HOW ABOUT SINGING FOR A CHANGE?

It’s odd how a tune you haven’t heard for decades suddenly leaps into your mind together with the lyrics. This happened to me last week. It was sung by Bing Crosby in a successful 1949 film called ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’.

“La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

We're busy doing nothing
Working the whole day through
Trying to find lots of things not to do
We're busy going nowhere
Isn't it just a crime
We'd like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time.”

The film based on a book by Mark Twain explores the clash and chemistry of two cultures 1500 years apart. In a way it’s a story of our times with that song an anthem to Covid and its effects. 

I’ve felt as though I was “busy going nowhere” recently. The Brexit negotiators on both sides of the table must have felt the same too.

News from around the world is a mixture of déjà vu (will I be allowed to use French words in 2021?) and aimlessness.

The virus has taken hold of parts of China – again- and airline crew have been instructed to wear nappies as the use of aeroplane loos is discouraged. Nice.

Germany, until recently a paragon, has such serious rises in infection that Christmas may be called off. Angela Merkel addressed the nation in tears begging increased caution as daily infection rates neared 20,000 and peaked last week at 23,000. 

Meanwhile California is in Covid crisis with three regions, San Joaquin Valley, Southern California, and Greater Sacramento under the Regional Stay at Home Order.

In Sweden their policy of relaxing restrictions and hoping for herd immunity, so appealing to many as they ate and drank cheerfully in restaurants, has bluntly failed.

Meanwhile the anti-vaccine movement is gaining strength in the UK and USA. In the UK one in six will not accept vaccination with a further one in six sitting on the fence.

Depressing news but leavened for me by a story of waiters in pubs in Britain where you can’t order drinks unless you are eating a main meal encouraging customers to leave food on their plate so they can order more drinks claiming, as the food congeals, “I haven’t finished yet”. 

But aimlessness met despair for me last week when once again Venice flooded. I am exceedingly fond of this city and everything about it apart from the acqua alta, the seasonal tide rises which devastated Venice last year. The controversial flood defence, the 78 mobile barriers of the ‘Mose Project’, have been used twice recently to good effect but weren’t in use on December 8th as stronger than expected winds and high water in rivers flowing into the lagoon created another flood in the city.

The aimless Venetian officials explained that no one had forecast it was going to be such a high tide, that raising the flood barriers was an extreme precaution as it disrupts shipping and – anyway – it takes 80 personnel and 48 hours to erect them. Bah humbug. I just don’t believe this. This is a classic case of being busy doing nothing. Venice deserves much better.

On a lighter note, Brighton has low rates of Covid infection and this has been maintained for some weeks. Infection amongst students, usually a high-risk group, is also low. There are no floods. The sun’s shining. Locally grown food is available and selling well. We are prepared for anything and though some of us might like to be unhappy “We never do have the time.”

“La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la”

SUNSHINE, LOLLIPOPS AND RAINBOWS...

This 1965 Lesley Gore song kept on coming into my head this week on my relentless crusade to cheerfulness. But even I have to admit the next line was rather cheesy

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

Provided, that is, there aren’t more than six of us. I thought this rule of six was sensible by the way – six is the perfect number for a supper. But…big but… we have a daughter and son in law with three children. I plan on sitting in the car outside their house waiting for my wife (or Number Six as she is now known). 

We had a glorious week. I’m reading again, at last – John Le Carré’s latest ‘Agent Running in the Field’ and ‘Hamnet’ the prize winning novel about Shakespeare’s son who dies when he was 11 by Maggie O’Farrell. 

I’ve walked – not much but the armchair is beginning to regard me now as something of a stranger. We’ve flirted with the idea of a lightning visit to Venice but the risks, as Covid spikes suddenly all over Europe, just seem too great and too unfair. Anyway what’s Venice like right now? 

Clear water in the  canals, emptyish squares. Venice as it was 50 years ago. But public feelings are running high. We read about a young German tourist who tried to board a vaporetto at San Zaccaria near San Marco…without a mask. Here are the rules in Venice and all Italy: “In Italy, masks are mandatory on all public transport, as well as in enclosed spaces. They must also be worn in outdoor spaces between the hours of 6pm and 6am.”

He was seized by outraged passengers and thrown off. Three times he tried to board and was beaten up each time until, bewildered, he fled. 

