You sometimes have to take a guess - the past week at work

Monday

The alarm-clock went off at 5.50 and another working week began. It is very depressing if you are tired when you get up in the morning as you know things are not going to get any better the rest of the day. No heating on the train.

At the agency lots of internal briefings, especially from Kate as she was on holiday the rest of the week. She left her car (a company car) in the mews at the back with instruction that only I am allowed to use it while she is away. Midday she left by taxi to go to Heathrow, and for some reason I felt a profound sense of sadness, as if I wanted to go after her and say “Don’t leave me here” (which is absurd, since she will be back next Monday).

I briefed Ben on photography that needed doing. I briefed Tony B in the studio on some ads that needed designing. No time to go out at lunchtime although Ann (helps Sheila) went and got some hot pastries for me from a local café (“What do you want?”she asked. “You choose” I said. She brought back hot Cornish pasties - two for me and two for herself).

In the afternoon Pete asked me if I would show him how to do Account Handling. I told him he couldn’t visit clients until he learned to drive (this was the brush-off I had got from Ian when I asked if Pete could be given more responsibility). Really he has no future at the agency and needs to go back to college.

“If I did learn to drive they’d only use me as a dogsbody” he said with resignation.

Tuesday

Freezing fog when I first looked out the window, so I “worked at home”. As I wasn’t prepared for working at home I didn’t have a great deal to do. So I went back to bed and got some rest.

Wednesday

Pete’s birthday, and his desk was decorated with big balloons, exactly as Sarah’s had been last Friday (they were probably from the same packet).

Mid-morning, and an incredibly vulgar Rolypolygram arrived and came over to where Pete was sitting (in the desk directly opposite mine). The short woman was almost spherical, aged in her late-fifties, and with a lumpen face like a potato. She put on some music and began taking her clothes off.

Everyone in the office came over to watch, and because our desks are by the wall I was effectively trapped and had to witness it all (otherwise I would have left). Ben took photographs throughout the performance. The woman removed all her clothes, including a pair of wispy panties (lifting her elephantine legs up one by one to do so), and when she was completely naked you could smell her body (this is not my imagination).

The Rolypolygram asked Pete for a kiss, and everybody (including myself) clapped. Then she put on her clothes and left. I found out later that the office “girls” (Sarah, Judy, Janette, Ann and office manager Sheila) had clubbed together to pay for the Rolypolygram.

Pete had laughed all the way through the Rolypolygram, but told me later he was very angry about it.

At lunchtime everyone went to the pub and Ian paid for all the drinks.

Thursday

Quite an intimidating amount of work to deal with at the moment, and a number of urgent jobs - you sometimes have to take a guess at which one is more important.

In the morning I went by tube up to Old Street to Websters. This client is very easy to handle as they do regular print ads (every month across nine magazines) that don’t tend to change much. The company has a very cramped existence with a large number of people packed into a few small offices above a shop.

In the afternoon I looked at quotes and on impulse rang freelance Joey and told him he could have an illustration job if he could do it for £300 (£50 cheaper than the quote) and if he could come over and take the brief immediately. He arrived barely an hour later, showing off to Sarah the Murphy & Nye grey and white jersey-shirt he was wearing (sleeves pushed up to his elbows).

Friday

A drive up the A1 to a company that makes gas fires. I always have to take lots of stuff with me when I visit this client (campaign files, examples, papers) as I never know what they are going to raise. A lot of the time we talked about photography for their next campaign. Ben’s photography was not good, so it will have to be done again (you couldn’t see the gas flames). A female sales manager came into the meeting to give her opinion - her power dressing included so much metal (chains, belts, broaches) that it was if she was wearing armour. I was in the meeting from 11am until nearly 3pm.

When I got back to the agency Angela (Ian's PA) was in a foul mood. The office had a strange atmosphere as if there had been a massive row. It was as if the residues of conflict hung around the place like cordite over a battlefield.

An image of “trust”

On Thursday evenings there is too much of a choice - Newsnight clashes with Question Time and This Week clashes with Chris Eakin and Question Time Extra.

Chris Eakin is an interesting presenter on Question Time Extra, but his real power comes across when he is reading the news. His face is very “honest”, so that you believe everything he says. It has a lot to do with the way he looks into the camera, and also has very slight pauses in his delivery (these pauses are important as they communicate sincerity). He is a wasted asset reading the news on BBC News 24. Given the credibility-deficit and “fakery” issues the BBC has experienced over the last year, they should move Chris Eakin to the 10 o’clock news on BBC1. He would project an image of “trust” into every home.

The other strong newsreader at the moment is Emily Maitlis (also an interviewer on Newsnight). She has a way of glaring into the camera that seems to say “pay attention”. And somehow you do find yourself paying attention (I keep watching her delivery to see how she does this, but I can’t quite pin it down).

The last day

Today is the last day of National Nest Box Week. Everyone is encouraged to put up a nest box in their garden (assuming you have a garden) to provide somewhere for birds such as starlings and sparrows to nest. I have bought two (although I won’t put them up until the weekend).



A neighbouring farmer has put this enormous nesting box up for larger birds - I think he wants to attract owls which start nesting around this time.



Ravens will also start nesting in February (but they don’t use nesting boxes - their nests are unmistakeable messy piles of twigs reused year after year). Ravens have many cultural associations in the United Kingdom (the Tower of London, the legend of Cuchulainn etc). The Raven is the title of Edgar Allen Poe’s most famous poem - I was given a copy of the poem in this tiny book, bound in black silk and embossed in gold.



The poem is about… loss, grief, fear. In the poem the raven represents inevitability. “Nevermore.”



