Weddings, funerals, coronations – my late father’s caustic views. Plus a question for you

Well, here comes another royal wedding, with the usual cartloads of nauseating pap from the arse end of the media.

As usual, Murdoch’s people are doing their best to burrow as far as possible into the slime. Yesterday’s headline in The Sun, which never shines, revealed – shock, horror! – that King Norodom of Cambodia (whom none of their “readers” has ever heard of) is not coming. Good man: why should he squander his poor country’s wealth on a jolly to London?*
I’m sure this awful tripe embarrasses the happy couple more than anyone else, but I see that Kate alone is reckoned to be worth more in added national income than the Olympics (which I fear may take years to pay for – Greece is still in debt).
All the fuss reminds me of my father’s views on such occasions.
George Bird was very funny, with political views about 200 yards to the right of Attila the Hun. People came from far and wide to hear him shoot his mouth off – and in quite a few cases, male and female to gaze, panting, at my mother, who was very beautiful.
He once told me “I prefer funerals to weddings. At weddings people get drunk and start fights, and anyhow most marriages end up in tears one way or another. At a funeral if the corpse had a few quid, at least one person and maybe more is bound to end up better off.”
The first time I ever saw TV, by the way, was for the Coronation of the present Queen. I cried -which I do at the drop of a hat – and I am a committed royalist.
Imagine a mafia-backed lecher like Blair’s friend Berlusconi running things indefinitely. Or a man like Bush who starts disastrous wars for oil money? Or a racist dwarf like Sarkozy, who’s going to prosecute people who fly over his holiday villa.
Incidentally, this made me cry in 1953. It still does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkWtA4-34VE
* By the way, I once wrote a speech for King Norodom’s cousin as a result of a seminar I did in Bangkok – but that’s a story for another day.

P.S. My writing seminar in Bristol has sold 24 seats out of 40 in five working days, so here’s a question, if you’re interested.
Where do you live? I will do more seminars but I need to know where is best. Just send me your address if you’re interested. I’ll fly anywhere for fun and money 🙂

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.

3 Comments

  1. Ian

    Come to Vancouver, Canada. You don't have to be raped by American airport security or bathed in radiation. If you come in the summer you'll be greeted by some of the nicest weather in the world – not a hint of rain, warm enough to get the ladies in bikinis, and cool enough to keep the shirts on the men.

    And we have the Queen of England on some of our coins – which I'm perfeclty happy to give you if you put on a writing seminar here.

  2. Drayton

    I must admit Vancouver is one place I'd love to come to. I have a few friends there, too.

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