Prestat Choxi

Prestat Choxi - very smooth, with a complex taste sweet and slightly bitter at the same time (the bitter aftertaste is quite nice).

The company manufactures its chocolate products at Park Royal in London. A real factory, actually manufacturing within the London area. You can buy the products in Waitrose, John Lewis and at the Prestat store in Piccadilly.

They also do single-origin chocolate buttons which are very good.

Here is their home page: http://www.prestat.co.uk/

Gary Younge - Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?

On Tuesday I went to see Gary Younge (Guardian columnist) talk about his new book Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? The event was held at 7.45pm in the Purcell Room of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. About three hundred (my guess) people attended the event.

Rachel Holmes, Head of Literature and the Spoken Word at the South Bank Centre, introduced the talk with a quote from Gary Younge: “The only certain thing about identity is that it will keep changing.” She then introduced as Chairperson of the evening “Bidisha” (who is presumably one of the small group of women so famous they are known by a single name - “Hillary” or “Diana”). Rachel Holmes praised Bidisha to such an excessive extent, and for such an extended period of time, that Gary Younge seemed eclipsed.

For the first half-hour Gary Younge stood at a podium:

“Sex, race, age, class, nationhood, belief… we rarely talk about identity intelligently… identity is an important place to start when it comes to politics, but it’s a deadly place to finish…”

He talked about the many contradictions of identity, making the audience laugh with absurd examples from around the world ( South Africa , China , Israel ). He quoted EH Carr: “A man is from his earliest years moulded by the society he is born into.” He talked with approval of the identity conferred by shared consumerism – food, branded clothing, lifestyles.

“The more powerful you are the less conscious you are of identity… Nationhood and race is a nonsense… Cultural gatekeepers deny changes to identity… White men do not have an identity, they have an orthodoxy… Identities make no sense unless they are seen in the context of power… In an era of globalization people are more likely to retreat into identity…”

He gave a warning: “All over Europe fascism is now a mainstream ideology.”

He finished by opposing the concept of “identity” with the broader abstract idea of “humanity”.



Resuming his seat, questions followed, mediated by Bidisha.

They were cynical about the idea of diversity (Bidisha: “Diversity happens at a level of marketing and image.” Gary Younge: “Diversity has become presentation”).

They made mild jokes at the expense of Diane Abbott’s candidature for Leader of the Labour Party.

Other comments made by Gary Younge during the questions: “Political correctness means whatever you want it to mean so long as you don’t like it… It is impossible to understand class without identity… To some extent all identities become a performance…”

Towards the end Gary Younge was asked how he defined his own identity: “Humankind… In America I’m very British all the time… Black British.”

I had been looking forward to the talk for some time. Marketing is obsessed with issues of identity, and I spend most of my time at work identifying audiences, segmenting populations, classifying people by their beliefs, behaviours, aspirations etc. I was hoping for some new insights on the subject.

On the whole I thought the talk was a little lightweight. Perhaps the book will be more in-depth. During the questions I thought he skated over the way parents impart identity to their children, whereas this is the main mechanism of cultural transmission.

Where Gary Younge is absolutely right is to say that the more powerful you are the less conscious you become of identity. The obverse of this must also be true – the less powerful you are the more conscious you become of identity. This is because sections of society who have little wealth or power are more reliant on communal ownership of property and resources.

I also think that Gary Younge is mistaken to expect the majority of the population to transcend issues of identity and become part of a universal “humanity”. Some may be able to make this step, but most will not. Being fully human seems to include an impulse to “belong”.

Aldous Huxley wrote: “Nationalistic theory… justifies those periodical orgies of emotion which are, for the great majority of men and women, a psychological necessity… health cannot be maintained without occasional orgasms of hatred, self-love and group-frenzy.”

Aldous Huxley also wrote: “It is the business of men of science to devise a technique for making prosperity and peace as satisfying, psychologically, as nationalistic hatreds and hysterias.”



Above: article Gary Younge was asked about (if you click on the image it should enlarge so that you can read it).

During the questions Gary Younge was asked about an article he wrote on the 28th June that questioned whether “English” identity existed outside of the English football team. Later I reread the article (I had not taken it seriously the first time I read it). In the article Gary Younge says:

“When England ’s national team ceases to exist as a viable entity the nation and, to some extent, its national identity, goes with it… ( England ) lacks the basic tropes of nationhood.”

This statement is hard to justify. When you consider the basic “tropes” of nationhood (linguistic, judicial, religious etc) England has more than most nations can claim. For instance the legal system is unique to England and all the time Gary Younge is in England he is subject to English Common Law. The Church of England is uniquely recognized, in law, as the state religion of England . English local government, based on county and borough councils, has existed since Anglo-Saxon times. When Gary Younge speaks or writes he does so in the English language etc etc.

Gary Younge is an intelligent man. He must know all this. So why did he write such a silly article?



Above: The Struggle for the World by Lindholm and Zuquete.

Gary Younge is wrong to conflate identity politics with fascism. In The Struggle for the World by Lindholm and Zuquete, the Zapatistas evince a nostalgia for communal ownership of ancestral lands and goods and many examples are quoted of Zapatista ideology. Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos says: “Globalisation destroys nation states and destroys the human beings in them.”

