'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS...

Christmas has always been about anticipation; a build-up to a magical event. Whether  you’re Christian or not the Christmas story and carols are wonderful. Through the year we drearily sing hymns like “We plough the fields and scatter” (enough to put anyone off farming.) At Christmas we have gems like “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” or “Adam lay ybounden” or the glorious prose/poetry of the King James Bible readings. 

Kings College Cambridge and their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols becomes more glorious than the Royal Opera House or Glyndebourne for that afternoon of December 24th. Agnostics begrudgingly, albeit briefly, put aside their doubts.

Christmas presents are beautifully wrapped and ribboned - “I need your finger” I’m warned -  as a pair of socks resembles a treasure from Harrods with ribbons and bows whilst I anchor the ribbon with my finger.

Our house has lights and wreaths and music. We are celebrating. We are waiting. We are crossing our fingers that this is a special event and not a disappointment or a hangover.

Commercialisation has not spoilt Christmas although starting it in October seems a touch opportunist. It’d just that Christmas has become all about value as opposed to values.

It was Dr Mark Carney, ex-Governor of the Bank of England, in his recent Reith lectures who observed this distinction. Globally we have become obsessed with money and are forgetting the values that underpin our civilisation.

Two recent examples struck me: the recent IPO of a US business called DoorDash (a glorified Deliveroo). It has not recorded a profit since being founded in 2013 although it’s gained share from other home delivery companies. In December 8th its valuation amidst investor frenzy exceeded $68 billion. Funds like Citron, who’ve derided this business valuation, have cooled the price but this seemingly worthless company is still ‘hot’.

The second story is about the madness of ministers. The Right Honourable Robert Jenrick (who’s neither right nor particularly honourable given this proposal) has floated the idea of shifting our major celebration from Christmas to Easter so everyone gets to party in safety. 

Trouble is Bob, that plays havoc with the Christian calendar unless you are proposing ‘Speed Christianity’. From Birth to Crucifixion to Resurrection all in three days. Roast Turkey stuffed with hot cross buns. Lovely. No values there.

Back to anticipation on a more personal level. My car broke down. All battery life gone. As I waited and waited for the RAC I felt the increasing need to pee. But it was in the middle of a town and doing it in the street and a lamp post like a dog was a no-go strategy. From the first yearnings to eventually getting home was around four hours. But when I did it was worth waiting for.

Despite what promises to be a messed-up season of jollity because of the new strains of Covid that are spreading much more rapidly than expected, the sense of anticipation remains, hopes as well as fears:

Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight

This painting by the Dutch artist Avercamp in the early 1600s is all about community, cold and fun. Yes, I hope we have snow. I hope we get outside and have some fun at last. 

Meanwhile, have a great, bibulous celebration, better than you’d feared and count your blessings. “Ding dong merrily on high”…

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”

I FEEL SO TIRED...

Years ago I worked with someone who was rather lethargic. One day I walked into his empty office and found written on his wall “I feel so tired” …20 times. It was eerie. Rather like finding Jack’s book open in “The Shining”.

I kept a wary eye on him after that. Then he left, started a new company and became extremely wealthy. At that point I felt really tired.

I’m constantly hearing  people lamenting their weariness. What’s going on? We don’t commute or travel anywhere. We had a lovely, lazy summer redolent of the Kinks:

“I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury
Lazing on a sunny afternoon”

But in the Kinks song all is not well. Tax burdens. Bailiffs. Broken relationships. Boredom and weariness.

Now we’re lashed by unending news and interviews with second-ranking Ministers of State.  It’s like Groundhog Day. We’re all clones of Bill Murray. 

I even know someone who, in a state of woe, stayed up very late listening to the early results of the US Presidential Election when it seemed Trump might pull it off. We’ve become depressingly knowledgeable about politics, Covid, health issues, the NHS.  It’s time to get a life instead of being self-obsessed hypochondriacs. We’re being ruled not by fear of the virus but by all the worries of the world. Like the Guardian we’ve become experts in what’s wrong.