Above: photograph of a postcard from the (old? real? unreal?) Courtauld Gallery.

Gauguin used the poem as the theme of his painting Nevermore in the Courtauld Gallery. In the Gauguin interpretation the grieving narrator is a Tahitian woman laying naked on a bed and thinking of the past. Note the two dream lovers in the background, and the raven on the window sill, and the legend “Nevermore” in the top left corner.

I hardly ever go to the Courtauld Gallery now, but for one year at the end of the 1980s I would meet Helen B there almost every day. The gallery was located in Woburn Square (this was before the move to Somerset House), the entrance was free, and we would often have the place to ourselves. The Woburn Square gallery has gone now, and in any case nothing can bring those days back (excuse me harking back to my own personal Nevermore).

More: http://www.bto.org/nbc/index.htm

More on the Woburn Gallery (click on “Full Screen” for page 237 to open properly: http://books.google.com/books?id=eA5ejVN0jBsC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=courtauld+gallery+woburn+square&source=web&ots=dq1CAR655H&sig=X97K5Loom7Uj2kq_0OvMGJ_UBGI

"No, I’m not handing them round"

Passing Rachel’s desk this afternoon I noticed an unopened packet of Parma Violets (“Why are you taking a photograph of my desk… if you want one you can take one… no, I’m not handing them round…”).

It made me wonder why she had chosen that particular packet of sweets out of all the variety on offer at the newsagents. As consumers in a Western post-industrial post-privation post-idealistic ultra-materialistic society we are what we “consume” (a much wider concept that simply eating). What was it about that “offering” (brand name, packaging, product attributes etc) that made her say “yes”?

The sweets have a unique synthetic taste, hard to describe (I can’t say it is the taste of violets, since I have never eaten a violet, but it is how I would expect a violet to taste were I actually to eat one).

More on the makers of Parma Violets: http://www.swizzels-matlow.com/

Images of the Cuban revolution... in British culture

Fidel Castro resigned today as President of Cuba. It is the end of a political era. It made me think about the way in which images of the Cuban revolution have entered British culture (as a great historian once said: history repeats itself three times, once as tragedy, once as farce and once as a fashion statement).



Amongst socialists (Old Labour, CPGB, Socialist Workers, Respect) Fidel Castro represents “the revolution” in its purest and most heroic form (this Castro speech, given away free in The Guardian, had an introduction by Tariq Ali). Ignoring atrocities, bungled failures and corruption (Castro is handing over to his brother!) they still regard Cuba as a socialist paradise (the Cuban health service is promoted as a model for the West, ignoring the fact that poverty and shortages keep the Cuban population healthy by preventing obesity). Little Cuba defying its bully-neighbour also appeals to the latent anti-Americanism that is prevalent in British socialism.



This “right-on” power-to-the-people revolutionary image was adopted in the 1960s and 1970s by students keen to disguise their middle-class origins. The 1970s comedy Citizen Smith (note the Che Guevara T-shirt) affectionately satirised this cultural phenomenon. The Labour Party in Tooting (in south London) unofficially called itself the Tooting Popular Front (this was told to me by a former member).

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Smith



A real-life Wolfie Smith was public school educated John Mellor the middle-class son of a diplomat (the father was born into the British Raj in India). John Mellor was a student at the prestigious St Martins School of Art in London. After dropping out of college he reinvented himself as Joe Strummer, lead singer with The Clash (becoming a seditionary role model almost as influential, for young people in the United Kingdom, as Che Guevara or Fidel Castro).



There are numerous echoes of Strummer’s revolution-as-a-fashion-statement - for instance, the Will Young video All Time Love includes Cuban-style young revolutionaries reading poetry to each other, rioting in the streets and enduring oppressive show trials.

More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upa6A8CzgkY



The commodification of the Cuban revolution has now reached the stage where The Guardian is advertising holidays in the revolutionary island. This advertisement interested me on several levels. It is a Guardian Reader Offer which confers an official editorial endorsement. The price is £1,199 per person - a reasonable rate for a foreign holiday but not exactly within the price range of “the people”. Some of the hotels are Four Star. The copy implies that wallowing in “crumbling colonial splendour” will be a pleasurable experience (possibly it may be, but surely not for right-on socialists?).



If you are a present-day student seeking to hide your middle class origins you can buy original Clash posters (but “Approval of what is approved of is as false as a well-kept vow” as Oscar Wilde is supposed to have said).

More on London’s burning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPcjkgYS-cU
See also London Calling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXfaxEaPOjw



Most intriguing of all, I saw this Che Guevara ashtray for sale in a West End cigar shop. The price is £199 (that’s about $400 - for an ashtray!). Is this aimed at wealthy socialists or people who want to stub their cigars out on Che Guevara?

It’s the punters who make the decisions

Above: "Socks by Ravena" - exhibit in a museum display. I meant to go on and say (but time ran out last night) that the fashion industry IS changing. Promotions such as Ravena socks are hardly likely to be seen these days. But the issue of whether fashion should represent society as it is constituted (rather than reflect an idealised view) opens up all sorts of complications. Over-50s are never seen as "faces" on magazine covers. Obese women (a growing section of the population) are never seen. And the idealised view of beauty is problematical in itself, being composed of half-understood elements (how a woman sees herself, how a woman thinks others see her, how a woman thinks she ought to be seen etc). Marketing in western post-industrial societies is (in my opinion) about self-actualisation more than anything else. Get the self-actualisation right and the the audience (and sales) will follow.

Accusations in the press over the weekend about racism in the fashion industry. I know several fashion PRs and asked them (in a casual way) what they thought. They were all dismissive about the reports.