President Morales of Bolivia is quoted as saying: “We the indigenous peoples, the humble and honest peoples of this planet, believe the time has come to stop and to rediscover our roots and a respect for Mother Earth” (as opposed to “a universalist project to convert the world to a single society directed by the economy”).



Above: when I saw this (hate crime) comment by Ashley Cole I was reminded again of Aldous Huxley: “As well as hate, the other passion behind the theory and practice of nationalism is vanity. Delusions of greatness are always accompanied by persecution mania. The paeans of self-praise with which the nationalists are perpetually gratifying themselves are always on the point of modulating into denunciations of other people.”

Prime Minister's Question's, Wednesday 7th July 2010

Lunchtime today I managed to watch Prime Minister's Questions.

This is the first time I have done so since the new government was formed (I suppose I could watch the recorded version, but it is never the same - you need to see it live).

I was impressed at how competent David Cameron looked. He is very quick-witted. At one stage he seriously discomfited Alan Johnson (later in the studio Andrew Neil produced a killer clip of Alan Johnson from the election campaign).

The Speaker's behaviour was irritating. John Bercow is probably the most undignified Speaker of modern times. Perhaps the post should be directly elected (and removed) by the people.

Chuka Umunna asked about knife crime. Roger Williams asked a question that appeared to be interesting, but was so obscurely worded it was unintelligible. Rushanara Ali asked about housing in the East End.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t164p/Prime_Ministers_Questions_07_07_2010/

The Cobb at Lyme Regis

When I was in Dorset recently I was at a loose end one evening and drove down to Lyme Regis, about twenty miles away.



Above: the Cobb at Lyme Regis features in Persuasion by Jane Austen's and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. I've always wanted to see it. I arrived in the town about 8pm - the evening was warm, and all the tourists had left for the day.



Above: after parking my car I had a fish and chip supper on a bench on the promenade. From where I sat I could see the curve of the Cobb in the distance. Two pigeons came along to watch me.



Above: view from the top of the Cobb looking back at the town - the cliffs you can see are known as the Jurassic Coast from the large numbers of fossils that can be found there. Once up on the Cobb I felt very unsafe. The drops are sheer on both sides, and the surface is slanted so that if you fell over you could easily roll into the sea.



Above: steps leading up to the top of the Cobb. The exact location of the accident in Persuasion is disputed, but I this flight of steps most closely matched my imagination. For some reason all the time I was up on the top of the Cobb I felt giddy - perhaps the movement of the sea made me disoriented.



Above: the end of the Cobb where Meryl Streep (as Sarah Woodruff) stood in the film version of The French Lieutenant's Woman. I wouldn't want to stand there in a storm. Even on a mild summer day, with a calm sea, I felt unsafe.



Above: when I returned home I reread Fowles, getting the book out of the library rather than buying it. There was no need to reread Persuasion as I know it so well. I know these things are hard to judge, but probably Jane Austen is the greatest novelist of all time.

A Grade 1 listed building

Above: after lunch a drive to the north east of the county. One of the churches I called at was this Grade 1 example, remote from the village. Externally Perpendicular, but internally much older.



Above: inside it was a shell (I repeat, this is a Grade 1 listed building). All the glass had been smashed in all the windows. The doors were all off, and the building is open to the elements.



Above: scorch marks from fires can be seen on the medieval south arcade.



Above: medieval carving of a monk at prayer - just lying on the floor for anyone to take. This is in a Grade 1 listed building. Someone should be shot for what has happened here.



Above: Ian Jack in yesterday's Guardian drew attention to the risk parish churches are facing. The government should give a yearly grant to the Church of England to cover the cost of maintenance of all medieval buildings. It would be a fraction of the billions being wasted on the Olympic Games.



Above: there is some help from various bodies, but the strategy of "find alternative uses" is flawed - once the buildings have been turned into shops, or tennis courts, or community centres they are just as ruined as the burned-out smashed-up examples. The sensible answer is for the Church of England to increase its membership. It can't be all that hard to get a hundred or so regular communicants attending each church each week. It's only twenty or so families. And now everyone has a car even the most remote church becomes accessible. Unfortunately you can't talk to incumbants about marketing communications - they just don't think it is relevant to them.

"Hey guys, I failed" - the past week at work

Wednesday

Back to the office after five days ill. I felt as if weeks had passed. As soon as I got to my desk I wanted to go home again.

Julie (trainee account executive) had had her car stolen two weeks ago, but yesterday it had been found. She sat at her desk in the account execs room ringing all her friends on her mobile to tell them the news. In one of these conversations (which I couldn't help hearing) she revealed that her mother was friends with Yvette (agency head).

On the whole I found the day difficult. Most of my time was spent coping with problems. It seemed that no sooner was one problem resolved another presented itself.

It was formally confirmed that we have lost our catering client. As this was squarely the responsibility of Yvette and Julie the rest of us could sympathise in an accusatory sort of way. At a meeting held to discuss the loss, Yvette said: "I'm the first to hold up my hands and say Hey guys, I failed".