Time to re-energise and look on the upside. I love the fresh air of change. We now live in a world where we can develop a vaccine from scratch in 10 months rather than 10 years. Quantum Computing is changing everything. Last week Deep Mind (part of Google in the UK)  has created  a programme called Alpha Fold that can predict protein shapes. This is the biggest scientific breakthrough in many years. Other scientists are saying this is a development they’d have described as having a feasibility of happening  “not in my lifetime.”  Proteins are the workhorses of life. In a human being there are 80,000 to 400,000 of them. A scientist on the Radio 4 Today programme described protein as being like shoelaces but you don’t know what shape they’ll tie into. If you knew you could anticipate diseases and shape the life of human beings positively. 

I love seeing new enterprise. Ours is rapidly becoming a brave, new world. Getting back to normal was a pretty unambitious aim: normal was not so great. Now we are at last rushing to try and reverse climate change – with even the Chinese setting carbon-free targets. We are changing that face of normal.  The way we do our shopping has changed and soon Amazon won’t be the only show around. Watch out for Ocado. 

The way we travel and why we do it is changing.  We’ll be working from home as well as meeting together and learning new skills. Eating out will return but quality will become a bigger factor. In the lockdown wine sales have held up well but people are paying much more for a bottle than they did last year. Local communities are beginning to thrive. I can’t influence the Senatorial election in Georgia but I might help solve the litter problems in Central Brighton.

The antidote to fatigue is exhilaration not more news. The contribution that Netflix makes to human good is bigger than the Times, BBC News, the Guardian and the Economist.

Back to the Shining.  “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. So let’s start to play again. Celebrate, talk, laugh and enjoy. 

Happy December. Ho. Ho. Ho.

 

LETTING OFF STEAM

I keep on hearing people talking about their ‘mental health’ as though it were a badly behaved pet puppy or, perhaps, a  bit like the daemons in Philip Pullman’s novels. To be sure we have probably all found the lockdown and the past year rather stressful but a bit of stiff upper lip and pulling ourselves together might not go amiss, as the Edwardians would have said. 

But there is another way. 

Swearing.

Emma Byrne has written a book called “Swearing is Good for You – The Amazing Science of Bad Language”. The book says not only that some form of swearing has existed since the earliest humans got irritated, but it states that swearing can reduce pain, help stroke victims learn how to speak again, and, even, encourage teamwork. 

The book cites historical case studies and claims to have conducted cutting-edge research. Emma writes about chimpanzees creating their own swearwords; about a man who lost half his brain in a mining accident experiencing a new-found compulsion to swear (well I’m not surprised at that). In short Dr Emma Byrne describes the fascinating science behind swearing and how it affects us physically and emotionally. More importantly she asserts that it’s beneficial to our mental health. 

What a load of old bollocks I thought.

But in my own experience swearing can indeed be a way of emphasising a fact or an intensity of feeling. An old friend who is a magically passionate presenter uses the f*** word liberally. It’s his own eccentric form of punctuation. You become immune to it after a while so when he stops using it your ears prick up and you double your concentration.

Another person I know seldom swears very seldom but when she does the effect is nuclear.

One of our grandsons when he was about 3 showed some precocious talent at invective when his mother was irritated by someone’s driving shouting “dirty nappy-man!” at the offender. 

But the vocabulary for swearing is generally rather limited and there’s a need to create some more exotic terms with which to sprinkle our vocabulary. I enjoyed a few Michael Spicer’s used. He called Donald Trump ‘a massive fart’ and a ‘puffin’ (not bad), Priti Patel a ‘brainless wasp’ and as a simple expletive ‘Jeremy H. F***ing Hunt’.

Here were a few new ones I quite liked:

- Gnashgab – someone who constantly complains

- Klazomaniac – someone who speaks very and irritatingly loudly

- Muck-Spout – what this blog is all about – someone who constantly swears

- Windf***er – archaic term of abuse but which describes someone vague and useless

But we can be more inventive and the impact can be explosive – calling someone ‘a useless smear of slime’ can be as disorientating as calling them a ‘useless turd’ (as opposed to a useful turd??)

In the Times recently the results of a three-month study into the frequency of use of swearing in different professions appeared.

The league table surprised me:

1. Banking – ‘f***’ - 960 times a week observed in their offices – extraordinary. 

2. Law – ‘bullshit’ – well that’s self-awareness at least

3. Hospitality (thanks to Gordon Ramsay I imagine) 

4. Sales – naturally

5. Media – ‘bollocks’ – which, of course, it is

What disappointed me deeply was my previous profession, “advertising,” came a miserable 9th. How times have changed. In my day we were the kings of abuse. We were so politically incorrect it makes me cringe to remember. The air around us was not blue it was technicolour with vivid, excoriating abuse.