PR 1: “Models have to reflect the audience they are targeting. If more Afro-Caribbean people bought haute couture the industry would reflect this. Ultimately it’s the punters who make the decisions - and they can sack us at any time simply by not buying.”

PR 2: “Magazine editors experiment and test all the time to get the covers that perform the best. Believe me, if they could make more money by putting Naomi Campbell on the cover she would be on every issue. With the market as it is, no-one can afford to get things wrong.”

More on self-actualisation: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/297178/motivators_to_buy_luxury_the_drive_to_self.htm

Blacksmiths Row

Damp February Sunday afternoon. The house faces out onto a river. You might have to click on the image to get the full scale of the mess in the back yard.

As the name implies, Blacksmith’s Row used to be the home of a village blacksmith. It used to be a thriving business, but the blacksmith has died, and now the house is boarded up. The blacksmith is remembered as a stern man, unfriendly to strangers, loyal to locals.

He was very choosy about who he would deal with - non-regulars had to wait, and bad payers were often turned away. If he didn’t like someone he would refuse to deal with them or ask them to pay upfront. If he thought you were a good sort, you could wait until the end of the year and settle up when he sent you his bill (a handwritten document many pages long, listing every nut and bolt, with a grand total at the end).

He began his career in the 1940s when hundreds of horses needed shoeing at least once per year (more often if they worked on roads). Carts also needed iron tyres fitted to their wooden wheels if they were to work on the roads. The rest of the time he would beat out ploughshares, re-point harrow tines, re-shaft hand tools.

As farming became mechanised he developed a sideline in repairing machinery, as well as buying and selling second-hand machinery. Farmers asked his advice before buying at auctions. He was proud of his work, guarded his reputation and took things back if they didn’t work.

As his business expanded he took over neighbouring cottages (six tiny houses and pub) and created his yard. This expansion brought him into contact with professionals (solicitors, council officials, taxmen) whom he regarded as obstructive parasites and against whom he waged a low-level campaign of non-cooperation. In one of the cottages used to live one of the village’s formidable “grandmas” (there were several) - she used to ride a three-wheeled tricycle, and acted as an agent of social control (reporting bad behaviour, watching people come and go, telling off children for the slightest indecorum).



At a village fair last summer I saw this blacksmith at work. He is beating out a horseshoe on a small anvil. Probably this sort of demonstration will eventually be banned under “health and safety”.



Display of different sorts of horseshoes - Rockerby Bar, Hunter Hind, Egg Bar etc.

Also at the fair: “Weathervanes hand-made and hand-painted”. There is a surprising demand for decorative ironwork. We have a weathervane (of a bull) on one of the barns.



Going around a village “history day” I came across this tumbledown cottage. I thought at first it was an old shed, but actually it used to be the home of the village blacksmith. A note on the door (which you can see) explained that the blacksmith and his wife had ten children and worked until he was 68.



Close up of part of the note. I was interested in the reference to one of the children being employed in the fields scaring birds. Thomas Hardy’s Jude The Obscure opens with the young Jude working as a bird scarer.



Collection of blacksmith’s tools. People who keep these collections together deserve a medal. Often when the blacksmith dies the tools are dispersed and lost.



Why is this bucket full of holes? I should have asked. Looking at the picture now, the holes bother me (I’m assuming it is not a surrealist work of art).



Picture of the Blacksmiths Arms (taken last summer). This is one of the nicest pubs I know, at a quiet road junction over in the west of the county. The beer is the very best.

Seeing the blacksmith’s shop all boarded up made me feel very melancholy - so much of our county’s way of life is disappearing. There was an interesting programme on the Business Channel today about Second Life. Perhaps I should recreate the county (in every detail) on Second Life, and see if people will pay to “move” there.

She had obviously been saving this up - the past week at work

Above: I am still keeping up with my objective of running three miles every day. Because I have developed a sore knee from road running I have decided to join a gym and run on a treadmill (also means I can run during the day and not have to do it when I get home and feel tired). Douglas (in Val’s account team upstairs) recommended Gymbox as it is so close to the office and you can basically get in and out within an hour (I can take my lunch hour at 11, which means there is not too much of a rush). It’s very clean inside. Music is a bit loud. Havn’t tried any of the classes (yet).

Monday

Arriving at my desk this morning, there was the same pile of work that I had left on Friday - but somehow it seemed more manageable. Almost as soon as I got in Kate briefed me on another client she had brought on board. I encouraged Pete (my so-called “assistant”) to push Ian for an account list of his own (mainly as it has reached the point where I can’t trust Pete to do anything properly - at least if he had his own client list he would be out of my way, and sink or swim by his own efforts).

In the afternoon Joey (freelance graphics designer) came in to be briefed on a map that needs to be created (my biggest client, BQW, is moving to Watford). He talked about when he used to work for a German engineering company in the UK, doing their technical drawings (“I used to drive a red BMW, which was my personal company car… I used to do seventy hours overtime a week…”).

Tuesday

The morning was quiet, almost boring - until ten o’clock. Then a row erupted between Kate and Tony W (who does the print-buying). Both of them became highly agitated.

“Do you know what he’s done” Kate shouted across to Ian (our boss). “While I was on the ’phone he put a post-it under my nose saying the pdf proofs for the Bonnear job won’t be ready until this afternoon. I’m due to show them to the client in half an hour - it’s TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.”

She stood there in her black boots and black knee-length dress, her wavy blonde hair (possibly crimped over the weekend as there seemed to be more curls than usual) framing her pale face with its expression of (rather exaggerated) incredulity. Tony W, with his beer belly spilling over his waistband, was red-faced and looked suitably guilty (although it probably wasn’t his fault - printers are often unreliable). Ian, as usual, did nothing.