Lunchtime Andrea (account director) produced a plate of small sausages wrapped in bacon, but I didn't feel I could eat any - my stomach was still quite queasy.

In the afternoon a massive blunder came to light. During my illness I had forgotten about an ad that was due at a national publication this morning. The rep rang me up asking where the artwork was, and I managed to extend the deadline until 4pm. Then I hastily cobbled some copy together and got Neil (graphic designer) to do the design. I got client approval with minutes to spare, and sent the ad off exactly on four o'clock. This sequence was very stressful, and because we are all in one office it was impossible to keep any of it secret.

I was longing to go home on time this evening, but at 5pm I got called into an appraisal Yvette was holding with Jonathan our copywriter. She was full of praise for my writing, and wanted me to guide Jonathan. I said I would be happy to help, but actually I wanted to ask why we had appointed a copywriter who couldn't write.

Going back into the general office I found Martin, Julie's brother who is in the army. I told him Julie had already gone home, but actually he was waiting for Andrea. It seems they are now going out together (after they had left I watched them from the front office walking down the street holding hands).

Thursday

I felt incredibly tired this morning, so that I had to force myself to make the journey in to work.

All of the morning Yvette's car alarm kept going off. She parks it in the back mews, and the alarm can be heard in the offices (the toilet lobby window was open). When the alarm starts hooting Yvette comes into our office and throws her car keys at someone (usually Jonathan, or trainee account exec Eleanor) to go down and turn the thing off.

Most of the day I spent doing media research for a potential Accountancy client.

Yvette went to see our charity client (one of my clients, but she wanted to go alone for some reason). She came back gasping at how difficult they were. "I have been subjected to two-and-a-half hours of niggles" she said.

A call from a friend at a west end ad agency. She said her career had plateaued, with nothing new happening. The hours she works are so long she has no time or energy to develop a social life.

Friday

A call this morning from a Netherlands publication saying that artwork for an ad we had sent them was the wrong size. This was Neil's fault, although I ought to have double-checked. We managed to put it right without anyone else having to know.

Most of the morning was concerned with putting together a presentation document for a firm of City Accountants. The presentation itself, held in the upstairs Boardroom, was so tedious that I felt bored out of my mind. It must have been what they wanted however, as we got the account including some PR work (which we are supposed to pass on to the upstairs division, but Yvette wants to handle it all ourselves).

Later Eleanor was embarrassed to see an out of date logo on an ad she had placed for a City client("the client approved it" she wailed).

Clapham

Above: an omnibus in Clapham. "The man on the Clapham Omnibus" was an expression meant to identify the median demographic of the British population. The phrase is seldom used now (perhaps because politicians do not value the opinions of people who travel by 'bus?).



Above: the Notre Dame Estate in Clapham. The estate is notorious for low-level crime, drug dealing, and shootings. In 2009 the residents accused the Labour administration of Lambeth of having abandoned them.



Above: Clapham is most famous for Clapham Common, a large expanse of parkland about 220 acres in extent. As the name implies the park was originally common land, and had been so since Saxon times. In 1998 Ron Davies, New Labour Secretary of State for Wales, was involved in a lurid night-time incident on Clapham Common (he has always denied sex was involved).



Above: Holy Trinity on the edge of Clapham Common. The church was the centre of the influential Clapham Sect that included William Wilberforce. The group campaigned against slavery.



Above: despite the reputation Clapham had as a working-class suburb, the area includes many large commodius houses. This one was the former home of the distinguished architect Sir Charles Barry. Today Clapham residents include Natasha Bedingfield, Vanessa Redgrave and Polly Toynbee.



Above: Lavender Hill. The area got its name from the commercial cultivation of lavender until urban development took place in the mid-nineteenth century. The 1951 film The Lavender Hill Mob was set in the area and starred Alec Guiness.



Above: the Falcon pub. The curved facade you can see here is an 1880 rebuilding on the site of an ancient inn. Time Out once described the pub as "Britpop cool" (which is enough to put you off ever going in the place).



Above: Clapham department store Arding & Hobbs, now owned by John Lewis. Originally built in 1885, a fire destroyed the building in 1909. The famous clocktower was added when the store was rebuilt.

Note: this area is technically Battersea, but everyone regards it as Clapham.



Above: commuters at Clapham Junction station. Whenever I see a group of people like this I want to go over and survey them. It's as if I have a compulsive impulse to ask people their opinions (on products, places, things etc).

Lecture

One of the last things I did before I fell ill last week was to attend an evening meeting of the county's architectural society. It meant leaving work early and travelling back to the station where my car was parked and then driving from the southern boundary of the county all the way through to its northern edge. I was already suffering from influenza, but attributed the dizziness I felt, and the feelings of weakness, to the fact that I hadn't had any dinner and to the excessive heat.

I only just got to the tiny village in time. The garden drinks party was ending and the society members (about eighty of them) were walking across to the small church where the meeting was to be held. It was about eight o'clock in the evening, the sky remaining light until gone ten (that preternatural shadowless evening light you get around Midsummer Day).



