PARTHURBLOG

A friend sent me the following round-robin email today:

What is the definition of Globalization?

Answer: Princess Diana’s death.

An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, riding in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian followed closely by Italian Paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines.

This is sent to you by a Canadian, using American software, and you’re probably reading this on a computer that uses Taiwanese chips, and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian truck drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexican illegals…

That, my friends, is Globalization!

Some of the stereotypes will cause offence. In my case, it just saddens me:

In the entire value chain, Britain’s only contribution is the Royal family.

Popularity: 13% [?]

…in which we learned that “Gove is always having to say you’re sorry”

…in which the Dutch confirmed their reputation as cloggers

…in which Nicholas Hayek (1928-2010), the creator of the Swatch, finally called time

…in which an octopus made the World Cup interesting (thanks to its ten tackles)

…in which Snoop Dogg revealed he wants to appear in Coronation Street – into the Rovers for “Gin & Juice”?

…in which Zenna Atkins, outgoing chair of Ofsted, said that schools should tolerate ‘useless’ teachers because it helps pupils learn to deal with other people’s incompetence in later life. My teachers must have been too good – otherwise I’d be able to tolerate Ms Atkins.

Popularity: 14% [?]

“So are you English or British?”

My questioner was an American who lives in Switzerland. We were talking about the notion of  identity, nationality and belonging. (He’d given up on his ‘homeland’ 20 years ago).

“Actually, Paul,” he continued, sensing good sport to be had at the expense of a limey, “what does it  mean to be British?”

It is a touchy subject; start picking at that thread and soon you’re unravelling an entire cardigan of immigration, race, devolution, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Vikings, Jutes, Picts, Celts, Bretons, third-generation Asians,  and the fact that St George was Turkish.

I couldn’t give him a pre-packed, well-delineated answer. I don’t know what membership rules for ‘Club Britain’ say. I’ve never looked – but then again, if they do exist, they’ll be as dry and uninspiring a late train announcement.

Rules don’t make things come to life; it’s the interpretation and creativity within rules that matter. So I gave my Swiss-American friend a list of 10 things that would give him a rounded experience of the British “brand”.

It’s not a list of top tourist attractions or the usual historic monuments. It’s neither politically correct nor hankering for a Britain that no longer exists.

Rather, it’s a taster of the (almost) everyday; the common-place that is so close, we almost don’t notice it. But to a foreigner…

BBC Radio 4: some of the best comedy, most of the best talk, great drama (every day of the week), long-running threads that link back to a bygone age… each of the individual items is a litmus test of the British psyche. As a whole, the very fact that it exists at all is a wonder;

Car Boot Sales: who needs new-fangled-internet-nonsense like eBay, when you can get rid of unwanted bric-a-brac in a field, out the back of your pride and joy? Combining two great British passions – cars and the accumulation of stuff – the car boot is now one of the main retail segments of the economy. All human life is here, from the stupid (“I like your dress. Do you have it in a size 16?”) to the sublime (“Emily is selling all her dolls and crayons to raise money for Haiti”). A unique cultural institution.

Cheeses: we have no monopoly on fine cheese (the French have a fair claim to at least 2 spots in the World Top 10), but we are bloody good at it. And the range so much defines the nation. Cheddar, Cheshire, Derby, Double Gloucester, Lancashire, Leicester, Stilton, Wensleydale – almost a dairy atlas;

Curry Houses: 30 years ago, it would have been fish & chips, but that’s been replaced by the ‘cuzza’, and its ubiquity says much about Britain’s colonial past, post-war immigration, and our diversity today. The curry house is such a democratic place: all strands and layers of society will rub shoulders in the same venue;

Evening Classes: American writers may dominate the self-improvement shelves, but that’s all talk and wishful thinking. Rather than just believing things will get better, Brits get down to the local institute or college to actually learn. From genealogy to pot-throwing, first aid to astronomy, the evening class is the source of enlightenment, social contact, and the occasionally thrilling still life;

Friday Night Bingeing: I did say this was a rounded experience of the British brand, which means warts-and-all. While others will include the great British pint in the Top Ten, there’s an underside to our relationship with alcohol that singles us out, not for the better. I can explain the roots of everything else on this list. Friday Nights remain a mystery;

Gardens: there’s no other country in the world quite so in love with gardening as the British. Not at the even-if-I-only-have-a-window-box-I’m-going-to-grow-something level. From the Chelsea Show to the well-maintained front lawn, gardening is part of our warp and weft;

