SUMMER IS YCUMEN

It’s going to be summer soon

“Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows
Everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together
Brighter than a lucky penny
When you're near the rain just disappears, dear
And I feel so fine
Just to know that you are mine”

I can’t imagine why this Lesley Gore song of 1965 sprung into my mind. Now like an ear worm it’s stuck there. Irredeemably happy in a slightly irritating way. And it occurred to me that happy clappiness in this slightly angry world is very much in vogue.

After a somewhat uncertain start the “Durrell’s” (rather grandly posing as based on the Gerald Durrell ‘trilogy’. His brother Lawrence wrote trilogies, Gerald just wrote some jolly books) has hit its stride. Not much to do with the original. Just a bunch of fun characters having a ball in Corfu with the delightful Keeley Hawes. Successive episodes have the party atmosphere developing until I swear they are almost -  nudge, nudge - winking at the camera. This must be the happiest shoot ever.

But better still is “Death in Paradise” set in Guadeloupe with a cast that’s grown progressively loopier. First we had the misanthropic Ben Miller, then the erratic buffoon Kris Marshall and now the pantomimic  Ardal O’Hanlon who does a silent  boom-boom after  virtually every line. Against the backcloth of the Caribbean nearly 8 ½ million watch it now making it one of the top TV shows in the UK.

Both shows – the Durrell ’s and Death in Paradise -  are in the realms of fast-food entertainment. The stars are the scenery and the heat. In the dreich days of winter they provide comforting if-only moments for the vitamin D deprived.

And we need them because we live in times as angry as the Enlightenment  was. We are experiencing great discoveries and insights on a constant basis. But we are also encountering the conflict between brute ignorance and reason. Trump versus Obama if you like.

I was watching James Ancaster on ‘Mock the Week’ describing the In-Out Brexit story as an example of classic enlightenment.

He describes how he was offered a cup of tea and asked if he wanted the bag in or out. Not an easy choice. Leave it in and the tea gets stronger but the tea bag itself does not get weaker. Take it out and the tea is weak and the teabag itself gets thrown in the bin.

There. An analogy like Lesley Gore’s lyric “brighter than a lucky penny”.

We need to keep balance between the embrocation and panna cotta of the Durrell’s and Paradise and some hard, angry thinking. Today we seem to be a bit light on the latter. Final point is a question about “Question Time”. Why was the most famous person on the panel  on Thursday night David Dimbleby?  His guests were Jo Johnson, Barry Gardiner, Nicola Horlick, Jonathan Freedland and Kate Andrews. Enough said.

“Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together.”

Aagghh!

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)

DO YOU FEEL THE WAY YOU SHOULD ABOUT THINGS?

There were three events this week leading to the opposite sensation to the one I’d expected.

Firstly the weather.
Phew what a scorcher and all that. I heard a series of misgivings related to global warming and the impending drought but the vast majority were mildly in favour of it until schadenfreude kicked in and mildly in favour became euphoric as we realised it was raining in Alicante, 10 degrees colder in Athens and distinctly chilly in Istanbul. They say it isn’t enough to win. The other guys have to lose. And they were, losers that is, as they grimly set off to Gatwick.

Secondly the weather (again).
As we basked in the summery sun and the birds excitedly copulated and the trees burst proudly into plume all I heard was “well that’s it…our bloody summer…won’t last…never bloody does.” What is wrong with these perverse pessimists? Enjoy it while it lasts and my firm conviction is this is just the hors d’oeuvre before a scintillating summer which, regardless of weather, I intend it to be. And anyway I expect a lot of sun accompanied by “bloody typical…peeling skin…this weather of ours I ask you.”

And thirdly self-esteem and motivation. Both of mine took a knock when we went to buy sanitary ware – curious descriptor – and were offered a 25% discount only running till “tomorrow”. Well, probably not only till then but as the deal seemed OK we went back the next day but they wouldn’t let us buy saying a new deal was kicking in and we now stood to save…wait for it (lots of tapping on the computer) an extra £150…”isn’t that great?” No. It’s bizarre. I felt an idiot being happy with price one and then being offered, without asking, price two. I hadn’t even had the pleasure of negotiating.

And the story of Handlesbanken the Swedish Bank which does not pay its senior people bonuses because, they say, long term confidence does not sit alongside short term rewards and that people’s self-esteem and motivation should come from a rewarding job not large sums of money. "Blimey! That won’t work" they said in Canary Wharf.  Last year Handelsbanken grew by 8%, made an operating profit of £1.5 billion and has quietly built 100 UK branches.

Bet they only came here for this bloody weather of ours.