Above: the church is dedicated to St Maurice, which immediately alerted me to the possibility of a crusader connection (the finding of the lance of St Maurice or St Morris in the ruined citadel of Antioch during the First Crusade had been a cathartic moment in the recapture of the Holy Land, leading to the cult St Maurice becoming popular among crusaders - this Antioch lance of St Maurice is not the same as the one kept in Vienna, which has a dubious provenance). The church had been recently restored, the restoration funded in part by the architectural society and the local council. Hence the invitation to the society to hold its summer lecture there.



Above: there were so many people milling about inside the building that I wasn't able to get a proper picture of the interior, but this is a photograph of a photograph that was on one of the information boards at the back. Note the unusual flight of steps up to the chancel, which indicates there is probably a chamber underneath it. Obviously I wondered what might be in that chamber.



Above: some nicely restored heraldic hatchments. Apparently they had been found in the bell tower in a rather dilapidated state. The pews at the back of the church had been removed to create space for display boards describing the history of the local area (there are important Roman remains nearby, a famous painter lived in the area in the eighteenth-century, the name of the village is mentioned in one of the most famous English folk songs etc).



Above: my heart sank when I read one of the boards and found that the pernicious revisionism was being repeated that reduces the Anglo-Saxons to mere "immigrants" who had introduced a "Nordic lifestyle". There is no hard evidence that this twisted version of history is true. All the evidence we have tells us that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived as invaders, and obliterated the culture they found here (which was not the Romano-British culture of the colony of Britannia, as society seems to have regressed after the Roman legions left with the urban areas abandoned and revivals of paganism taking place). There was none of the cultural fusion that was experienced when the Franks invaded Gaul, recorded by Gregory of Tours. It is likely that the Saxon invaders of Britain physically destroyed the population they found here, as there is such an ominous silence in the years following the invasion, coupled with a complete change of language, culture and religion. Stenton, Loyn, Whitelock, Myres, Wallace-Hadrill, Michael Wood etc.

Probably the wording of the board had been decided by some diversity-awareness commissar in the local council. I was annoyed that money I had donated had gone towards this board. I would rather the church became a ruin than history should be politicised and tainted in this way.



Above: as I suspected, there was a crusader connection with the church.



Above: the lecture was given by Professor David Stocker. Very interesting talk on the way churches in the county have created a unique succession of landscapes ("each village wants to be seen... the tower would get higher and higher... the eighteenth-century aimed to reproduce Elysium..."). The lecture lasted an hour and I could easily have listened to another two or three hours, despite the fact that in the overwhelming heat of the evening I was beginning to shiver slightly and my hands and feet had become very cold.



Above: leaving the building I looked out across the valley where the crusader remains are suspected to be. I felt too ill to take a closer look. Long drive home, almost all the way in daylight.

Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet

Too ill to go into the office today, but I managed to answer my e-mails by a remote connection. Feeling better, and no longer have a headache or feel sick. Have slept for about fifty percent of the last three days.

When I have not been sleeping I have been reading Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. I am half-way through Justine. I imagine Justine as a Lady Gaga figure.

The book was a gift - I'm not sure I would have bought it (mainly because it is 860 pages long, and I don't really have the time to read books this long).

The novels are suffused with references to Cavafy, and Durrell seems to be aiming to reproduce in prose form the longueurs of Cavafy's poetry.

"Anything pressed too far becomes a sin."

"Evil is good perverted."

"...the long bereft Greek face, with its sane Grecian nose and candid eyes, the satiny skin that is given only to the thymus-dominated, the mole upon her slender stalk of a neck."

See also http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/alexandria-quartet-2.html

England vs Germany

I am very ill at the moment - I have a terrible sort of flu.

No appetite. I ache all over and have a headache if I move. All I can do is sleep.

Earlier today, after lunch (which I left most of), I went back to bed for two solid hours.

But I got up at 3pm to watch England vs Germany.

I don't care about the result. I will not read the Sports section tomorrow. In my view every one of the team played well, and I enjoyed seeing them performing at the highest level of international football.

And there is the compensating thought that however well Germany play and however well they perform they can never become the England football team (by this I mean they will always be the bad guys, the title of good guys is permanently reserved for England).

Towards the end of the match one of the commentators said "There will have to be an enquiry into this".

The commentators speculated how the England team members, individually so expert, could collectively fail.

Leaving aside physiological issues such as the effect of the climate and the altitude, the most obvious reason must be a failure of morale.

And a contributing factor in poor morale must be the behaviour of sports journalists. If you constantly tell a group of people they are rubbish and sustain this message over a period of decades, then the objects of this abuse will inevitably experience a loss of morale. In any other area of life the perpetrators would be guilty of psychological cruelty (and in certain workplace situations they would end up having to explain their behaviour in court).

It would be interesting to chart the performance of national teams in the World Cup together with the support they get from their respective media. Is there, I wonder, some Brazilian equivalent of Marina Hyde, constantly snarking about every single aspect of the national team's performance? Is there in Germany a coterie of journalists who, instead of finding new and interesting things to say, lazily recycle the old narrative of failure, knowing that by doing so they will bring about the very failure they predict?

