Nostalgia runs riot …

In reply to my cri de coeur yesterday my old friend Malcolm Auld, the toast of Manly, NSW, made me laugh with a message simply headed: “RE: aahh, sex in a wardrobe…those were the days …”

Absolutely typical. Mal always was easily excited. It ws sex with a wardrobe, you fool.

But he made me think. I replied:

“Weren’t they just!

I did it in lifts, railway and hotel toilets … anywhere someone would say yes.

What the hell happened to our lives?”

Sad, really, isn’t it. And it reminded me that I started this blog with the intention of writing a sort of autobiography. So much for planning.

Talking of which, because I’m an idiot I agreed to write a 200 page holiday brochure for someone which I have to finish in a week or so. This was exceptionally stupid even by my standards, as I had the law book to write at the same time – which is now done.

Yesterday I was writing about Australia, and it suddenly occurred to me that I first met Mal almost exactly 25 years ago on a memorable cruise round Sydney Harbour.

It was my first speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand. The DMA had arranged it in my honour (i. e. as an excuse for a party). There were two big boats. The first was full, but there were only seven or eight of us on the second because we had to wait for my then wife, who was totally incapable of being on time for anything.

There were limitless prawns and plonk in the great Aussie tradition and we did our best.

Now that was what I call a cruise.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

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