My blog

Category: Features

  • Diary: Liz Brewer on etiquette, presentation – and meeting Guy Ritchie

    Liz Brewer

     

    Life is  all about presentation. You have to realise that when you walk in that room, in front of the interviewer or panel of people, they’re going to make an instant decision. They don’t know they’re doing it, but it happens automatically, and it’s all to do with your energy. And so when you walk into a room, you have to take a deep breath and turn your energy from whatever it is, whether you’re frightened, or worried, or having a bad hair day, into positive energy. If you ever been to the east, and you’ve studied Kirlian photography, you know that they can photograph your aura. You have to make that aura – that energy – positive. So you take a deep breath, think positive thoughts, and you go in and your energy will hit them, and they’ll sit up and they’ll say, ‘right, what have we here?’

     

    The thing about communicating over Zoom is that you never manage to judge energy. The whole idea of meeting with people is eye contact, it’s energy contact, and it’s feeling. We are animals, and although a lot of people don’t understand that, we train ourselves to be able to judge people – to know whether this is someone that I can trust and rely on. A lot of people now judge people’s mannerisms and the way they behave to determine things like whether they’re telling the truth or not. It’s happening more and more, and people who have the ability to do that have either spent time realising that have that ability, or they’ve actually studied people. When I started the first discotheque club in Portugal, for over ten years I had a rule for myself that I never danced. I would watch people and I would watch their behaviour, and I must have automatically picked up the ability to be able to read people. And it’s something that you can train yourself to do. A lot of people are unaware of other people, they’re too busy thinking about themselves or looking at everything around them. But just studying people, how they speak, and how they make eye contact is something that we’re going to have to learn to do better and better as this world becomes even more competitive.

     

    I’m in my element with outside living and through my many sojourns in Africa, mainly exploring Zambia, was frequently lost along the Zambesi, having missed a confluence along the way and getting stuck on sandbanks in the middle of the river!  So camping, cooking and eating outside are always an integral and exciting part of my life. I was a pleasure then to be invited recently to join Guy Ritchie and his enthusiastic team in his creation, the alfresco lifestyle WildKitchen on a lake at his Somerset Estate, Ashcombe. The WildKitchen is quite an amazing structure: a copper topped 12 seater WildTable, containing two ingenious fire boxes covered by clear lids, so you could witness the cooking, both burning wood or charcoal and generating heat and light without smoke. Having seen Ritchie’s 2019 film The Gentlemen I was amused that product placement cleverly made its mark on several occasions.

     

    Guy Ritchie’s sense of humour turns out to be a delight. After finger-eating the succulent steak, he’d cooked to perfection, I asked if I could have a finger bowl. Without hesitation he reached up to the halo of tools hanging above for a suitable dish, and having added water he added a tablespoonful or two of olive oil, explaining apparently t’was the necessary ingredient for a finger bowl.  Who was I to argue?

     

    What’s happened in today’s world is, because of technology, everything is speeded up. We can do ten times more nowadays than we could, say, 15-20 years ago. Because of that, we’ve speeded ourselves up, and we overlook things like saying ‘please’, and ‘thank you’, and ‘hello’, and remembering that the person on the till who’s taking our money is a human being. When you’re with another person, that is now precious time, and if you then have your phone out, it’s an interruption. Time is a luxury, and it’s often very special and limited.

     

    Wherever you work, you have to have your own self-esteem. So when people have said, ‘Oh, well I can’t be bothered to dress up, I’m in the back room packing boxes’, I tell them that how you feel about yourself is a reflection of the way you present yourself. If you catch sight of yourself in a window or mirror, and you’re looking dishevelled with your shoulders hunched down, it doesn’t do much for your self-esteem, in which case, it doesn’t do much for you yourself.

     

    Life is for living. You never know what’s going to happen from one second to the next, so the way you dress, how you walk, and how you present yourself makes people immediately think, ‘right, this person has respect for us, and they have respect for themselves’. You have to take pride in what you’re doing. If you don’t bother to make yourself look good in the morning, that’s how you’re going to continue during the day. When they’re training people to be soldiers, it’s very important that your shoes shine, it’s very important how your belt is buckled, and how your suit is presented. It’s a question of not just discipline, but it’s a question of actually giving the best of yourself. That’s what it’s all about.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Three takeaways from India’s G20 summit

    Dinesh Dhamija

    Now that the dust has settled from the Indian G20 meeting, I’m left with a generally positive impression of the event, from the hosts’ point of view.

    There were three headline-making moments: the invitation to the African Union to join the group, the communique on Ukraine which didn’t mention Russia, and the introduction of ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’.