So instead of us going to Venice, Venice came to us. I decided we should have Fegato alla Veneziano – Venetian style calves liver strips in onions. If you don’t like liver you just won’t understand. Cin Cin. Yum Yum.

We also went to the glorious Leonardslee at Lower Beeding and drank in the tranquillity and glory of their trees especially those glorious Redwoods. So tall they put everything into perspective. It was like giving your soul a languorous, hot, soapy bath I suggested. My wife eyed me suspiciously at this with a “have you been drinking again?” look. So I modified it to “Pleasant here isn’t it?” Suspicion allayed.

My joys of the week were, first of all, the threatened prospect of the Shetland Islands declaring UDI and leaving Scotland. With a population of just 22,000, GDP over £1 billion, per capita income over £38k, rated the 3rd most desirable tourist destination by National Geographic Magazine, having a huge fishing industry and oil reserves shoving it up alongside Norway this is such a great story. Not for Nicola though.

My second was to learn very belatedly that John Lennon had a lengthy affair with Alma Cogan singer of songs like ‘You must never do a Tango with an Eskimo.’ Imagine! 

My week like all weeks had its lows as well as highs. The first was the reaction to the US election with so many people lamenting even the possibility of Trump winning again.  Why I asked if you all cared so much did you end up with a potential loser like Joe Boden, nice man as he may be? I felt vindicated as, in the polls the Latino vote in Florida seemed to be slipping to Trump. But I also felt sad and irritated. With the lead they had months ago this is the Democrats election to lose. And it’s getting closer.

Secondly it was the horror show of Philip Green in shorts on his monster yacht. Men in shorts seldom please the eye. Philip least of all. 

ABOUT STICKABILITY

There’s general agreement amongst the great and the good that the most important element in a successful life is resilience. JK Rowling spun this idea neatly by saying her success was built on a solid foundation of being at rock bottom. Nelson Mandela put it like this:-
“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

This attitude helps shape my scepticism about public schools and efforts to give children a ‘great start’ in life. Let the little ones struggle a bit to discover their own inner-strength. I was talking recently to a mother who was lamenting the problems of her six year old son’s keeping focus in exams. At six I was reading Enid Blyton, drawing things (rather badly) and going on nature walks. Now, to misquote AA Milne, it’s like this:
“But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever”…
And he’ll  be doing exams forever and ever

For real resilience we need to look at Venice.

As many of you know I am besotted with the place by its looking (mostly) today as it did over 500 years ago. The alleys through which Tintoretto scurried are the same through which I now stroll. Until Vasco Da Gama discovered the sea route to India in the late 16th century Venice held the keys to European trade to and from the East. Thereafter the hangover from a lost monopoly rankled and the resilience and historically austere control of the common purse loosened. The rest is history and the encounter with Napoleon.

Today Venice is once more under the threat of disaster.

The floods of the last weeks resemble those of 1966 reaching tidal-highs 184 cm above an average high tide for November (the “acqua alta”.) Venice, however, has always been resilient. Restaurants remain open, waiters wear wellington boots, service is full of smiles and shrugged shoulders. At times like this Venice reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who having had both his arms cut off in combat says “it’s just a flesh wound”.

As well as being indefatigable Venice has always been skilled at marketing itself . ‘Venice in Peril’ launched in 1966 has raised billions. Today money is flooding in as rapidly as the water did. Because like the recently restored-to-glory José Mourinho (now Manager of Tottenham Hotspur FC @ £13 million a year) Venice is unique. Venice indeed is the special one.

Finally politics, American politics.

 I’ve always loved its eloquence and power to change the world.  America brought us “West Wing” the most influential TV series of the last century. Netflix gives you “the Crown” hugely entertaining but more upmarket Downton Abbey than really consequential.  I love this from PJ O’Rourke.

“The Democrats are operating on the premise that nobody can lose to Donald Trump. 
And by God are they going to find that nobody”.

That’s resilient, funny and self-deprecating. I salute you America.

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.

LA SERENISSIMA

Just nine days pottering around in the jewel of the Adriatic was very restful. A word to all of you out there who are saying you’re knackered.

You are. You need a break.

I was knackered and now I’m feeling great not least because I’ve dragged the Venetian weather back here.

