of wonderful Agnolotti followed as if they read my mind. The meal was a sensational sensation and a great story too.

It made me laugh, it nearly made me cry (with pleasure), it made me wait (not too long) and made me want to return. It was very relatable.

COMMON SENSE, REASON AND FAITH

A friend said recently “I wonder how history will judge 2019”. The answer, of course, is in much the same way history judged 1919, 1819 or 1719. A year in which reason was cast aside and – as usual - folly prevailed. A hundred years ago there was a devastating flu pandemic, a disastrous Paris Peace Conference, and spontaneous outbreaks of violence in the Midlands and elsewhere. In 1819 there was the Peterloo Massacre (so you think Brexit is divisive?) whilst in 1719 France invaded Spain and Russia devastated the Swedish coast.

Human beings are, and always were, aggressive and irrational. As Teresa May once said “nothing has changed, nothing has changed”.  Perhaps it’s because of disruption that we  often hear a cry of despair that there’s so little common sense around nowadays. “Common sense” was most famously used by Thomas Paine in the 18th century when arguing for the Independence of America meaning that it was “self-evident” that this should happen.

Before that “common sense” described the 6th sense unifying the five other human senses. So its origins define it as a really big deal. Nowadays its use seems to mean what is obvious to anyone of average intelligence and as such, in a democracy, is irrefutable. This would mean Brexit is common sense. But this surely won’t do, will it?

Similarly that most dangerous remark “it stands to reason” is usually made when reason and facts have been discarded. When opinion has taken over from analysis and thought. It’s a phrase like “let’s be fair” which is most commonly used meaning just the opposite.

I spent much of my life in advertising and obviously appreciate and applaud the power of slogans. Thus “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet” ; “Persil washes whiter”; “British Airways. The World’s Favourite Airline”.  But maybe the most potent in my life has been “Take back control” because it changed the political and cultural landscape for good (or, as many think, for bad).

In America Donald Trump and in the UK Dominic Cummings  have proved the rousing slogan works. ”Make America Great Again” and “Take Back Control” are both action-focused unlike more passive slogans like “Labour isn’t Working”. They assume we’ve had something taken away we owned and must restore.

In the midst of this people have been losing their faith in all the institutions, Police, Judiciary, Doctors, Schools and Clergy. Yet whilst Sunday attendance in churches has declined by 15% since 2007,  attendance in Cathedrals has grown by nearly 20%. So it’s odd Rochester and Norwich  Cathedrals have put  in their aisles, respectively,  a crazy golf course  and a helter-skelter.

As tribalism grows so too does faith. Rationality has taken a kicking but faith in areas from sport to fitness gurus to community groups has grown. Maybe the church should tap into that rather than indulge in low grade gimmickry.

People need to believe in something – in the midst of the current confusion something solid, reliable and unchanging.

CAN WE FORGIVE THE ELDERLY OR THE LIES?

Below are the most telling statistics of Thursday’s Referendum:

HOW AGES VOTED
18-24:   75% Remain
25-49:   56% Remain
50-64:   44% Remain
65 plus: 39% Remain
(YouGov poll)

So most of those closer to retirement and death are the ones who’ve have determined the future of the next generations. Unsurprisingly a lot of young people are very angry. Here’s what a friend of mine said: “My daughters, just under the age they can vote, say that older voters have hobbled the future of the ambitious young.”

But that’s only partly true … these girls who are exceedingly bright will seek and discover a glorious future elsewhere, possibly in Europe. In fact the most damaging result of the vote to leave the EU will probably be our biggest “brain drain” since the 1970s. The consequence of embracing isolationism makes this inevitable despite Boris’ bizarre claim we are now “more European than ever.”

The second likely impact will be on our ability to plan for economic growth. Any UK based company should, for the next two years or so, be visualising how to become a smaller business. I’d be advocating cutbacks far deeper and more wide-ranging than any we’ve seen since the 1980s. Unfortunately unemployment will grow rapidly. And Brexit will be blamed (as it should but only up to a point). Employers haven’t ever had so obvious a whipping-boy. Suddenly they have a get-out-of-gaol card.  It’s one they’ll use to powerful (and sometimes, maybe, unfair) effect.