    Africa first. I think this is a very positive step. In recent years, too many African countries have become financially indebted to China for their infrastructure or militarily indebted to Russia for their security. The latest instability on the continent, with military coups in Niger and Gabon and civil war in Somalia, underscores the need for concerted action. Otherwise there is a risk of widespread regional insecurity which would benefit nobody.

    Through this act of inclusion, India’s ‘Global South’ leadership has taken on a practical edge, giving Africa a stronger voice in an important political forum. Ideally, it will encourage African nations to work more closely with one another, rather than getting further in hock to Russia and China.

    For Narendra Modi, this was a key diplomatic achievement, bolstering his position as self-styled voice of the Global South and winning African friends in high places. India is already providing transformative IT services to several African nations, mirroring the Adhaar online financial network it developed at home. This G21 accession – as we should now call it – could help unlock much more of the same, setting India up as a tech partner to the continent.

    On Ukraine, the communique was probably the best that could be achieved in order to keep everyone on side. Ukraine itself was the least happy party here, but then Ukraine isn’t a member of the G20 so it had to take what it was given. Optics are important here. As long as the leaders of the 20 states could return to their home countries and endorsed the message, India could say the meeting was a success. Short of expelling Russia (in which case the whole G20/21 concept falls down) there wasn’t much else they could do. India’s reputation as a catalyst for reconciliation and compromise was enhanced.

    Finally, Bharat. There are plenty of optics in this debate also. It would force the entire map-making and list-publishing industry to reprint every atlas and league table. It would mean people like me would have to describe ourselves as Bharati-heritage. Does it matter very much? I suppose it’s a sign of India’s muscle-flexing, now that it has half a seat on the global top economic table and wants everyone to pay more attention.

    We’ve grown used to Mumbai instead of Bombay, Chennai instead of Madras, Kolkata instead of Calcutta, so why not? There’s an anti-colonial thing going on here, which prompts people to debate the issues and that’s no bad thing. I’d like to see a referendum take place before any decision, just to be sure that a healthy majority (two-thirds?) of the country agreed with it.

    The most important thing is that India is setting its own agenda, meeting with the great world powers on its own terms. For me, that’s a big step forward and much to be welcomed.

    Dinesh Dhamija founded, built and sold online travel agency ebookers, before serving as a Member of the European Parliament. His latest book, The Indian Century, will be published in the Autumn.

     

  • The Power of Motivation in the Workplace

    Stuart Thomson

    Motivation in the workplace plays a valuable role for the individual as well as the organisation, but it needs to be recognised and nurtured. If anyone feels that their motivation is lacking then it is time to ask questions.

    On a recent episode of the ‘Eat Sleep Work Repeat podcast (29 June 2023), Bruce Daisley spoke with Gallup’s Anna Sawyer about their ‘State of the Global Workplace Report’. The report makes for interesting reading but in particular Question 12 focuses on measuring employee engagement.

    Gallup categorises an organisation’s employees as engaged, not engaged or actively disengaged.

    “Engaged employees are thriving at work. They are highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace. They are psychological “owners,” drive performance and innovation, and move the organization forward.

    Not engaged employees are quietly quitting. They are psychologically unattached to their work and company. Because their engagement needs are not being fully met, they’re putting time but not energy or passion into their work.

    Actively disengaged employees are loudly quitting. They aren’t just unhappy at work. They are resentful that their needs aren’t being met and are acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers potentially undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish”.

    Looking at the UK, the results show that it does quite badly for engaged employees. That makes the chances of any of us, having direct experience of feeling low levels of motivation quite high. At the very least, you may well witness low levels of motivation, amongst colleagues. That means that the individual, teams and the business suffer.

    Poor levels of motivation tend to be contagious.  That means we can all play a role in preventing the contagion or contributing to its spread. But the organisation needs to provide the incentives to progress along the more positive path.

    The organisations should see the benefits across productivity: lowers costs because they do not have to constantly recruit and train; a supportive workplace culture and the innovation that that can drive; employee engagement; not needing to constantly firefight to cover absenteeism; and, the delivery of higher quality work that can even come with an extra sparkle or flourish

    For the individual, higher levels of motivation result in feelings of job satisfaction. This, in turn, contributes to the development of the business that can help a person’s career and may even have direct financial rewards as well which should not be ignored. There can be the development of a culture of learning across a team, all of whom can see a future there rather than being distracted by other opportunities.

    Motivation drives us forward pro-actively. It is about wanting to do make a positive contribution rather than simply being compelled to do so. It is the spark in the step that helps us to enjoy work rather than enduring it.