Gillian Tett from the Financial Times

After work I accompanied Terry (my ultimate boss) to an economics seminar delivered by Gillian Tett from the Financial Times. By taxi to a side road off St James, and then into one of the clubs. Up the stairs two at a time as we were so late. We took our glasses of Chilian white wine into the meeting and sat down right at the back just as the introduction was ending. Gillian Tett walked to the podium. Dull blonde hair, soberly dressed, her neck swathed in seed pearls. Her background - she trained as a social anthropologist in Tajikistan, then wrote the Lex column for the Financial Times, then headed the Capital Markets team at the FT. She described her efforts to understand the financial markets over the last seven or eight years, looking at financial structures from the point of view of a social anthropologist. As an anthropologist she was able to identify "cognitive capture" – the way elites hang onto power. She developed a sketch map of how the City of London worked, from the point of view of a social anthropologist ("It's symbolic that Canary Wharf is an island. They speak a language few people understand. Bankers have retreated into a private world like philosophers in Plato's cave"). She discovered that the concept of risk dispersion via hedge portfolios, although claimed to be a safer system was in fact a "bunkum" creed ("because of the slicing and dicing people couldn't see along the chain"). She began to dig around into the concept of "Market Completion" ("a private financial ideology few outside the City has heard of"). Market Completion aimed at spreading risk perfectly all over the financial system, but in fact this was all nonsense ("but no-one was able to see this because of greed - Market Completion had the function of keeping the elites in power"). There was also the problem of fragmentation. Within banks departments were extremely competitive, with the risk departments usually having little power. Senior management had little idea of what CDOs were doing and very small groups of people were taking decisions. She was very critical about the disconnect between the City and the rest of society ("we need to have a good hard look at the cultural translators in society - these should be politicians, media and academics, but they are not doing their job"). The City is two miles from Westminster, but there is no interaction between the two ("the geeks don't understand the political context, and the politicians and lawyers don't understand the geeky stuff"). Financial regulation had become separated from monetary policy. Most banks have become too big to manage and need breaking up. The idea that the crisis is all the fault of America is not valid ("it's like saying the drugs problem is the fault of Colombia whereas in fact it is the fault of drug policy enforcement in Britain"). Her finishing comments included: "Slowing down the pace of financial innovation might be a solution, otherwise we could be looking at these crises every fifteen years". "You have just seen a future Editor of the FT" Terry said to me on the way out.

England beat Slovenia

England beat Slovenia one-nil earlier today. On Channel Four News Jon Snow could hardly bring himself to announce the result (describing it as "scraping" a win). Mean-spirited weasel words.

Everyone played well. John Terry in particular played well. It was a great result.

Apologise

No need to apologise. It is the people who booed who should apologise. Especially those whose booing is sophisticated and encoded, but nevertheless incessant (Marina Hyde etc).

And who are those people who booed? From the evidence of television interviews (not, I admit, an exact sample) the demographic seems to be well-off grey-haired businessmen taking their children on trophy holidays. Hardly representative.

I rashly said I would like to see inside the tower

Above: interesting article in the Guardian earlier this week about the discovery in Germany of the remains of Edith, an English Saxon princess who married a German Saxon king. On Friday was a much larger feature in a sort of pull-out-and-keep section about the discovery (I have pulled out and kept it). As well as a gushing article by Michael Wood there was also in the supplement a piece by someone called Mike Pitts who repeated the politically-correct (but wrong) line that there were no real Anglo-Saxons and that the British Isles has always been a multicultural society (ignorantly illustrating his argument with two pieces of evidence from the Roman period!).

Why is the Anglo-Saxon period being made a target in what seems to be an undeclared culture war?

Mike Pitts obviously doesn't do much fieldwork or he would realise you can't move in this country without coming across Anglo-Saxons.



Above: a few weeks back I visited a village in the north of the county where the church was holding an open day. I was interested in the building because although externally medieval the inner core was Saxon. The Saxon fabric includes the central tower (also note there is a blocked-up Saxon door just above the car).



Above: the dedication was to St Edmund, Saxon king and martyr. Just inside the door was this display of various Saxon attributes (flowers, the flag of St Edmund, a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, postcards of Anglo-Saxon ruins etc). Although the flag was a later invention, the ladies who put this display together obviously think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons.



Above: this stained glass window of St Edmund was paid for by a local sheepfarmer who had been sitting in his farmhouse during a storm when a thunderbolt hit the fireplace in front of him, setting fire to the room and destroying everything around him, although he escaped untouched. In gratitude for his narrow escape he donated this window to the church. From the choice of subject, he also thought of himself as a modern Anglo-Saxon.



Above: I rashly said I would like to see inside the tower. The entrance was from outside the building, up a winding stone staircase (worn steps) in complete darkness. Emerging into the bellchamber the wind was hissing through the open latticework of the windows. I was shown the bells (but declined to go up a narrow ladder to look down on them properly). I was shown the ancient mechanism of the clock, which has to be wound every week. When I got down again I was completely caked in dust and white powder (the crumbling Saxon masonry?) and in the words of one of the church ladies I looked like a ghost.

Because "we all need cheering up" - the past week at work

Monday

Yvette (head of the agency) was in a good mood, which transformed the usual Monday planning meeting.