Newspapers: I know this is my second slice from the media pie, but there’s no escaping that our national and regional press help define our culture – not only by their content, just by their presence. In the scheme of things, we’re a tiny island, and yet every day we produce and consume The Courier, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Herald, The Mirror, The Star, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Times, The Western Mail. This roster – supported by hundreds of  local titles – is struggling to adapt to the free, online world. Enjoy it while you can;

Tea: ahhh, the Empire. When the sun never set, and the atlas was pink. The further away we get, the more we revise the revisions of a revisionist history. We were worse than we thought; we were better than we feared. No matter – at least it left us with the cuppa. Universal placebo, fuel for the labouring man (“tea with two”), oil for the mechanism of polite society;

War Memorials: almost without exception, every village, town or city has memorial to its fallen. The fact that they exist says much about the national character; the fact that they are cared for and are the focal point across the nation at least one day a year says much more. Even as I type this, I have a lump in my throat.

* * *

So that’s my list. It’s not wholly arbitrary (I gave it more than a few minutes thought), but it will probably change if you ask me again tomorrow.

Your list may well be completely different, but I have the notion that through collective wisdom, we can create the definitive Top 10 (perhaps 20) things that a visitor must experience if s/he is going to really have a taste of Britain today.

Over to you…

Popularity: 49% [?]

Yesterday lunchtime I went to the Post Office. I had a small parcel to send.

My mistake in that first sentence is obvious: combining ‘Post Office’ and ‘lunchtime’ .

As I joined the end of the queue, I heard a digitized voice say “Cashier Number 6 please” and made the stupid assumption that there were six windows open.

I couldn’t confirm this, because I was standing outside on the pavement at the time.

At least it was sunny.

GONE TO LUNCH?

We shuffled forward, with the urgency of a bank offering a refund for over-charging on an overdraft that you’ve never taken.

Once I made it through the doorway, I could see that there were only three people on duty. And ‘ Cashier Number Six’ was reserved for foreign currency. So in reality, there were two desk staff serving.

Twenty-five minutes after joining the queue, I posted my parcel. The member of staff was cheery, helpful and courteous – surprising, given that everyone who stood in front of her must have been really grumpy.

(If there’s one thing worse than dealing with the Great British Public, it’s dealing with the GBP who have been kept waiting.)

During my wait, I wondered about the cause of the delay. Someone called in sick? Absence for training? Early lunch?

I didn’t ask: by the time I reached the service window, it didn’t seem fair to take any more time than absolutely necessary to complete the transaction.I didn’t want to cause a riot.

I left it – an unsolved puzzle.

So imagine my delight today when I found out the answer.

Why did I have to queue for almost half-an-hour?

Adam Crozier’s bonus.

The Royal Mail Group has just announced its results. And despite the fact that the CEO left at the end of March (released four months early from his contract, to go and run ITV), Mr Crozier received total remuneration of £2.5m, including £1.5m as part of his ‘long-term incentive plan’.

He made his performance targets.

THE BOTTOM LINE

And what were they? Well, a big one was profit – and the letters business, Parcelforce and Post Office stores all increased profit in 2009-10. Well done to the executive team.

But wait! While the bottom line was growing (albeit delivering wafer-thin margins) the top line decreased, down from £9.6 bn to £9.3bn.

Now, I’m no accountant, but if the bottom line on a P&L statement goes up while the top line is coming down, there’s only one variable left.

Costs.

Which in the case of Royal Mail Group is the reduction of service from two deliveries to one per day, a closure of rural post offices and a reduction of staff available to serve customers at  lunchtime.

Mr Crozier got paid an enormous sum of money for cutting off  bits of a state-owned, partial monopoly.

A very wise Finance Director once told me that, in business, “You can’t cut your way to heaven.” Obviously, he’d never benefitted from a Royal Mail executive compensation package.

Popularity: 36% [?]

This morning ‘the middle one’ goes off for his work experience week at one of London’s top computer animation studios.

How times have changed: all my pre-university work was either in shops or cleaning jobs. At 15 we weren’t expected to think about our careers.

We couldn’t see further than earning a few pounds to buy a record, a pair of jeans and go to the pictures.

Of course, it’s not just the seriousness that’s changed. The very nature of work – the types of roles that are available – has changed too. One of the great challenges of education is trying to align current investment with future needs.