So if you feel the need to swear just let rip. You’ll feel a lot better. It’s official.

TECHNOLOGY HASN'T CHANGED OUR LIVES

New technology hasn’t fundamentally changed golf, cricket or football. Although in football, VAR (video-assistant-referees) has been so contentious we may go back to old on-the-field referees’ judgement. 

But there are very few who’d agree with me on this luddite thinking. 

On Friday I was working in my office whilst my wife was taking exercise – I avoided it as I usually do. I waved affectionately at her as she walked round our large communal garden and opened the window to bellow good natured encouragement. And then it happened. I leant forward and my mobile phone spun out of my grasp, out of the window and landed with a loud thwunk on a roof below.

Getting to it was going to be complex and a crawling-over roofs job. At my age, un-exercised, it was going to be lunacy. No Spiderman me. So I started to think.

I wondered if this accident had been divine intervention. Freedom from those countless, irritating phone-calls. Release from e-mails and texts when I was out of the house and freedom from that behaviour trait of imitating those around you and studying your screen as though it holds the secrets of the universe. First one person does it then we all do – like yawning. 

I realised that I yearn for pen and ink. I yearn for the absence of intrusion. I yearn for never again seeing a text saying “Halifax is holding a payment of several thousand pounds – send your bank details so they can  pay it into your account.”  No, you defrauding Nigerian, Russian, Ukrainian or whoever. No. No. No. 

I yearn for a world devoid of Apps and social media. Not being anchored to your phone is being on holiday.

But then I thought about contacting people. All the phone numbers are on my phone. Not having my mobile was going to be like the onset of a kind of dementia. Basically, just out of it.

Take away my PC and I can still write but with a degree of greater difficulty especially as my seldom-used handwriting now resembles that of drunken doctor - unintelligible. But without my phone I’m inaudible, invisible and forgotten.

Perhaps it’s time we should reject the “paperless society”. Perhaps assuming everyone is online is rash, ageist and classist. I shudder for the prospects of poor children living in a household without a laptop whose ability to share online learning and homework is non-existent. 

We all need to learn how to use useful, basic technology and make sure it’s available to everyone as a utility not a luxury good and that we’re trained to use it well. The overly sophisticated stuff is a waste of time as is much social media. The good side of social media is closed community groups and business tools like LinkedIn but much of the rest is, as I see it, time consuming and navel gazing. 

And as for Siri or Alexa.

They’re rather silly toys for petulant teenagers. To be ignored.

The good stuff is that the days of deliveries being left on the doorstep are over and being able to track deliveries and have accurate delivery times is usual. 

So I’ve made three resolutions:

i)   To create an up-to-date paper address book in pencil (so I can rub out changes.) 

ii)  To become proficient at using the few digital tools that are helpful and time saving.

iii) To stop leaning out of windows with anything in my hand – good heavens – it could have been a glass of wine on Friday. Imagine that.

BEING CRAZY CAN HELP

Ricardo is a name I’m often called by friends and the name I use in Venice (Venetians find Richard Hall – ‘Risher Hore’ – an unpalatable  mouthful). 

Ricardo is a good name. I like it. So does Ricardo Semler – founder of Semco the Brazilian conglomerate – who was on TED Talks recently  and was once again a source of great inspiration. He’s 61 now and has been “running” the company since he was 21. He took over from his father when Semco was mainly a failing shipbuilding business. Ricardo who constantly rowed with his autocratic father prior to taking over was given the reins and his father retired to avoid having Ricardo storm out. His father’s move, as it transpires, was very shrewd.

Unlike his father Ricardo wanted to diversify and break the company into self- governing satellites. He also wanted to liberalise the management style. But first the executioner. In his first week he fired 60 % of the top management. This is what others have called the “permafrost” in an atrophied business. 

He then worked like crazy nearly killing himself. His moment of epiphany, his “why do we exist?” moment came as he lay on a hospital bed. This led him to create an organization culture which exhibits a unique form of participative management. There are no set timings of work, employees decide their productivity targets, they decide on who their boss will be, they decide on what they should be paid, holidays can be taken at will and so on. By any MBA standards utterly crazy. 

Today the company spans environmental consultancy, facilities management, real estate brokerage and inventory support. It’s products include rocket fuel, cooling towers and a world famous teak sealer. It’s very diverse. By any MBA standards utterly crazy.