Wednesday

I woke an hour early, and felt momentarily confused. It was impossible to get back to sleep, and I spent the next hour waiting for the alarm to go off. Bitterly cold outside.

In the morning I went to Watford and in a hardhat went around the new BQW site with Ben (Ian’s son, works in our photographic studio) who took photographs for the special BQW staff newsletter we are doing (called On The Move - not my choice of title). I got my shoes covered in mud as we walked around the building site. Mike M from the BQW Move Committee joined us for about ten minutes before clearing off (he is known throughout BQW for being very lazy).

Then back to the agency to sign letters and return telephone calls. At the end of the afternoon Kate came to sit opposite and we had a long talk about our careers. “It’s alright for you” she said, “you’re qualified.”

Thursday

A meeting in the morning with Colchester Seals in Surrey. The MD is very volatile and unpredictable (but in a nice way), and as usual when I go into a meeting with him I never know when I am going to get out again. This time we talked about photography for his new brochure and trade press advertising - the shots had revealed all sorts of errors with the production process, and will have to be done again.

“I’m sorry if we havn’t done them right” I said.

“No, no, it’s not your fault. You’ve done us a favour actually. We are not following our own Quality procedures.”

I got back to the agency at two o’clock. Both Ian and Alan (our directors) were out. Tony W was making lots of noise and being obnoxious. Twice Kate cut him down to size, and the second time he seemed to lose all control and stormed about in a rage (“If she talks to me like that again I’m going to Terry about her” - Terry being our MD with ultimate power to fire people). Pete was exhilarated at the public way Tony W had been crushed. Judy (Alan’s PA) came over and asked me whether she should ring Alan and ask him to come back to the office (I said no).

More was to follow.

Ian returned to the office and Kate went to him (straight away) with a file-copy of a brochure that had just been printed. She had obviously been saving this up all day, as Tony W (who had managed the printing side) hadn’t yet seen it. The brochure was very sub-standard, and Kate told Ian and Tony W that she was rejecting the job. To my surprise Ian told Tony W off for not watching the job more carefully (possibly Angela had rung Ian and told him about the scenes earlier, so he had come in determined to be strong). Tony W was completely deflated. Alan took him into the Conference Room where they stayed for the rest of the afternoon.

Later, big balloons for Sarah’s birthday (she is twenty-one tomorrow) were being inflated. Ann (aged mid twenties, obese, heavy oval-shaped black glasses, very very accident-prone) just went near one of these balloons and it exploded. In the taut atmosphere it was like a gun going off.

Friday

Sarah the receptionist was twenty-one today. Big balloons had been put up around her desk to surprise her when she came in. We all sang “Happy Birthday” and stood in a semi-circle while she unwrapped her presents. She went round the semi-circle hugging each of us. We then had slices of a birthday cake Angela had made (how had she transported it on the tube?). Later Sheila gave out iced cup cakes she had made (the icing in Sarah’s preferred shade of baby pink).

Leaving in three years and without firing one shot

This afternoon I listened to Eddie Mair’s PM programme on Radio 4 (hardly anyone in the office this afternoon, so I had the radio on most of the time).

The Armed Forces Minister was interviewed over the death of a soldier in Afghanistan who was sent into battle without the proper equipment (the Coroner was scathing about this).

The mission in Afghanistan has turned into a nasty and seemingly intractable full-scale war. The Foreign Secretary David Miliband justifies this war as being part of our new world-mission to take democracy to the third world. But this is not what was said when John Reid ordered British troops into Helmand in 2006 (he said: "We are in the south to help and protect the Afghan people construct their own democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction").

Was John Reid telling us a pack of lies back in 2006? (in which case he should be impeached). Or was the decision to go into Helmand a monumental blunder and miscalculation that has caused the deaths of dozens of British soldiers? (in which case the government should resign). Or is it a case of “mission creep”? (in which case David Miliband needs a bucket of cold water thrown over him).

Another political post on a blog I meant to be non-political. Is it better to just look away and pretend it is nothing to do with me? It's the lack of any clear (and achievable) foreign policy objective that is so worrying.

More on leaving in three years and without firing one shot: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4935532.stm

St Valentine’s Day

Today is St Valentine’s Day. Although there is not much detail about the historic St Valentine, the day has been celebrated for centuries as a festival of love. Both Chaucer and Shakespeare mention St Valentine’s Day.

Locally in the middle ages the unmarried women of a village would embroider the names of all the unmarried men on small cloth hearts. On St Valentine’s Day they would put the hearts in a bowl and take turns in drawing the hearts out one by one. Whatever name each of the spinsters got would be worn pinned to her sleeve for a year (the origin of the expression “wearing your heart on your sleeve”).



Traditionally St Valentine’s Day was a time when divination would reveal to a woman the name of her future husband if she followed particular rituals. You can see an example of this in Millais’s painting (above - in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge - it’s in the room at the end) where a young girl is passing a piece of wedding cake nine times through her ring to gain a vision of who she will marry. The orange on her plate is a symbol that the girl is a virgin. Note this is a photograph of a postcard - all images on this site are original.



Over one billion St Valentine’s Day cards will be exchanged throughout the world today. Traditionally the cards should be sent anonymously. In Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd the heroine sends a Valentine card to a local farmer with tragic repercussions.



The cake shop in a nearby town had this window display.



In the village hall tonight there is a free dance open to everyone - I might look in if I am not too tired. All the usual people will be there. Up until fifty years ago St Valentine’s dances would end in a “Love Chase” but this has now been abandoned (at least, I don’t know of any Love Chases that are still held).