    Assuming that you are attracted by working in such an organisation, what are some of the tell-tail signs that you might be about to enter a workplace that takes motivation seriously? What should you be looking out for?

    It is important to consider the system of recognition and rewards both formal and informal but with that should come some initial goal setting so that you know what is expected of you and the team you are part of. How is feedback provided, and how regularly?

    You also want to see evidence of development and training, and whether opportunities for mentoring exist.

    Also, challenge an employer on their communications and how they talk to and engage with their teams. Think about whether it is possible for you to be part of decision-making processes now or in the future, and how you can contribute to the success of the organisation.

    You need to have a clear idea of career progression but how you will be supported at every stage through wellness, especially if life gets tough which it will for many people at different stages. Is there an expectation that you will support yourselves and power on through any troubles or will support be available?

    A few social and team building events would be useful as well.

    Motivation in the workplace is crucial for creating a positive, productive, and successful work environment. It drives employees to perform at their best, fosters a positive company culture, and delivers it success and growth.

    Do you recognise that scenario where you work or are thinking of working?

     

  • Tariq Ali on Churchill and the Sunak administration

    Tariq Ali

     

    I’ve recently published a book about Churchill, and it’s interesting as the dust settles on the Johnson administration, and as we enter a period of strikes under Rishi Sunak with Boris even out of Parliament now, to consider the way in which Churchill is all bound up in this.

    Sometimes Boris created the idea that he was dumb but he certainly wasn’t. He always knew what he was doing and why. Boris’ novel is even a copy of Churchill’s novel; he complains about being a victim, just as Churchill did. He copies Churchill to that extent; Boris really does think Churchill was the greatest person ever.

    Churchill could say what he did and get away with it, because behind him was the British Empire, which was supported by a large part of the British population. Some of the Scots, whether you like it or not, were the most ardent imperialists. That’s why, with the decline of the Empire, the more nationalist tendencies have come out in Wales, Scotland and England.

    What Boris tried to do was to nurse a special form of English nationalism, linked very much to Churchill and his so-called heroism –

    and to make this part of the new mythology. If you withdraw from Europe, or Scotland might go from the Union – as seemed more likely when he was Prime Minister than it does now – then you need something, and for Boris that was Churchill.

    America also plays into this. He used Churchill to say to the Americans that we have a long-standing relationship, and that we will be better partners than Germany, for instance, because we’ve been attached by an umbilical wire. Blair played that line in the most vulgar way, as did Thatcher. Boris attempted the same. What that results in is a Britain completely tied to the United States without any room for manoeuvre.

    This all played out of course in respect of the reaction to Putin’s crazed assault on Ukraine – and still does under Rishi Sunak. The British media class went semi-hysterical, though they’re beginning to calm down now. If you look at France, Germany and Italy, they all supported NATO but the tone was more measured.

    Even in America itself, there’s a different tone: look at Thomas Friedman’s columns in the New York Times. I’m not a huge fan of his, but he has sought a balanced tone, and even pointed out the mistakes the Americans have made.

    We also need to look at the situation in Yemen which is infinitely worse than what is going on in Ukraine. The reason for the lack of coverage is that the media largely supports the government, and so they’ve been told by the Foreign Office that this isn’t a priority. I notice that all four parties drool over Zelensky’s addresses, and especially when he mentions Churchill; and I do sometimes wonder whether the Foreign Office has a hand in writing those.

    The big debate now is really this: How long do you want to tie the Russians down? American intelligence boasts that the Russian generals who were killed, were killed because of us. Older intelligence people in the US are saying: “Keep your mouth shut. Do you want a retaliation?” How long will Biden want to carry this out? It will either be non-stop escalation or a negotiated settlement.

    Putin’s invasion has been a mistake, and he has lost the support of the usually pro-Russian segment of Ukraine. That means that Putin is in a position where he might need to negotiate a settlement in any case. So far, the Americans have irresponsibly chosen to continue the war.

    The roots of our present problems domestically are also deep. The post-War consensus required the rebuilding of the country and that meant a form of social democracy. This wasn’t just in Britain – it was also in Europe. It was never meaningfully altered by Conservative governments, until Thatcher destroyed the mining industry.

    That development was dual in nature. First, it showed she didn’t care about the British working people anymore. Secondly, it meant that Arthur Scargill would have to be dealt with. The British trade union movement never recovered from that defeat. Privatisation was never contested in Britain in the same way it was in many other countries – for instance in South Korea. There was a huge strike wave in South Korea in the 1980s against multinationals. The banners in front of the Japanese multinationals said: “You can’t crush us, we’re not English.”