Observations on Venice:

• Still manages to be beautiful and, yes, serene. The sun creating twinkles on the canals fills my heart with joy.

• The airport has got international class – you get through in a jiffy; it’s clean, cool and elegant. The Marco Polo Lounge has to the very nicest I’ve been in.

• Campari Spritz, a vile-tasting concoction when drunk in the UK, tastes absolutely fabulous there and as part of that away-from-homeness feeling one has relaxing in the sun.

• We must has been about the only Brits there… what’s going on? Venice used to teem with Waitrose shoppers, now no more. Lots of Americans, Germans, French, Indians and Italians. And (also) where have all the Chinese gone?

• Aha! They’ve gone to the Tedeschi, which was in the 13th century and beyond, the HQ of German Traders in Venice. Now it describes itself as “The Lifestyle Department Store”.  We visited it briefly having observed (as it were) the absence of wasps in Venice this year and finding ourselves in a huge wasps’ nest. Chinese families all paying in cash and spending thousands of dollars on Prada, Cartier, Chanel, Burberry. It’s an amazing tribute to the power of luxury branding and the sudden growth in personal wealth of the world’s second largest economy. 

• Sadly the place is full of beggars, mostly illegal immigrants brazenly demanding money in an intimidating way. It was made illegal in 2008 but no one now enforces it.

• Just before we arrived the cruise liner, the MSC Opera, crashed out of control into the Zattere just west of San Basilio. On just our first day there were three of these nautical  monsters lumbering up the Guidecca canal. Imagine a 40 storey skyscraper being built next to Admiralty Arch in London. Yes it’s that inappropriate. 

• Finally a sour grape from an ex adman. On a deconsecrated church on the Riva Degli Schiavoni just beyond the Danieli Hotel facing out into the lagoon  is the vastest, nastiest poster ever. It’s for Balenciaga which says, well it just says Balenciaga in letters 20 feet high. This was last year’s – this year’s is even worse. I hated the brand in 2018.

x

• 

And, now,  the bad news.

• 

• 

 I now hate Balenciaga even more.

 Just thinking and looking at the Grand Canal I’m forced to take the long view and think of history. Virtually all the buildings are over five centuries old.  Somehow Britain, Brexit and Boris seem a little trivial when I’m here.  

I want to quote from that brilliant speech Aaron  Sorkin wrote for the first episode of the Newsroom orated by Jeff Daniels. I’m thinking of Britain as I read it:

“America isn’t the greatest country any more… It sure used to be… We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reason. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reason.  We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbours, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest.  We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed… by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”

Venice was great once. America was great once. We called ourselves Great Britain. But we aren’t great anymore….we sure used to be. We have a problem to solve.

IN PRAISE OF ABSURDITY

As we flew back from a sultry Venice last week I thought about one of the books I’d read whilst there. Mike Foley’s “The Age of Absurdity.” It was an appropriate book to read in the world’s most absurdly beautiful city built on a marsh in a lagoon where the roadways are water, there are no cars and bicycles (absurdly wonderful) and the diversity of nations is similar to what it was in 1500 spending their absurd money shopping for absurd luxury goods.

Mike is a Northern Irish novelist, poet and philosopher. He is also a misanthrope and an angry man. This is a 272 page rant about the world we live in which occasionally goes off the rails like when he says the south of England only comprises concrete and motorways nowadays. Not so. On our return we flew over East Sussex - green (well actually greenish-brown) field after greenish-brown field with the occasional stately home or cottage, village and church – South East England in 2018 is a greenish-brownish and very pleasant land.

Mike rants especially angrily about shopping – “the thrill of desire not of purchase” and the “new infantilism” of want, want, want. New books unread, new clothes unworn. It is he says “a hedonic treadmill”. But what’s new? In 1500 Venice the markets were full of the unattainably beautiful, delicious and luxurious.

And it still is

.
He hates this PC world of PC – “professional cheeriness” whereas I enjoy people being nice to me in shops, planes and restaurants.

Those entitled millennials get a kicking too. They are constantly distracted by anticipation and a belief than anything is possible. Success is an imperative, a given - hence all those Ist class degrees and A*s. There’s a need to be liked by everyone and a belief that the world is easy. Oh and everything is someone else’ fault. Wrong, Wrong. Wrong. Wrong says Mike. Failure is normal; half the people won’t like you; the world is a harsh, aggressive place and you are to blame for where you find yourself. Being late is just that … not Temporal Disorder Syndrome. And not anyone can be a millionaire.