At the end of a platform at Kings Cross

Train-spotters at the end of a platform at Kings Cross station in north London. Notice the characteristic SLR camera. And yes, one of them IS wearing an anorak!

One of the great hobbies that Britain gave to the world is train-spotting. Also known as ferroequinology. The classic train-spotter (called disparagingly “anoraks”) will aim to “spot” all the components of a particular locomotive class and mark them off in special handbooks published by Ian Allen (the pages are just columns of numbers).

As I have taken a photo of train-spotters does that make me a train-spotter-spotter?

More on train spotting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7179030.stm

More on Ian Allen: http://www.ianallan.com/group.html

A magnificent badger

Early morning, I saw this bundle of fur on the side of the road and stopped to take a closer look. It was a magnificent badger, killed by a car. Someone going too fast (a real hazard in country areas).

This sort of thing makes me really angry. It’s not as if we have many large wild mammals that we can afford to lose them at the current road-kill rate. The unseasonal warm weather has woken lots of badgers across the county, and half-asleep they blunder around and cross roads without suspecting any danger (they have no natural predators in the United Kingdom).

When I see an animal on the side of the road I always try to stop, even if I am catching a train. You have to ask yourself: what is more important? If the animal is injured you might be it’s only chance (that’s why I keep an old blanket and a cardboard box in the car boot, and I keep meaning to get some gloves as well).



Naturewatch is one of the charities I support. They have long campaigned against cruelty to badgers (as well as many other animals). They also produce a cruelty-free guide to products which can help you boycott un-compassionate manufacturers.



The BBC has a programme on badgers this Friday - it’s at 8pm on BBC2.

More on badgers: http://www.badger.org.uk/Content/Home.asp

More on Naturewatch: http://www.naturewatch.org/

More on the Natural World: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/programme.shtml?day=friday&service_id=4224&filename=20080215/20080215_2000_4224_24629_50

Not the usual image

On Saturday I did the shopping as usual in a supermarket in a local town.

I went round the store then approached the checkouts where I saw a large number (about fifty) of young people in camouflage uniforms, wearing army berets. They were the local Army Cadet Force, helping shoppers pack their groceries. Buckets at the end of each checkout collected donations (there was no obligation to give them anything).

I heaped up the groceries on the belt and the checkout operator began to put things through. I was hoping the bill would be under £80. At the end of the belt “Mick” (amiable, aged about sixteen, deep voice) introduced himself and proceeded to bag up the groceries.

Maris Piper potatos… Savoy cabbages… tins of Farrows processed peas…

With the army cadet bagging everything up there wasn’t much for me to do. I looked out the plate glass window at the gloomy sky. The checkout operator occasionally said things about the shopping (this happens so routinely now that I suspect it is a marketing ploy rather than genuine conversation).

Organic topside beef joint… organic chicken breasts… New Zealand lamb chops…

Half-way through the bagging Mick called over his shoulder to a group of army cadets standing by the window.

“Hey Lewis” (no answer).

“Hey Lewis” (no answer).

“Hey LEWIS” he bellowed the name out and caught the attention of a very young-looking cadet.

“What?” shouted back Lewis.

“That’s the third break you’ve had.”

“What of it?”

“Some people haven’t even had one break.”

Pears… apples… bread…

Stung by this accusation Lewis came over to the checkout.

“Okay, you can go” he said petulantly to Mick.

“That’s not what I meant” said Mick.

Surreptitiously Lewis tried to push Mick out of the way. Mick stayed where he was. As Mick was almost twice the size of Lewis he could not be moved.

Kilkof cough mixture (tastes like creosote)… box of Lily O’Brien’s chocolates (Valentines Day is on Thursday)… Nestle Toffee Crisp (five bar pack)…

Lewis picked up a carrier and began competing with Mick on packing the groceries. The checkout operator pretended not to notice. I pretended not to notice (even when the competitive packing became a bit frenzied and Lewis was grabbing groceries out of Mick’s hands).

I paid the bill (£127!). I put £5 (in coins) into the ACF collecting bucket. Mick wanted to wheel the trolley to my car, but I told him I could manage.

The thing that really impressed me about this episode was how polite and respectful Lewis and Mick were to me, even when they were squabbling. Not the usual image of young people (by “young” I mean under 18). Not the bored, slightly menacing, “whatever” attitude you usually get.

More on the Army Cadet Force: http://www.armycadets.com/home/

More on Kilkof cough mixture: http://www.bells-healthcare.com/Frames.htm

More on Lily O’Brien: http://www.lilyobriens.ie/

To a nature lover it probably is paradise

Above: Pub sign I saw in a market town in the Danelaw area - Sweyn Forkbeard was a Danish king of England, and is prominently mentioned in the Peterborough Chronicle (among other sources). He took the throne off the Saxon king Ethelred the Unready (or “ditherer” in modern political parlance). Sweyn Forkbeard was married to Sigrid the Haughty and his son was King Canute (who commanded the waves to go back).

Streaming sunshine, warm air, a balmy and intoxicating quality to the atmosphere (treacherously implying that winter was over and spring had arrived). It was so nice I thought I would go over to the coast. Thirty minutes drive took me to a village I had long wanted to explore.

This village probably has more traces of Danish settlement than almost anywhere else in England. The field names, the customs, the local dialect (lots of farm names ending in “-by”) all point to a Danish connection. This connection, however, is often tenuous and difficult to prove.

Although the Vikings occupied half of England in the 9th century, this was far from being a foreign conquest. The Angles in particular had a culture that was very similar to the Danes (and obviously the Angles originally came from Angeln which is the “angle” where the Jutland peninsula joins the north European coast). The ethnic and cultural difference between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons has been likened to British migrants going to Australia in 1808 and later British migrants going in 2008 - the cultural differences are not all that profound.



