Ocado (a home delivery service) is trying to float its business, which has never made a profit and lost £25 million last year, for £800 million to 1.2 billion. Any idiot who buys into that is mad. And this …
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Was my client right to scold me? You decide.
Yesterday one of my favourite clients rang me and askd me a question. “How long have you been giving me advice, Drayton?” “Eight or nine years.” “Have I ever given you any advice?” “Er … no.” “Well I am now. …
Read MoreAn apology to Chris Newton – and the answer to a question about copy length that you may have asked yourself
I’m afraid I was not at my best and brightest yesterday. Besides my usual slapdash approach to things I had advanced jet-lag after getting off the plane from New York and going straight to the office, so as a result …
Read MoreWhy are your energy bills so outrageously high?
I got off the plane from New York this morning, took the tube to the office- and was infuriated by an ad in the paper before I even got there. It was a full page with no picture and maybe …
Read More“Times change. People don’t” said the sage Mr. Caples. But how many realise it?
After a board meeting in Frankfurt, Lord knows how many years ago, David Ogilvy told me over dinner that “Rosser Reeves and I were talking one day, and we agreed that everything we knew we had learned from John Caples.” …
Read MoreFile this under “I’m ashamed to be British”
I thought nothing could depress me more in recent months than all the witless boasting in the British garbage press about what England would do in the World Cup – followed by the depressing charade they put on. But then …
Read MoreYour bargain is not necessarily my bargain, Phil
Being, as they say in the North where I was brought up, “as cheap as chips”, I am ever alert for a bargain, so I read this from a man called Phil with some interest. Dear Drayton We would like …
Read MoreI have two left feet. Dancing lessons, anyone?
This is reproduced from something I wrote for Clayton Makepeace’s Total Package. I thought you might like it Anyone who buys this rubbish (some fools will, believe me) deserves what they get Among my favourite politicians is Lord Salisbury, a …
Read MoreAh! This made me feel a bit better
I am better than most at grizzling and feeling sorry for myself, and among the things I moan about most are holidays – and how few I get. Maybe it’s because I’m an old man in a hurry, but forgetting …
Read MoreWhy publishers are failing, Wayne Rooney, Richard Desmond and the Gambino family
I’ve just finished reading a cri de coeur from that excellent journalist John Sweeney which we can all learn from. He was lamenting that fear of the laws of libel first stopped a book of his – Rooney’s Gold – …
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