I worked on copywriting for our charity client.

Lunchtime I met a friend and we went to a cafe for chocolate bread and coffee. I entertained him with stories about Yvette. News that a mutual friend had broken up with her boyfriend.

In the afternoon I worked half-heartedly on a presentation.

Last thing I went to see my financial services client. As I crossed the Thames I stopped to watch the grey-brown water rushing below. I could have watched the scene for hours, but had to hurry on into the offices to avoid being late (not that the client would have minded - he is very easy-going).

Tuesday

Quite a relaxed day. Apart from liaising with Hugh J in Brussels (our oil client) there was not a great deal to do. I gave two more of my clients away to Eleanor (trainee account executive).

Every couple of months we have a general meeting attended by Terry (who heads the PR division upstairs, and is our ultimate boss). Yvette announced that the next one of these meeting would be held this afternoon, so there was a flurry of preparations. I was able to produce some very spurious figures that "demonstrated" how agency billings were rising in real terms compared with a general fall in economic activity (Yvette was delighted with these stats).

The meeting started with lunch - sandwiches and chocolates, but no champagne because we hadn't exceeded our targets. Mostly Yvette talked while Terry listened sagely and the rest of us made occasional contributions. Everyone seemed shocked when Yvette announced that one night per week we will have a training session until 9pm.

Katharine (Terry's PA) sat in the corner and took the minutes. After the meeting, as we were going out, she told me she planned to go to Australia for ten months. Another person leaving.

Wednesday

As soon as I arrived at my desk, Terry K from the PR section upstairs appeared waving a national publication. He thanked me for the position his ad was in, and seemed genuinely grateful (the client has been very pleased). Actually I had placed the ad Run Of Press, and the good position was an accident.

During the morning there was a moment of drama. I was on the telephone, so could only pay half my attention to what happened. About ten o'clock Yvette appeared in the account execs' room and spoke to Andrea (Senior Account Executive). Her back was to me, so I couldn't really see much (Yvette is a big woman). After Yvette had left Andrea slammed down the 'phone she was holding, threw things violently around the room (but not in my direction), then put on her jacket. "Have a nice life everyone" she yelled as she stormed out.

John W (one of the directors, a very mild and ineffectual man) had been in the room at the time and looked very shocked.

I went through to the front office which has a view of the street, and saw Andrea walking off into the distance.

After about an hour Andrea came back and sat down at her desk giggling. "Sorreey" she said to Eleanor and myself, using a wacky accent and waving her hands. Nothing more was said.

Thursday

Very routine day.

Andrea was trying to get out of yet another client lunch with Yvette at the Italian restaurant, pushing Eleanor to take her place.

"Go on" she said to Eleanor, "the pig's ear with truffle sauce is lovely" ("it's a pig's ear" is Yvette's verdict on most creative work produced by our studio).

Nearly forgot: at the end of the day Julie's brother Martin came to meet her again (Julie is trainee account exec and Yvette's favourite). He had an olive-green bag on which was written, in thick black marker, 7th PARA RHA. Thin and sinewy, unsmiling, not saying anything. He looked about seventeen, but apparently is twenty-one. Julie and Martin left the office at the same time as Andrea and myself, and we all walked to the tube together. The platform was crowded and we let two trains go past because they were packed. The third train was also over-full but Julie and Martin pushed their way on, and Andrea pulled my arm and said "Let's go for it". We were all squashed together, and when the doors closed I was pushed up against Andrea. Her hand was holding one of the metal side rails, and as the train moved I saw Martin put his hand half on top of hers. There was no need for this intimacy as no-one else was holding that particular rail. Because of the way we were positioned Julie would not have seen this. Both Martin and Andrea had absolutely impassive faces, looking into the distance, but effectively holding hands.

Friday

Although the garden gave the appearance of full summer (strong sunshine from a clear blue sky, the air suffused with the scent of philodelphus, the pink and white Bowl of Beauty paeonies looking sensational) a steady arctic breeze blew from the north, making the temperature unbearably cold. It was as if the whole landscape was air-conditioned, with the control turned well down. This freezing feel to summer was fascinatingly surreal, but I could only stand it for a few minutes and was glad to get into my car and put the heating on.

An air of crisis at the office this morning, as Julie had had her second-hand Mercedes C class sports coupe stolen last night after only three days in her possession. She broke into tears several times during the morning and made incessant calls to her friends to tell them the bad news. It was as if she had suffered a bereavement.

Because "we all need cheering up" Yvette produced a bottle of champagne she had in her office and we all had glasses of champagne mixed with creme de cassis (which tasted disgusting).

I left at 4pm because I wanted to get back in time for the football.

England play Algeria at 7.30 this evening

Above: Joe Hart.

England play Algeria at 7.30 this evening.

Leaving aside any judgmental view on whether Robert Green should be included in the England team, I am positively hoping Joe Hart is in the squad because he is an exceptional player and I want to see him in action at the highest international level.

The World Cup tournament creates a platform on which the top players of the world can be seen to their best advantage. For me that is the whole point of the contest. The jeux sans frontieres reporting style of some of the media (Marina Hyde etc) is just an irrelevant distraction.