The local church was dedicated to St Edith, an Anglo-Saxon queen. Originally there was a simple preaching cross, with the church being constructed later. Earthworks to the south of the crossroads are all that remain of the original settlement (ridge and furrow markings in the fields - undulations that looked like frozen waves).

Until the 1920s the village held an annual Hiring Fair on 16th May when labourers and servants could change their situation (and also have a short holiday when they could visit their family homes).

Among other denominations, The Primitive and Free Methodists have kept their original (unmerged) identity.



The church featured this gargoyle of a black hound said to haunt the area. Legends of a phantom hound can be found throughout England - particularly in Norfolk where the apparition is known as Old Shuck. Possibly the custom can be traced back to the veneration of champion hunting dogs (Sir James Frazer mentions the ancient practice of “crowning” powerful hunting dogs).

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle used the legend as the basis of his Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles (I never tire of watching the 1959 film).



This view of the church really sums up the village - everything neatly clipped and kept tidy. The Lych gate was constructed as a memorial to the village fallen of the First World War. I have noticed the prevalence of Great War memorials taking the form of Lych Gates - probably a study needs to be made of this (obviously the architectural form satisfied some deep psychological need among the mourners).



On the road out of the village I stopped for a whisky (only one) at the Prussian Queen (commemorates the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter to the future German emperor). The marsh adjoining the pub is known irreverently as the Prussian Queen’s Bog. As well as being a public house, there is also a shop attached to the premises.



Finally I came to the first of the sea walls (actually quite low banks). This intriguing sign announces the way to Paradise (but not for caravan owners). The sun was setting and it was getting cold (I hadn’t brought a coat) but the prospect of penetrating the heavenly veil and gaining entry to the Elysian fields was too inviting to pass up.



Over the last low sea bank and finally I saw “Paradise” - a vast expanse of tidal marsh. A site of special scientific interest (I read later) it is the home of wild orchids, natterjack toads and fourteen species of dragonflies and damselflies. To a nature lover it probably is paradise.

More on Sweyn Forkbeard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweyn_I_of_Denmark

More on Old Shuck: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2345803.stm

More on The Hound of the Baskervilles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hound_of_the_Baskervilles

More on the Prussian Queen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_Princess_Royal

The Queen of Prussia’s standard: http://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/images/d/de-pr^q2.gif

More on lych gates: http://www.villagenet.co.uk/reference/lychgate.html

It should be a bumper month - the past week at work

Monday

Somehow lots of little jobs have found their way onto my desk. Not that I particularly mind, as they are the sort of task that can be done almost without thinking. Like shuffling cards, I spend the first hour of the working week sifting and sorting all the papers into some kind of priority order.

Later in the morning I helped Kate identify sources of new business. We get on very well - probably I talk to her more than anyone else in the agency. She confided that she was unhappy and was applying for another job.

BBi is one of my more difficult clients. Every time my contact there rings up it seems as if he is trying to pick an argument with me. It doesn’t help that Paul (one of the graphics designers) has made lots of mistakes with their latest newsletter, and these were not picked up before the proofs went to the client (something else I am going to have to do myself from now on).

Tuesday

Tony W is the agency print-buyer. Except that he isn’t quite. He is employed by Alan (one of the directors) and has gradually extended his print buying to the other account teams including upstairs.

This has not been universally popular. Kate, for instance, still prefers to buy her own print as it gives her more control over when the job gets done (otherwise your job can get stuck in a queue). Both Alan and Tony W have complained to Ian about Kate’s unilateral behaviour (obviously if Tony W works for more than one team Alan can raise internal cross-charges to cover his salary).

Tony W is a bombastic individual, about thirty-five, very unfashionable haircut, wears chinos and coloured shirts (no tie), has a protruding beer-belly, goes red in the face when he is stressed.

I have had no choice about putting my print work through Tony W. It was made clear to me when I first arrived that Tony W would do my print buying. At first I went along with this, but recently I have been wondering whether I could break free.

Therefore when rep Jason arrives from Camel Print I make a point of talking to him and asking him for quotes. He comes in about once a week to see Tony W, but never seems to make any headway (Tony W brought his own printing contacts with him when he came to the agency). My plan is to wait until Tony W is snowed under with work and then use that as an excuse to place my printing with Camel Print (and once that precedent has been established, to go on doing so).

Jason is aged about twenty-five, spiky gelled hair, wears very smart suits (but with the sartorial error of short-sleeved shirts, even in winter). He tries to talk with a salesman’s patter, but can’t quite keep it up. Even so, he does a great deal of talking about his job, his poor relations with Tony W, his wife and baby son (“Often I get in, don’t feel much like talk, don’t feel like anything to eat, have a glass of wine or beer and then go to bed”).

Wednesday

A visit to new client Colchester Seals (based in Surrey). We discussed a new corporate image for the company (they are growing fast). The MD basically wants to steal the corporate style of a competitor (same colours, same typefaces, same staff uniforms) and I spent nearly two hours trying to persuade him it wasn’t a good idea.

On the way back through south London I called on freelance Joey at his office. This was basically a desk in a small office unit he shares with five other freelances. All the walls were glass except for the back wall (it was like a sort of modernistic lean-to conservatory). He gave me a mug of very strong coffee and we sat on stools (too high to be comfortable) discussing the catalogue he is doing for one of my clients. Afterwards we went to his “club” for a drink - a cellar bar with pool tables, a row of slot machines, lots of black and white (soccer) team photos on the walls. I was late getting back to the agency and Ian was fretting because he had been kept waiting (I had borrowed his car).