No especially not you two.

Indifferent is the new cool, he laments. But the new cool is “enthusiasm” related to “professional cheeriness”.

The book revels in the absurdity of love, of work, of politics and has one or two great quotes:
 “Be what you are – something always comes up” (Earl Hines, jazz pianist)
“The first feeling of happiness is power” (Nietzsche)

He’s best on age as he reflects that Shakespeare, Yeats, Tolstoy, Hokusai and others flourished in their later years with insights and crisp expression. He finds numerous sources to define his core philosophy of life, one that I profoundly agree with. Effort matters; you only get anywhere by trying; and it’s the journey that matters not the destination.

He describes reading as a “contact sport” which makes books like this so agreeable, energetic and thought provoking.

WHY MORE IS LESS

I recently noted with grim satisfaction that more new generations had lower IQs than mine had. Scientists at the Raglar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Norway analysed the IQs of 730,000 men in national service during 1970 and 2009 and found a drop equivalent of seven points per generation. And now exactly the same trend has been seen in the UK. This is the first time the previously steady increase in IQs had been reversed.

I came from an educational age where, for instance, collectives were de rigeur. An exultation of skylarks, an unkindness of ravens and (I loved this one) a tantrum of decorators. We were taught to remember things. General knowledge and breadth of learning mattered. In the current tyranny of an exams culture -  Sats, GCSE, A levels – pupils focus on a narrow syllabus that most of us don’t understand. Despite a degree in English Language and Literature I understand Scholastic Aptitude Tests for maths better than for literacy which labels parts of speech in alien terminology.

But, anyway, I distrust the whole idea of IQs which the Frenchman Alfred Binet invented not to test  for super intelligence but the exact opposite, to assess the needs of the educationally challenged.

I agree instead with Sir Kenneth Robison who suggested schools today were killing creativity. If you haven’t already seen it watch his epic TED talk. With more opportunities to learn and understand we seem to have dumbed down and narrowed. What should have borne bumper fruit seems instead to have achieved the reverse.

There are more opportunities for everything…but the measurements have simplified and brutalised. Passing exams and earning loads of dosh. Life is not more fun. It’s just busier. So can we change this busier, less intelligent, gloomier world?

We must and can by listening more, living in the present and enjoying life for what it is. Bloody marvellous. However when you wonder if I’m indeed going mad with optimism on the basis of Einstein’s definition of insanity well think again.

Because yet again we are going to Venice to potter, see new things, eat pasta, drink Campari, prosecco and read a book a day. And yes I do expect a different result. I do expect new stimulation. I do expect to learn because this kaleidoscopic city is not as some have called it a watery theme park. It’s an energetic place with a vibrant history of success. It keeps on being on its knees as when Napoleon swept in to ravage, plunder and humiliate in 1797; in 1967 when the Venice in Peril fund started because Venice was thought to be sinking fast and in 2016 when the oppression of the burgeoning flood of tourists and skyscraper cruise ships at last became seen as the threat that it is.

Venice is a living place that still thrills. And the world is not getting more stupid.  We’ve just  forgotten what matters that’s all. Just stare at the Grand Canal and all will be well. Trust me.

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.

DO YOU REALLY LIKE ITALIAN FOOD?

1. Does the Pope have flat feet?
2. If you had Panna Cotta like they make in La Bitta you wouldn't ask that question
3. Simple, divine and yummy.

Richard Hall is spending a few weeks on holiday in Italy

WHAT IS ART?

You’ll spend most of the day at the Venice Biennale asking this question and not getting a very satisfactory reply. Pity the poor punter – and there were remarkably few of these there - who’s confronted with reflections, for instance, on the dreadful Romanian exhibition celebrating “multiple hypostases”. Nicely laid out we conclude. But is that art…a nice, tidy layout?

Here’s the advice

Start in the Arsenale not the Giardini and spend 2/3 of your time here. It’s fresher, younger and more fun. Better art too. Spend most of the rest of your time in the Giardini, (where the big boys exhibit their heavyweight pretentious assemblies), on the Korean stand.  Give each member of your group a Strictly-Come-Art-Reviewing card and mark each thing you visit out of ten.