£25 million Visitors Centre for Stonehenge

Among the cuts in proposed public expenditure yesterday was the new £25 million Visitors Centre for Stonehenge. On balance I am glad this project is not going ahead. There has been unease for some time at the quasi-political manipulation of historical "interpretation", particularly related to the pre-historic, Roman and early medieval periods (ie the scandal of Francis Pryor's Britain AD: England and the Anglo-Saxons – an extremely controversial television series that seems to have been publicly funded via a convoluted series of "diversity" front-companies). Probably if the Stonehenge Visitors Centre had gone ahead the "interpretation" would have told us that it was constructed by hard-working immigrants from Eastern Europe because most of the local population was on benefits and too lazy to get a job, and that therefore the Labour policy on unrestricted immigration was entirely justified. One of the most unforgivable aspects of the previous government was their perversion of science. Not just archaeological science, but statistical science, scientific advice on drugs policy etc. This interference was seldom done overtly, but via a series of official "nudges" that in an oppressive political climate were impossible to ignore.

Everything about this product is attractive

Above: I was in the Co-Op earlier this week and saw these chocolate mint fondants. As you can see, the packets says the product was made with "single estate English peppermint oil". Which was intriguing enough to make me buy a packet.

And searching around on the internet I found this interesting article about the revival of the English mint crop: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/jul/22/foodanddrink.features8

Everything about this product is attractive - Fairtrade chocolate, domestically-sourced peppermint oil, revived crops, careful farming practices, delicious chocolates and sold through a Co-Operative (based in a small council estate, so close to the people it serves).

The former lords of life and death

On Newsnight yesterday the five contenders for the Labour Party leadership (Diane Abbot, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, David Miliband and Ed Miliband) took questions from a small studio audience and also from presenter Jeremy Paxman.

It was an interesting session. In particular, it was interesting to see how the former lords of life and death (collectively ordering wars, authorizing detentions, deciding which communities get medical resources, police resources, education resources etc) were reduced to just four ordinary men in a television studio. How are the mighty fallen.

The programme lasted for forty-five minutes and had many moments that arrested attention.

Ed Balls claimed to be one of “the people who speak the language of Mrs Duffy” (Mrs Duffy has become an archetype figure, representing the ignored electorate).

Diane Abbot said that immigration was a proxy for issues such as housing or jobs.

Ed Miliband admitted that “Iraq was extremely damaging – catastrophic”.

David Miliband said “the state got too big in some areas”.

But once again (in my opinion) it was Andy Burnham who said the things I wanted to hear: opposing British membership of the Euro; advocating reform of care for the elderly; admitting that the last government “were putting big business before people”.

However, it would seem that most people have already decided they want David Miliband as Labour Party leader. On election night presenter Andrew Neil hosted a “booze cruise” boatload of pundits and celebrities, sailing up and down the Thames getting increasingly inebriated and offering comments on serious political issues whenever a camera was pointed in their direction. When Andrew Neil asked writer Tony Parsons which Miliband brother he favoured as leader he replied “the good-looking one” which reduces David Miliband to the status of a male bimbo.

Difficulties in researching the 1980s

One of the difficulties in researching the 1980s is that you often come across references to places that were significant cultural locations before the 1980s and remained significant after the 1980s. In that respect, how far can these places be regarded as authentically "1980s"? Perhaps they influenced the decade, perhaps they were influenced by the decade, perhaps they just had their own style that continued on regardless.

Some examples:



Above: L'Escargot is one of the great London restaurants. Founded in the 1920s, during the 1980s it became favoured by intellectuals such as Melvyn Bragg and serious actors such as John Hurt. But it is still going strong today, although perhaps a bit too linked with pre-matinee trips to nearby Mama Mia.



Above: Maison Bertaux in Greek Street was founded in the 1870s but was last refurbished in the 1980s. The 1980s style still remains, relatively untouched. If you want to step back into the 1980s for a few moments, the easiest way to do so is to visit Maison Bertaux.

Presumably the interiors should be listed.

More on the cafe: http://russelldavies.typepad.com/ateaandathink/2006/04/maison_bertaux_.html



Above: I have a complex relationship with Bar Italia. Whenever I go there I feel such a phony, as if I'm trying to be something I'm not. Again, Bar Italia was famous before the 1980s and has remained famous ever since.

During the 1980s Bar Italia was haunted by teenage girls hoping for a glimpse of model Nick Kamen.

Nick Kamen appeared in one of the 1980s' defining advertisements, produced by BBH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56M5OZS1A8

Note: there is nothing worse than being stuck in a conversation with a BBH bore (unless it is a BMP bore, or worst of all a DMB&B bore).




Above: Bar Italia appears in magazines from the 1980s, and was linked with the decade's growing obsession with Italian football (which later manifested itself as live broadcasts of Serie A on satellite television from 1990).



Above: it seems that in the 1980s ethnic diversity was limited to an Italian cafe in Soho.

National Magazine Company

Above: the National Magazine Company in Broadwick Street.

National Magazine Company publishes some of the leading titles in the United Kingdom including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and Prima. 63% of ABC1 magazine-reading women are reading NatMags publications.

