Did I ever tell you I met David Bailey? I did, I really did. It was long before he hit the headlines, in a pub in St. Christopher’s Place, when I had my first job as a group head in …
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The question is, which one is the comedian?
There were two interesting things about Marty Stein, my art director in the mid-60’s – or at any rate two I’m talking about here. First, he was the fastest guy ever at churning out grease-pencil roughs. This was useful because …
Read MoreSuper-strength ad horseshit in an email from an Aussie recruitment business
I don’t know why it is, but ever since I first went to Australia 39 years ago I’ve noticed two things: you see some of the best advertising in the world there – and some of the most appallingly pretentious …
Read MoreWhat you can learn from the Mafia, a toilet bowl, a successful madam – and other business lessons
What a desperate old sod I must be! I’ve been in marketing one way or another for over 50 years, but I still happily sit through EADIM talks hoping I’ll learn something – and I usually do. In the last …
Read MoreMore from the School of Advanced Corporate Bollocks: How does a man who writes like this come to run a great publisher?
Conde Montrose Nast was one of THE great publishers. He didn’t found Vogue, but he did make it successful, as he did Vanity Fair, Travel and other publications. You could say he originated the idea of the lifestyle magazine. So, …
Read MoreBean-Counter Management Madness: take care of the details and let other people drone on about strategy
Ever wondered how U.S. lawyers are able to extract lunatic sums of money for the smallest injuries? Why do supermarkets put the booze at the last aisle? How could Eurostar have saved a few billion – and made passengers wish …
Read MoreWell, fancy that! What I found in yesterday’s Evening Standard
I wonder what the late Lord Beaverbrook would have thought of what they run nowadays in his old paper, The Evening Standard. I think it’s probably the best paper around today, full of interesting stuff. For example on page 36 …
Read MoreSad falling-off in the quality of horseshit
This is how Cameron is going to create a thriving, flourishing Britain. See if you can make a word of sense out of it. By which I mean what is he going to do exactly? “First, using all available policy …
Read MoreDid your parents “scrimp and save”
My father never tired of telling me how he and my mother had “scrimped and saved” to send me to good schools. I ran away from the first and hated the second. But I would like to thank the ghost …
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