Three decades ago, no one could have foreseen the rise of the BRIC countries. So we were taught French and German.  For all the rationale about European partners, and Romantic/Teutonic structures, wouldn’t Arabic, Mandarin, Russian and Portuguese be more -  well – useful?

What was true then is true now.

As William Goldman says of the film industry: “No-one knows anything".”

So what does a parent advise a child today when they seek advice about  the big, wide world of work?

Rather than try to predict what might be useful, I am taking the opposite stance and telling my off-spring what is useless. Today.

So, my precious ones, don’t even THINK about becoming:

10. Meteorologist – “there’s a 60% chance of precipitation.” And a 100% chance that your forecast is nonsense

9. TV newsreader – a job that defies the rules of physics; how can the sound of a human voice emit from a total vacuum?

8. University researcher – "scientist have shown that by wrapping the blindingly obvious in faux statistics, the news channels will present it as a breakthrough discovery – and you’ll keep your funding for more pointless research." 

7. Strategic management consultant – people who think PowerPoint IS reality.

6. TV soccer pundit – like listening to a man in a bar, but without the ability to punch him (see TV newsreader above)

5. Political pollster – being able to make telephone calls, record answers, and add up the numbers does not make you an insightful genius nor give you the right to form the next government

4. Interior designers – decorators with accessories

3. Wedding planners – why spend £10k on your big day when you can spend £30k (plus backhanders) instead?

2. Psychics and Mediums – because the dead don’t have mobiles

1. Social Media Experts – who use social media to write about social media for people who want to use social media to communicate their views on social media to people who use social media. (How do you spell the sound that someone makes when they disappear up their own infinity loop?)

* * *

Of course, no parent has all the answers, so I’m throwing this one open: in the infinite variety of bullsh*t jobs on offer, what do you advise my children to avoid?

Popularity: 40% [?]

At a conference many moons ago, we were listening to Shoshana Zuboff, one of the hot US business-academic-gurus of the time. Her book was a New York Times bestseller, and she had the answers to all our problems.

Her theme was the shift to digital, and its impact on work and organizations (this was many, many moons ago). It was stirring stuff, and I admit that despite my English scepticism, she was sweeping me along. Then she used a phrase that slammed on the brakes:

“Informating the economy.”

Informating? Informating?? If it’s possible to hear a wince, mine was audible in the neighbouring State.

A fellow English colleague, who had been on assignment for a couple of years, was sitting behind me and leant forward to whisper in my ear. In his best cod-American accent he said:

“Paul. There is no noun that cannot be verbed.”

I think of that every time someone wants a project to be architected. Or a meeting needs to be diarized. And the pedant in me attempts to push back the tide.

But you know that the battle is lost when an august institution whose very existence is to protect language and culture starts taking short cuts for fear of losing the micro-second attention span of its readership.

Curate: n a member of the clergy

Curator: n keeper or custodian of a museum

Guest: n a person invited to visit; an outside performer invited to take part

Guest curate: v a term made up by an illiterate copywriter and signed off by the British Library.

It shouldn’t be a picture of Henry on the poster; it should be King Canute.

Popularity: 39% [?]

So, we’re about to enter a new age of austerity, eh? We’ve been living on tick for too long and now the boys from the markets are coming round to collect.

If you think election campaigning is nasty business, wait ‘til the government (of whatever hue) starts outlining what’s to go; the Battle for 6 Radio was just a warm-up exercise.

So let’s start a list of things we could do without; they may not save a lot of cash, but at least they’ll get us into the habit of letting go, which as any de-cluttering guru will tell you, is the hardest thing to do.

Best start with low-hanging fruit:

Beatles repackaging: they changed popular music, sending their work into the world in 12 albums. Since then, hawkers, hangers-on and snake-oil salesmen have been squeezing every last drop from the Fab Four oeuvre, re-mixing and re-packaging to give each generation ‘a new opportunity’ to experience their work. When the son of their producer is involved in promoting a computer game, it’s a sign to move on.

Marilyn Monroe memorabilia: the literary world is agog at the prospect of a new collection of Monroe verse, insights into acting, and her to do lists. This will of course come with ‘rarely seen photos’. (Note how the game has moved to ‘rarely seen’ because there isn’t an attic in America that hasn’t been turned over hoping to find ‘never before seen’ pictures). We’re done here.