Finally the good news is all about Democracy. It was a huge turnout. This was not the voice of apathy. Some of us – well nearly ½ of us actually - may not like the result of the vote. Most of all we may dislike the untruths about £350 million weekly windfall promised to the NHS before and then admitted as
being, well, untrue afterwards. Meanwhile despite noise about a re-run of the vote, Thursday’s message must surely be accepted, we must move on and make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt.

Most of all we must seek out the opportunities that revolutionary change like this will create. Those nimble and angry in marketing and finance will daily face the potential opportunities from the fall-out of Brexit and will need to seize them.

I’m sitting in a temperature of 34C in blissfully calm Venice seething about how so many people at home (strange that  it feels much less like home now) seem so triumphant in having interfered with their children’s and grandchildren’s futures. I’ve had a lot of messages from American, German, French and Italians asking why, what, how and when? They are astonished and a bit hurt by what they see as our rejection of them.
Have you at home any idea just how witless and bumbling we seem over here? It’s been an embarrassing few days and I fear it’ll get worse. But let’s be calm, thoughtful and dignified.

Dignified? Ah…I’d forgotten about

     

WHY I LIKE SPRING AND EASTER SO MUCH

I have spent the past week feeling refreshed.

Originally the word “Easter” comes from the Saxon ‘Eostre’, the pagan Goddess of Spring which in turn came from the Germanic ‘Austro’ - the Goddess of Dawn. From its outset Easter was always magical. The Christian story of the risen Christ made it much more so.

Something magical still happens every year. Welcome to spring flowers; to plucky battalions of daffodils; to some experimental bursts of sunshine and lambs gambolling.  In April we put on walking shoes to go on pilgrimage like Chaucer.

Change is in the air and, of course, more sunlight makes life easier. This and a degree of gastronomic restraint as opposed to the mandatory, bloated excess of Christmas means this season of celebration leaves us feeling ready to get going.

So, yes, I feel terrific and my good humour even extends to the bunch of jokers who’d been making me rather grumpy recently.

What do this lot have in common? Trump; Putin; Farage; Johnson.

And of course you’re right.

Extravagant egos; wrong people to run anything; irresolute yet dictatorial; will do/say anything to get their own way. They make Kevin Spacey acting the part of Frank Underwood in “House of Cards” look very electable.  They have all pandered or are currently pandering to a vision of the present and future forged entirely out of a nostalgic image of former glory. But to be fair they have the capacity to entertain us as well as baffle.

Hence my good humour. I suddenly realised I was taking what they said much too seriously. The best way to debunk is to deflate with laughter. And anyway the premise of an argument solely based on rationality will inevitably fail. As that supple brained Ad Man Rory Sutherland recently noted, on issues like the EU or the America Presidency or which house to buy or whom to marry, emotion rightly plays a large part.

When I turn on the news or I read the paper I often find I’m reduced to frothing rage.
But then when I see a front cover of Private Eye like this one….

….or I see the cartoon of Paul Daniels’ funeral at which someone is sawing his coffin in half saying “it was how he’d have wanted it” , I feel much better.

So a diet of roast lamb, minted potatoes and Cote de Beaune plus walking in bluebell woods (soon) plus a lot of good old fashioned, squirm provoking and sharp satire plus a resolution to be much nicer to people will do me well enough.

We live in uncertain times said billionaire Warren Buffett. Well yes, but what fun that uncertainty creates. Every day is a cliff-hanger. And the great thing about spring is it signifies the end of a winter of discontent

So I’ve resolved to start listening more and laughing a lot more.

Join me - a very happy spring and Easter to everyone.