Magazine advertising has many advantages – production standards are high (usually lavish full colour), the cultural environment is excellent, magazines tend to have a long life.

Managing Director of the National Magazine Company is Duncan Edwards. Generally respected for keeping up rates despite the recession. He has a lot of political soft power he doesn’t tend to use.

More: http://www.natmags.co.uk/

"Does it include glass beads?" - the past week at work

Monday

Andrea (account executive) was away today, Julie (trainee account executive) was subdued, Eleanor (trainee account executive) was sullen. The offices were generally quiet all of the day. It felt as if the agency was slowly losing steam.

Yvette (agency head) talked by 'phone to a rep from one of the national newspapers, and flew into a temper, demanding to talk to the rep's manager. When the manager came on she called the rep a moron and said she didn't want to deal with her anymore. Later the manager called back and I happened to answer the 'phone. Before putting him through to Yvette I deliberately mentioned the rep's name and said how helpful she had been in the past (which is true). "Thank you for saying that" the manager said. I put him through to Yvette and the bellowing began.

Later I learned from Katharine (PA to Terry, our ultimate boss) that Yvette had been told off for missing the billings target for May.

Tuesday

Morning off to have a dental check.

When I got to the office (at 1pm) Katharine told me about a new business call that had rung the upstairs (PR division) number this morning. Katharine had been waiting for me to come in before passing the details on. I called the potential client back, and they placed ads immediately, which will account for a big chunk of June's target (Yvette was disgruntled when she found out, and told Katherine that all new business must go to her first).

At 2pm the weekly meeting was held, postponed from yesterday. As usual Yvette complained about all sorts of things. Most of her bitterest invective was directed at Andrea, who sat stony-faced and looking offended.

Late afternoon Hugh J (an elderly American) arrived from our Belgian oil client. Yvette had told us to make the office look busy ("I want a buzz") so as pre-arranged we got up from our seats every few minutes to walk into the other offices, and also rang each other up so it looked like lots of calls were coming in. Hugh J and Yvette disappeared into Yvette's office, and later I was called in to talk about Scandinavian media, a subject I knew nothing about (I had to bluff my way through by looking up BRAD on a laptop).

By the time the meeting finished it was 6pm. We (Yvette, Andrea and myself) took Hugh J to the Italian restaurant for dinner. Yvette talked about horse-riding despite Hugh J's obvious uninterest. By the time we got back to the agency Hugh J was talking encouragingly about lots of new business.

Afterwards Yvette gave Hugh J a lift back to his hotel in Knightsbridge. I went along as I needed to go to west London that evening. The powerful sports car made heads turn the entire journey.

Wednesday

A lot of discussion before Yvette arrived about what to get her for her birthday. Julie said she was collecting the Mont Blanc range (big chunky fountain pens, retractable pencils etc). Andrea suggested getting her a Mont Blanc bludgeon.

Andrea told me about an interview she had gone to on Monday. "They told me the MD has a firey temper. It didn't seem to be any improvement on here".

Thursday

Yvette and Julie were supposed to have been out all of the day at our catering client. However Jonathan (copywriter) rushed through from the loo at 10.30 saying "They're back, Yvette's parking her car now!" (the toilet lobby has a view of the back mews). We all looked at each other ominously, since such an early return was not a good sign.

Julie didn't say anything when we asked how the meeting went. Later when I logged into the system I saw the catering ads had been removed from the schedules. We heard Yvette loudly rearranging her day, booking herself into a beauty salon.

The toilet lobby played a second part in the day's incidents. The unisex toilet on our floor has a door into a tiny cramped lobby with a sink and window, with another door to the right into the toilet itself. Neil (graphic designer) always locks the door to the lobby when using the toilet. In the early afternoon Yvette tried the lobby door and found it locked and flew into a little rage. When Neil emerged a few minutes later he was told he must not lock the lobby door in future, but only the actual toilet door. She told him she had to be able to get into the lobby in case she needed to speak to him urgently.

Friday

Busy day, mostly concerned with copywriting. I worked through the assignments helped by coffee and some shortbread biscuits. I also produced a European Media Guide presentation for one of our clients.

Neil was goading Jonathan and asked him about his salary.

Neil: "How much are you earning?"

Jonathan: "I'm not going to tell you that".

Neil: "Give me a clue - does it include glass beads?"

At the end of the working day Julie's teenage brother arrived to meet her. He was totally unlike her, being slim and dark. Two big gold rings on his right hand, one big gold ring on his left hand, gelled spiky hair, white England football shirt, pale blue jeans, trainers that looked new (but were actually just very well cleaned). He had a backpack and a big olive-green holdall with him, both items clearly very heavy. He sat in the account execs room pretending to be half-asleep, but actually watching everything through half-closed eyes. When Andrea asked him if he wanted a cup of tea his face went red and he could hardly speak.

England vs USA

Have just watched England vs USA.

Overall impression I gained is that Steven Gerrard is one of the world's most perfect footballers - technical skill, elegant movements, effective performance.

And as he said afterwards: the most important thing is not to lose.

PS I celebrated the Gerrard goal by opening this World Cup pack of Mars bars.