Elvis Presley: a DNA hybrid of the Beatles and Monroe. Enough said.

Cookery porn: TV shows, books and magazines which push colour, texture, gloss, sex, conflict, rage, back-story, competition, branded utensils and social causes. Amply-proportioned divas and emotionally-challenged egotists making food ‘exciting’. Meanwhile, 10.1m adults in the UK are clinically obese. Time for a re-think.

Celebrity life-guides: when the spiritual, emotional and behavioural compass of the nation is a Nolan sister, all bets are off really, aren’t they?

Hugh Grant films: nothing personal Hugh, but we’ve really run out of road, haven’t we? The schtick has been shoe-horned into every possible scenario, and it’s getting stretched thinner and thinner with every outing. Time to hang up the spurs and get a job in the Foreign Office, methinks.

Meerkats: fair play to the ad agency boys – some real creativity (unlike the usual rip-off tosh) that took a commodity service and gave it real brand differentiation. So far, so good. But the standing one has now escaped the confines of insurance, and is now becoming a lifestyle accessory. Meerkat key-ring or clock, anyone?

Football interviews: the oxymoron of our time: Inter mutuality, reciprocity; View opinion, an inspection by the eye or mind.

With the exception of Martin O’Neill, no-one – and I mean no-one – in football has anything interesting to say. At all. And the World Cup is coming.

Opticians: just how many optician chains can the UK sustain? At last count there were EIGHT in my small commuter town shopping centre. Eight! Of course, the irony is that despite this proliferation, we’ve still been myopic to the problems that are about to come home to roost.

Grumpy Old Bloggers: should be top of the list. Definitely too many of them around.

Popularity: 22% [?]

The three ring circus has left town (at least for this week), the pollsters have polled, the pundits have pontificated and Mr Clegg has become the new Steve Brookstein.

Despite a tide of cynicism rising inside us, at least the “truly historic occasion” (source: ITV press release) attracted 9.9 million viewers and started a national conversation. Shame that none of it was about policy.

I GUESS IT DOESN’T META ANY MORE

We live in a meta age; the post-modernists have won the day, and content is no longer the point of interest. Policy has been re-classified onto the obscure shelf – the focus du jour is the format of three men standing in a TV studio. To whit:

- what can we interpret from the candidates’ body language?

- who looked into camera more; who made the better jokes?

- why three coloured worms moving up and down a video screen tell us all we need to know

The morning after, pollster Frank Luntz observed that while Brown had ‘the most substance’ the audience found him old and tired. The implication being that it doesn’t matter if you play fast and loose with statistics, so long as you look like you’ve just left prep school you’ll be alright with the British electorate.

The leaders of the three parties may as well have been discussing England’s chances in the World Cup or when to plant their hanging baskets. All that mattered is how we felt about it.

SPINNING SPINNERS

Of course, the real reason for the debate wasn’t to examine issues; it was to give the media something to cover. Ad nauseum. A 90-minute debate on a single channel is just the stone that starts rolling down a 48-hour mountain, collecting snow as it goes.

- here’s the immediate response to the debate.

- here’s the analysis of the debate, and the response to the response to the debate.

- here’s the analysis of the response to the debate, and the response to the analysis to the response to the debate.

- and here’s a profile of the man running the focus group that’s giving its response to the analysis of the response to the analysis of what all this really means.

It’s as if we can’t trusted to make up our own minds or to share an opinion with a friend or colleague. The meaning of it all has to be spelt out. All this – even three blue / red / yellow lines shimmying up and down a graph – is all rather complicated, so who better to do so than people with vested interests in the outcome?

That’s the second reason for the avalanche of comment and opinion; the parties themselves want to massage the collective memory, like a bent policeman persuading a witness that the attacker really was driving a red car rather than riding a green bicycle.

I suppose we should expect the usual mouthpieces-on-sticks to say just how wonderfully well their respective bosses had performed. It’s part of the game and partly human nature. But it’s the more subtle, more invidious re-interpretations that stick in the craw.

Editors of some parts of the national press must have lit a candle to Great Mother Earth when she chose debate day to throw Icelandic ash into the sky and so ground the nation’s air passengers. The Sun devoted pages 1,2,3,4 & 5 to this affront to civil liberties – which, given that they had paid the said Mr Luntz to run the focus group that got the star billing on R4’s Today Programme, must have really irritated Ms Wade and her acolytes.