Some Arsenale highlights:

• You start with Charles’ Atlas; “The Tyranny of Consciousness” and Lady Bunny singing “What the fuck is wrong with me?” “It’s the Biennale mate” we replied. Good fun this song though.
• The Crossroads Community (aka “The Farm) from San Francisco – worthy and heart-warming.
• Teresa Lancasta’s colourful carpets
• Yee Sookyung’s amazing Dragon in Wonderland “translated vases”

And then some great national exhibits

• Argentina – a giant horse and small girl – benevolent nature fights back …great stuff (a 9)
• Chile – Chilling display of masks on poles (an 8)
• Georgia – war-torn, flooding house…eerily brilliant (an 8)

Some Giardini highlights

• The stand out brilliant stand was Korea. Worth spending an hour there at least. For anyone about to visit China it’s mandatory. We thought it got a straight 9 ½.
• Greece was interesting and provocative – “The Laboratory of Dilemmas” based on Aeschylus’ Ikidites. We gave it a 6 or 7.
• Australia – again a 6 or 7 for a brilliant little film about refugees that was a must-see.
• Russia got a 5. Some brilliant modelling and depiction of everything we fear and hate about communism. The lack of colour, the cloning and the violence

The rest

• There must be people (or something) that loves Phyllida Barlow – her cat perhaps but even her cat would have reservations. It was (literally) rubbish. 
• The USA vied with Phyllida for weird, abstract nonsense. Both got a 1.
• As did France. Empty recording studios. “Are there normally people there?” I asked. “they’ve gone to lunch” was the scornful reply. It was a meaningless effort.
• Romania -see above - got 3.
• Germany (the winner of best stand and the only queue we saw all day) has Dobermans in cages outside – now where did I last see imagery like that – and inside glass floors and walls behind which actors with expressionless faces do expressionless things. Too crowded to see much, too dull to care much. Give it a 4.
• Canada a nice cool fountain out of piles of old 2x4 off-cuts…a 5 for not annoying us.

The bar outside the entrance of the Giardini was excellent. Good loo too.  The loos inside near the Greek stand got a zero, a plain 0. GO TO THE LAVATORY BEFORE YOU ENTER THE GIARDINI.

Conclusion

Rage, despair and bemusement? Most of this is not art so much as “conceptual” constructions. For conceptual read “not having a real idea and then not doing it properly”. But there are exceptions. It would be worth coming to the Biennale if all you saw was the Korean stand. You’d also learn a lot about ten Asian countries.

So it’s a great day full of good, bad and ugly stuff. It may fill you with rage, despair, bemusement.

Boredom certainly not.

Ciao.

WHAT'S BRITAIN LOOK LIKE FROM VENICE?

1. A faraway small island
2. Confused and grumpy
3. Lonely and lost

Richard Hall is holidaying in Italy for a few weeks

WHY DO I GO TO VENICE SO OFTEN?

1. To feel European
2. To wash my brain
3. To read, write, sleep, eat and wonder at wonders

Richard Hall is on holiday in Italy for several weeks.

I'VE DECIDED IT'S ALL TO DO WITH MARKETING

Peter Drucker, the famous management guru lived to ninety six saying stuff like:
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said”

He was seen as wise and relevant because he presented himself that way.

So like Drucker I’ve decided to keep on going but by being a nuisance. In his book “More Human: Designing a World Where People Come First” Steve Hilton who used to be David Cameron’s policy advisor and a man who despises corporate obesity noted that nature had determined that the elephant and the whale were as big as it was going to get. So BT and the NHS would be anomalies then?

My run-ins with BT have bored many who read me so I won’t go on but the irony is it’s hard to telephone BT and the company that produced an advertising campaign -“It’s good to talk” - doesn’t actually want to…talk that is. We got back from Venice three weeks ago and our land line was down. Getting through to a human was hard and when I did they lived in Chenai and they weren’t briefed about the angry me - the human ‘me’ - not just my phone number. It’s taken three weeks, three engineers, with only the last one to visit qualified to do the work. It worked fine but then stopped working although right now it’s OK again. My fingers are crossed.