IT'S NOT JUST THE WAY YOU TELL THEM THAT MATTERS

Aren’t party conferences incredibly old fashioned? They’re the Routemaster buses or Frank Carsons of communication. Great for the hospitality business but that’s as far as it goes.

As I watched bits of Danny Alexander – good grief -  and the four party leaders (I include Boris in that line up) I began to wonder what had happened to the power of argument.

Philip Collins of the Times is the seer of “what they’re really saying”. And sometimes finds more going on in a speech than I do.

 "Good morning everyone (This is in praise of the current measures. The emphasis on “morning” suggests they are just beginning to take effect). On my way to conference this morning I vividly remembered how these conferences used to work (“on my way” describes the beginnings of a long journey and the shock-word “vividly” – brightly coloured – not blue, or yellow or red – suggests a “coalition of thinking” which is counterpointed by the words “remembered” – the past, when things seemed better but were worse. It’s a devastating attack on conservative thinking.)

Ed Milliband got praised for speaking for 70 minutes without notes. What’s the big deal? It’s the content that really matters.

Man or waxwork?

The obsession about speaking without any prompts is weird. Margaret Thatcher read her speeches and so did Tony Blair.

Most of the speeches are far too long and aim to be as blandly uncontroversial as possible ….but we live in deeply controversial times. They need to be edgy.

What seems clear (especially as we discover the murky secrets of Lance Armstrong,  Jimmy Savile and apparently a whole host of DJs) is appearance was everything and minor misdemeanours like cheating or sexual exploitation, even rape, were OK if you were otherwise a good guy….. Yes, that’s just Adolf’s little way….he did a lot for the economic growth of Germany – good guy in very many ways.

I think we are all losing our critical faculties and are judging speeches by the performance not the thoughts contained within them - although some have got under a few skins.

Boris is the most extreme example, undoubted comic that he is.

I found Max Hastings words telling “I would neither trust my wife or my wallet with Boris” although, if I were  Max’s wife, I might have something to say about this.

www.colourfulthinkers.com

LET THE SUNSHINE IN

Odd how a bit of sunshine completely changes the way you feel or think. Or in my case not think. My brain has gone into “idle” ever since a fortnight in sunny Venice and a return to, heaven be praised, sunny  Brighton. (Now I understand the problem in Greece, Italy and Spain – too much sun). Now I’m in a kind of “what’s it all about Alfie?” frame of mind. Given the state of the world today,  Alfie rather than the IMF or the rest of that wretched Troika might have a more useful viewpoint.

So Alfie what do you think?

“Well the Olympics are great. Have you noticed how much nicer people are being at stations and throughout London – smiling and being helpful? I guess we might be learning to lift our standards of customer service…and be like they are in New York. And yes the sunshine helps. And there’s something odd in the press: a series of views that the bad news about recession may have been too gloomy and possibly wrong. Even James Naughtie was cheery on the Today programme. Post Leveson could we have a good-news media? Are we being infected by what Boris called a “benign virus”? What else do I really think? Economics is boring and always wrong - always. Bankers are barmy. The uber-rich are wretched and doomed. People at the top of companies are all “out of touch”. Oh yes one other thing.  The Olympics is wonderful because it’ll be about everyone trying their best but I don’t much like McDonalds, Coca-Cola or Visa. Oops – shouldn’t have said that…. What else do you want to know?”
Just your address Alfie, so the Brand Police can come and arrest you for “reputation-terrorist-attacks” on those great brands.

How do we recreate that sunshine we’ve missed for so long? Speeches don’t do it. Images can start to. Music helps. But it’s an event that does it. We need an anniversary, a national party, a big unifying event to make everyone grin.

The lesson of the Olympics is a lesson in the power of “Event Marketing”.

And Alfie is right.
I was in London today, the Olympic spirit is wonderful and London buzzed.
We are so lucky because I suddenly realised how great London is – here’s how Nancy Durrant of the Times described it - “a heaving, breathing, shifting beast with a mind of its own.”
And that’s just Boris Johnson.

Boris – a mind of his own - sunshine or shower?