Thursday

I spent the day catching up with invoicing. I decide what to charge the client, and Janette (in accounts) enters it all on the system and sends the invoices out. We have some big projects being billed in February, so it should be a bumper month.

Two people told me, independently, that Kate is planning to leave. I didn’t let on that I already knew. Possibly the rumours have been started by Kate herself to try to pressure Ian into giving her a pay rise.

Friday

Client BQW are moving to new premises near Watford. We keep most of their sales publications in our warehouse in Stevenage (they pay us to manage this). I did an audit of stock and could reveal today that they have nearly half a million different items of literature, all of which will need to have the address changed.

The head of the BQW Move Committee almost wilted under the implications of this. A long meeting in the morning discussing whether to put labels over the old addresses (not really possible without looking tacky) or scrapping them all and starting again. No-one at BQW had given any thought to changing the address on company literature, and therefore the whole committee looked worried.

In the afternoon Kate and Clive (does TV commercials) were very late getting back to the office. At 4.30 a call from Kate revealed they were stranded at a filling station - Clive had put diesel in the car instead of petrol. All of today I have been trying to imagine what that scene must have been like (Kate does not suffer fools gladly).

New Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, was on Question Time

Above: Andy Burnham (left) and David Dimbleby (taken from TV with my mobile phone).

One of the objectives I set (and utterly failed to achieve) for this blog was to “shadow” the Department of Culture Media and Sport. I thought it would give me an extra insight into the power / culture/ media nexus in the United Kingdom and possibly (if I ever made it public) earn me some kudos at the office. I have made a few efforts in this direction, but distraction, prevarication and inertia have (as usual) prevailed.

This will never be a serious “professional” work-related blog I’m afraid.

Too much of “me” always seeps into things.

Anyway, to refocus:

The new Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, was on Question Time last night.

The panel was asked about Housing Minister Caroline Flint’s proposal to evict the unemployed from council housing (if ever there was a case of onomatopoeia it is the name Caroline Flint - she is hard and stony with a black heart).

It soon became obvious that Andy Burnham is incapable of telling a lie (unlike his predecessor James Purnell who was/is an accomplished dissembler).

He attempted to side-step the question but his body language so obviously told us he didn’t believe in what he was saying. He tried answering a different question to the one that had been asked, but Chairman David Dimbleby told him off. He tried listing the government’s achievements to date, but Chairman David Dimbleby stopped him in mid-flow.

Sensing his discomfiture, the Tory on the panel (Christopher Grayling) attempted some mild mischief-making at which point Andy Burnham said the words: “I will take no lectures from you in…”

Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, and no doubt many other commentators, have told us that when a politician uses the words “I will take no lectures from you” they have reached the nadir of their argumentative powers. Prime Minister Gordon Brown used to regularly use the phrase in Prime Minister’s Questions. It really means: help me, I am drowning.

More on onomatopoeia: http://www.berghuis.co.nz/abiator/rdg/onomatopoeiahelp.html

I will take no lectures from you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jLG6ENSUX8
I will take no lectures from you: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brown-treating-people-like-fools-says-cameron-394591.html

Is this the rudest bank in London?

London is a city full of banks - there are over 500 in the City alone. As well as the investment banks there are retail banks which provide banking services for ordinary people. There are four (the Big Four) retail banks in the United Kingdom - HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest.

I have had an account with NatWest since university. At the time it was an excellent institution but over the years I have seen standards declining (or perhaps I have become more demanding?). Now NatWest is no different to all the other financial sharks (bombarding you with junk mail, finding ever more ingenious ways to slip charges onto your statement, pestering you with sales pitches whenever you try to carry out routine tasks).

Out of all the shops and offices where I have experienced poor (and sometimes downright bad) service, the NatWest branch in Pentonville Road (opposite the old Kings Cross Thameslink Station) ranks as the worst. Is this the rudest bank in London? The staff are off-hand and unhelpful, the manageress sarcastic and obstructive, and the counter-attendant/clerk who wears a headscarf is among the rudest people I have ever met (unfortunately there is a single-queuing system, otherwise I would avoid her).

If you ask one of the staff for information you get referred (in a cheeky don’t-waste-my-time manner) to a rack of leaflets.

What is wrong with these people?

A rotten fish stinks from the head downwards (as the Danes say) so you’ve got to blame Helen Page, the NatWest overall Marketing Director.

A useful constitutional device that could be harmonised across the EU

I must stop watching Prime Minister’s Questions live (on the Daily Politics show) on Wednesday lunchtimes as it always gives me indigestion.

For the second week running not one MP raised the issue most annoying the general population - the employment by MPs of relatives on the public payroll. Dennis Skinner, supposedly a moral leader on this issue and someone who can normally be relied upon to ask awkward questions, sat absolutely silent. Banal parish pump issues (the prevalence of counterfeit cigarettes in south Yorkshire, infringements of the Green Belt in particular constituencies etc) were batted to and fro for the full half hour, and then the PM was away.

What can be done when legislators conspire to ignore and defraud the people they are supposed to serve?

Perhaps our European partners offer a clue? In the Platz am Hof in Vienna an enraged crowd in 1848 dragged one of the government ministers from his office and hanged him from a lamp-post. It seems a useful constitutional device that could be harmonised across the EU.

More on Dennis Skinner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Skinner

More on the lamp-post hanging of officials:
In Austria - http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9400E2DA1438E233A25756C2A9629C94639ED7CF&oref=slogin
In France - http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/essays/censerhunt1.html
And even in India - http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/08msg.htm

PS apologies to those who find British politics boring.