This is a marketing problem. I want a Bob Hoskins sound-alike on my case not an Indian with an MBA being very nice but without being trained in how I feel and me feeling worse through being carefully nice to prove I’m not racist. BT is a dinosaur trying to be hi tech and this rusty old beast isn’t human so even when they get it right I get cross.

Next; my wife’s eye examination at the Brighton Eye Hospital. Result: nurses brilliant; doctors superb; front of house marketing a disgrace. The waiting room is dirty. How dare they have posters emblazoned “This is an infection free zone…are you are in the zone?” when it’s clearly a breeding ground for all kinds of vile viruses, especially the filthy windows which make those on a Southern Railway train look spotless. And talking of railways why in this supposedly state-of-the-art palace of medical technology would you have a large but faded print of a Great Western steam train tootling through idyllic pre-war Britain? And finally under another poster which asked cheerily “Having trouble with your sight?” they had a little library of sarcastically small print paperbacks bar one vast  1000 pager called ”Into the Darkness”. Also amid the plethora of posters was one that intrigued me. It said “Finding Your Feet with the ECLO* - and in small print *Eye Clinic Liaison Officer

Decent marketing communication - I conclude somewhat irritably - would put us all in a better state of mind and make our world a better place.

I WENT TO VENICE TO LOOK AT MARKETING?!

My next book is an update of my Brilliant Marketing - now in its 3rd edition. So marketing is constantly on my mind. And, anyway, it’s hard not to think of marketing in Brand-Venice which for 1500 years has created itself as the world’s first virtual city.

MARKETING

Everything Venice does is a promotional event, like the Regatta on September 4th when participants rowed in 16th century style boats down the Grand Canal. In Venice ask not for whom the bells from the 139 churches toll - they toll as part of the overall marketing of the place.

From music - Monteverdi, the Gabrielis, Vivaldi, to art - Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Bellini, Carpaccio,  to architecture - thanks Palladio, to theatre - hail Goldoni - this small city/town even has been raucously trumpeting above its size and population for a long time taking every chance to promote and dramatise itself. Venice is like a Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton or Leonardo DiCaprio - a living self-advertisement. We walk. My wife screams. Has some vile, greasy Venetian goosed her? No. It’s Sephora. It’s not in Britain but it is here - the beauty shop equivalent of WholeFoods Market = brilliantly serviced by smiling girls.

And the sweater shop not just selling pullovers but “Pull Love”.  I do love it and buy some. It’s not all good of course. There’s an advertisement for the Oxford School of English based in Venice. To reinforce its authenticity it has (wincingly) a guardsman in a busby….

I am betting which the English is here taught is so not best neither way.

All over Venice alongside more traditional outlets are fresh creations for ice- cream like Grom - it’s an amazing chain; Dal Moro’s Pasta to Go - bright, new, clean, appetising and it has a competitor - Pasta and Sugo.

There are Cicchetti bars where a glass of Chianti costs €2.50 and five great cicchetti set you back just €4. Apart from the history, the architecture and the tourists (confined to the Rialto and St Mark’s Square) what I constantly see is great marketing - super merchandising, witty copy, exceptional customer service and innovation. Odd isn’t it that in the world’s most historically intact city we keep on seeing new ideas?  The only tired and depressing aspect of Venice (apart from their mayor Giorgio Orsoni  and 35 others being arrested on corruption and money laundering charges related to the Venice flood defences) are the wretched liners and billionaires’ motor yachts with names like Enigma, Lady Good Girl, Happy Days, You’re Nicked and Wet Dream. Watching them and their languid passengers was like watching an episode of “The Night Manager”.

The New Brilliant Marketing 3E praises the power and the joy that marketing can bring. Try Venice to see how this works and always has….or read the book.

This is the second edition. The 3rd edition is unbelievably better and completely up to date. It comes out in six weeks.

NOT A BLOG BUT A WARNING ABOUT A BLOG

I’m still in Venice where it’s seldom fallen below 30C. I’m so relaxed it’s bizarre. But, as Arnie said in the film “I’ll be back”, yes I’ll be back next week.

In the meantime here’s what happens today…a 16th century regatta

And here’s what happens tonight. Bellini’s Norma at the Fenice.

Venice is still the most beautiful place in the world, the quietest and the most relaxing and energising at the same time.

Ciao.