When that august journal of record did present the results of the Wapping wormery, did it proclaim Nick Clegg’s victory? Err, not exactly: Clegg didn’t win; Brown lost. Indeed, Clegg’s name didn’t appear in a single headline of The Sun that day. I wonder why?

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

As you’ve probably gathered, events of the past 48 hours have rather stirred me, but it’s only as I write this blog post that I realise why. We were sold a pup, and none of the wall-to-wall coverage of the past two days has called it as such.

Whatever happened on Thursday evening – however it’s interpreted and re-presented – one thing is irrefutably true.

We did not witness a debate.

A debate sets out a proposition, presents a case, makes point and counterpoint. A debate engages, stirs passions, sheds insight, prompts thought. A debate has structure, life, interaction and drama.

There was no debate the other night; there was facilitated Q&A. No case or rationale was presented, with a beginning, middle and end. Heaven forbid that any of the leaders strung together three cogent thoughts leading to a conclusion. Or that any of them took an assertion from the other and proved it to be false.

But who can blame them? Apparently, it’s not what we want.

According to Luntz, the reason Clegg won on the night was not due to his power of oration, his structuring of inspiring argument or his rapier-like assault on the false claims of his opponents. It was because his sound-bites resonated most with the worm-fiddlers;  “greedy bankers”, “let teachers teach”, “immigration in chaos” – that’s all it takes to become the nation’s favourite.

In light of this finding, the editorial team at Parthurblog has reached a radical decision. From now on – to ensure that the site is in tune with the population and the times – its blog postings will be no more than three words long. If it can get you elected to Downing Street, it must be able to increase the readership of a blog.

So let’s end this posting as we mean to go on: “God help us.”

Popularity: 22% [?]

… in which an ex-Cosmo centrefold, with a penchant for his pick-up truck, was elected to the US senate. Then again, his opponent couldn’t spell the State’s name (Massachusetts), so given the choice between the  ill-equipped and the illiterate, who would you choose?

…in which the British government sent £6.1m in aid to Haiti, while agreeing that the CEO of RBS stands to make £10m. Better to be on the bottom-line than a fault-line.

…in which Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at Claridge’s lost its Michelin star. Fortunately,  he retained the one in f*ck.

…in which Sir Fred Goodwin was hired by architects RMJM to advise on international expansion. Right – and Jeremy Clarkson is joining Friends of the Earth to advise on carbon reduction.

…in which Geoff ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ Hoon and ‘I’m Alright Jack’ Straw played pass the parcel at the Chilcot Inquiry. When the music stops and it ends up with Blair (as it will) he’ll say that it’s ticking, clear the room, and have the bomb squad take it away. In 45 minutes.

…in which Mariah Carey said that she considers herself black. Of all the disadvantaged groups in America, why didn’t she choose mute?

Popularity: 48% [?]

I was a threat to National Security yesterday: I took a photo in a public place.

This time I managed to avoid detection, slipping the pocket camera back into my bag before the SWAT team swooped into action. Others haven’t been so fortunate, as The Independent reported on Thursday:

November BBC photographer Jeff Overs stopped and searched while he takes sunset photographs of St Paul’s Cathedral.

November Andrew White, 33, is stopped after taking photographs of Christmas lights on his way to work in Brighton. He is asked to give his name and address.

August Police order trainspotter Stephen White to delete images of train carriages taken during a holiday in Wales. CCTV near an oil refinery monitored him taking the pictures and alerted local police. Mr White refused.

July Alex Turner, an amateur photographer, arrested under anti-terrorism laws for taking pictures of two officers as they question him for photographing a fish and chip shop in Kent. Later released without charge.

April Two Austrian tourists told to delete pictures of Walthamstow bus station. Unaware that police have no right to enforce deletion of images without a warrant, they comply.

I have been stopped twice; once outside a  shopping mall (where the CCTV boys had ‘caught’ me and sent an enforcer, even though I was standing on a public highway) and once along the Embankment. In one case, I was trying to make art, in the other,  wanting to celebrate my culture. Fortunately, unlike Mr Overs, I wasn’t trying to earn my living.

As Henry Porter in his Guardian blog today so eloquently puts it, this is an outrageous infringement of a civil liberty, and  – whether you’re a happy-snapper or a committed shutterbug – an issue that should concern everyone.

Popularity: 55% [?]