Ricardo’s come-to-Jesus-moment was as he lay on that hospital bed 36 years ago but his feelings about taking a new look at life and work is intensifying. A small example was him saying: 

“Working through a weekend to get a task completed is one thing but the real sign of growing up is going to the cinema on Monday afternoon.”

The people you should want to hire and work with need all the classic characteristics – energy, enthusiasm and expertise – but they also need to be cool, thoughtful and balanced. But most of all they need to be a little crazy sometimes. If we believe creativity matters and makes a difference we shan’t find that in people who are bored and boring, people who relish crisis above taking a break to replenish the mind. 

Our biggest problem today is the pace at which everything happens, is reported and which, apparently, requires action to be taken. This leads to bad decisions being taken without enough data or thought. 

The most striking thing about Ricardo is his sheer joy in life and his relaxed  view of life. His management style and view of leadership as he himself concedes in his 1988 book “Maverick”  is out of the ordinary and somewhat eccentric. His 2003 book “The Seven Day Weekend” goes further. But his philosophy is intensely human and as such intensely appealing.

As I listened to him I recognised in his words a burning sense of a strategist. Whilst most people in business are focused on the next quarters earnings or today's crisis (and if there isn’t one looming creating one) he’s taking a long view of what will be a short career – most of us only have jobs for only 40 or so years.

So why do we exist? We exist to enjoy life, to help others enjoy it, to make the world a better place (often in just in a small way) and to celebrate the magic and majesty of existence.

Crazy stuff existence. Make the most of it.

"I'M OUT!"

Dragon’s Den and The Bidding Room are TV programmes where these words are heard.  People who displease their peers are “ghosted” or “cancelled”. Rejection is sadly part of our culture now.

Still, it was a surprise when a friend who’s always been engaged in events and current thinking sent an e-mail saying he’d had enough … so no more USA, land of lost souls and close to Civil War (again) – no more Guardian (the paper which just tells you what’s wrong with the world) - no more FT (the paper that always knows best) – no more Boris and “the schoolboys round him” – no more Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook – no more Nigel Farage (oh no, not him again surely?). In short, he’s “out”. Like Leslie Bricusse’s and Anthony Newley’s musical he’s declared “Stop the world – I want to get off.”

I sympathise even empathise but I won’t accept that things are so awful that they cannot be lived with any more. 

The biggest threat to the UK economy is this retirement malaise leading to a collective sense of unproductive despair. The continued furlough makes things worse because many people can afford (just) to carry on not working. After a year of being in semi-retirement getting the car out of the garage and expecting it to start first time (let alone start at all) may be rather harder than the government hopes for. 

My suspicion has always been (and this has intensified) that the opportunities now are enormous. Opportunities to restructure radically, to relaunch, to be enterprising and free from the shackles of a treadmill clinging on to withering businesses, to break away from terrible management practices (private equity, hang your heads in shame), look for growth potential  and, finally, put your foot on the optimism accelerator and floor it.

I’m in. Otherwise I might as well be dead.

But not yet. Not yet. 

We need to give our politicians a kicking – all of them – because their lack of resolution and constant looking over their shoulder at what the Mail, Express or Guardian is going to write the next day or what trends on social media leads to sloppy thinking and bad decisions or no decisions at all.

We need to start planning for a new future not a back-to-normal. It’s winter and gardeners throughout the world are pruning, removing old plants, replenishing the soil and planning for the future. They are thinking, researching and are full of hope. Let’s think like gardeners not like MBAs.

And we need to think of new strategies. The Financial Times asked the right question of what a post Brexit Britain might look like. Professor Ian Angell wrote in his prophetic book, ‘The New Barbarian Manifesto’, 20 years ago, about a new kind of Britain which broke free of the Union and became a Singapore solely within the M25, in GDP per capita, a world beating entity. The Financial Times considered this concept more recently.  Venice even after they lost their unique benefit of being the only gateway to Asia when the Portuguese discovered a sea-route there, continued with a population of under 200, 000 creating wealth and success for two centuries until they became addicts of hedonism and went potty. 

We need to keep our brightest and best on side playing their best game. At worst our politicians and governments last only a few years. We, who believe in ourselves and our potential last much longer than they do.

Be in. And if I hear anymore of this “out” nonsense I’ll get cross.