The custom is hundreds of years old

Above: very poor photograph but you can see the end of the adult race - the last few runners approaching the finishing line. It had been a bright day but towards the end of the races a big dark cloud covered the sky. I suppose it’s better than nothing.

Working from home today - I half-engineered this so that I could go out early afternoon and see a pancake race held in one of the villages.

Pancake races used to be held in every village on Shrove Tuesday (which is today). Now they are extremely rare. There is a famous one held in Buckinghamshire, and others throughout the country, but in the county I think this is the only one.

The races were held at a local secondary school. Until a few years ago they were held in the main High Street going through the village, but the police refused to stop the traffic one year, and so the event was moved to the school playing field. You would think the police would be more co-operative.

The village has recorded pancake races for fifty years, but the custom is hundreds of years old and represents an echo of one of the great medieval festivals. Shrove Tuesday is the last day before the start of Lent, and so a “carnival” (literally carne-vale which is Latin for “farewell to meat”) was held. Pancakes are eaten on Shrove Tuesday, supposedly using up eggs and sugar before the Lent fasting begins.

Six races were held - under fives (barely able to lift their frying pans), 5 to 7 years (several getting the rules wrong), 8 to 10 years (more competitive), 11 to 14 years (very competitive - one girl losing her shoe in the mud but continuing to run the race), 15 to 17 years (nearly cancelled because most of this age group were too “cool” to get involved), and the adults (I stood well clear when they were asking for volunteers). The pancake must be tossed once during the race. The pancake must still be in the pan when you arrive at the finishing line (a long blue ribbon held by two schoolgirls).

The races were organised by a young athletic woman with fluffy blonde hair. From the way she blew her whistle I suspected she was the Games Mistress (or would she have a different title - things have changed since I went to school). She ran in all the races herself to make sure the rules were followed, then told me “I have to teach a class this afternoon!”

Lent is a very serious period for the Anglican church. It is characterised by symbolic fasting, study, and meditation. Ash Wednesday (tomorrow) is the first day of Lent.

In the past a special curfew bell would be rung to announce the start of the Lenten period and bonfires lit on hill tops. Writing in The Golden Bough Sir James Frazer says that burning torches would be carried through the orchards (funnily enough, I once lit a small fire under an apple tree that seemed half-dead - and later in the year it produced blossom and then fruit for the first time that anyone could remember). Sir James Frazer also records that straw effigies of witches were burnt on the bonfires.

The row over nepotism

“I am not a crook” said disgraced Member of Parliament Derek Conway on the front page of yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph (repeating the phrase on page 12 of today’s Guardian).



“I am not a crook” said President Richard Milhouse Nixon during the Watergate crisis, thus telling one of the Big Lies of history (actually Nixon said: “I am NOT a crook”).



“I am not a crook” said one of the bank robbers in the cult film Point Break, posing for the security cameras and raising his arms in the classic Nixon salute (the gang wore rubber masks and called themselves the Ex-Presidents).

The row over nepotism in the House of Commons continues (and rightly so). The politicians, with their usual subtlety (stooping to conquer) are trying to deflect it into a lesser row confined to expenses. Seventy-four per cent of people in a recent poll said MPs must not employ relatives on public salaries.

An early lunch today, and I went into the Conference Room to watch Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics show while having my Marks & Spencer sandwiches. Sarah (Reception) and Ann (helps Sheila) were also in there, and were not happy at such heavy viewing, but I got to the remote control first. Alan (one of our directors, scruffy and shambling) also came in.

Andrew Neil and co-presenter Jenny Scott are merciless in the way they mock politicians. Andrew Neil in particular has developed an off-camera laugh he uses when absurd political quotes appear on screen. If Britain was a police state they would both have “disappeared” long ago.

Guest on the show was Chairman of the Arts Council Sir Christopher Frayling (“Oh look, it’s Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling” said Alan).

Sir Christopher Frayling talked about redesigning the coinage (“Why can’t they leave things alone instead of mucking about with everything” said Sarah).

A doctor appeared in an item about extended opening hours for GP’s surgeries (“I live in Harlow” wailed Ann, “I have to take half the day off work if I want to go to the doctor, and Sheila always gets shirty over it. They should make them open in the evenings”).

The Derek Conway case was discussed, and yet more revelations about MPs employing relatives came out (“Greedy bastards” said Alan, summing up the general opinion in the Conference Room).

The Daily Politics show came to an end. Sarah and Ann left the room. Alan began eating a pot of yogurt with his fingers (a revolting performance) and so I also left the room.

Politicians seem to be misjudging the public mood over the employment of relatives. In part I think some of the anger comes from general resentment about “the bosses son” (or partner or mother-in-law etc) getting favoured treatment when the rest of us have to make our own way in the world. Talking from experience, “Marketing” seems to get an unreasonable proportion of these freeloaders (they never seem to want to work in warehouse logistics or answer calls on a sales desk).

Sometimes they are harmless teenagers out of their depth, but often they are rude and arrogant and lazy (even after all this time I still get annoyed at the thought of Bobbie Timmermans and his cheeky remarks in that sing-song Dutch accent, and his ridiculous £500 cowboy boots, and the way he would tell me how to do my job…). It’s bad enough having to endure these people in our day-jobs, without having to pay for them through our taxes. Derek Conway deserves everything he gets.

And how did we get TWO Milliband brothers in the Cabinet? And how did the sister of the International Development Secretary end up a senior member of the Scottish parliament? And how can the 80-year-old mother of former minister Peter Hain remain on his administrative staff (she’s EIGHTY and still on the public pay-roll)?

More on Nixon not being a crook: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/111873-1.htm

More on Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Streeb-Greebling

More on Point Break (one of my favourite films): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4-Fso2EZq8