    That was a huge triumph for Thatcher, and Blair carried on and to some extent went further. They were looking for a strike to crush – but unfortunately for them the only strike going on was the nurses, and even they felt that nobody in their right minds would regard them as the enemy within.

    When it came to both the Blair and Brown premierships, the first person they invited in was Thatcher. Then Cameron made no secret of the fact that he was an admirer of Blair. I call this the ‘extreme centre’. It doesn’t seem to matter who comes in. They do the same thing; they fight the unions, and fight America’s wars. What is the point of an election under such circumstances? It just becomes a ritual.

    And a ritual all bound up with Churchill, who himself fought the unions in Wales and Scotland. That’s why the hatred of Churchill went so deep, and why I get so many messages from working class people saying how much their grandparents hated Churchill. Rishi Sunak should know that rubbing British noses in British mud doesn’t go down well.

     

    Tariq Ali’s Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes is out now

     

  • Building Success: The Importance of Role Models

    Stuart Thomson

    In the ever-evolving world of work, navigating the complexities of one’s career path can often feel like a daunting journey into uncharted territory. However, there exists a guiding light that can illuminate the path and offer invaluable wisdom – look for a workplace role model.

    These role models can be found within your current organisation or beyond its boundaries.

    There may be an obvious person that you can immediately see. Others, you may see more from a distance, learning about them through friends or seeing their activity and presence online.

    A good role model can play a vital role in shaping your professional growth, offering insights, and providing a vision for the future.

    Why Seek a Role Model?

    At the heart of the quest for a role model is the simple truth that we all learn better when we have examples to follow.

    A role model could be useful when looking for a future path but also when seeking help with dealing with a particular challenge. They demonstrate what can be achieved and how.

    You need to seek a role model that allows you to:

    1. Learn from experience: Consider role models that possess a wealth of experience. All the experiences that they have gathered – positive and negative – can offer valuable lessons to you. By considering the choices they made and the consequences that followed, you gain insight that you can consider applying to your own challenges.
    2. Expand skills: Role models can broaden your horizons by introducing new perspectives, approaches, and new skills. You may need specific support in developing these skills through, for instance, training.
    3. Be motivated and inspired: Simply being a witness to the success of others can be a powerful motivator, especially when you can see how they deserve that success. A role model shows you what you can achieve and what new horizons await you.

    Role models can be ‘in person’ or can be ‘silent.’ An ‘in person’ role model would be someone you can engage with. This would be helpful when it comes to building a network. They can introduce you to others in their professional circles. But even a ‘silent’ role model can be of use. This may be someone you follow online, for instance, on LinkedIn to learn from posts, see who they are inspired by, and take note of recommendations they make.

    Where to Find a Role Model

    Identifying a role model can be a challenge in itself. Consider the following steps:

    1. What are your immediate goals? Look for a role model whose career is in line with what you want to achieve. Are you all about a career? Are you looking for balance? Do you have caring or parenting needs? Look for those who have been on a similar path.
    2. What do you stand for? Do you hold specific values? If so, make sure the role model is aligned with them.
    3. Are they available? If you are looking for ‘in-person’ support, then you need to be able to make contact, and they need to have some capacity to offer help and assistance.
    4. Do you need more than one? There is no harm in having more than one role model. It is unlikely that any one person will be able to offer all the help you will need. Those needs can change over time, so the role model/s may need to change as well. You can have multiple role models.

    If you can secure a role model, then just think about the learning benefits and also the confidence it instils, along with a greater sense of self-worth. There may even be emotional support available to you from someone who really understands what you are going through.

    A role model can provide clarity of direction that may otherwise be missing in a workplace or career. The mix of wisdom, guidance, and inspiration offered by a role model will put you on the right path. Seek yours out now.

  • China Restricts, India Attracts

    Dinesh Dhamija

    China’s leaders, faced with an economic slowdown, have gone on the offensive.

    In the latest development, international law firm Dentons, with 10,000 lawyers worldwide, announced that it is dissolving its Chinese business thanks to restrictive new laws on data privacy, cyber security and capital control.

    The global response to these restrictions is growing.

    US president Biden this week announced new measures to limit American investments in China, citing national security concerns, placing new barriers to investment by private equity and venture capital firms in high-tech sectors.

    Similar tensions are developing between India and China, with the Jack Ma-founded Ant Group divesting more than $600 million from India’s Paytm in response to Indian investigations of Chinese companies.

    By contrast, India has taken a series of steps in recent months to attract ever more investment from the West.

    In March, long-anticipated changes to India’s legal framework allowed overseas legal firms to open offices in the country, “giving foreign lawyers a foothold in one of the biggest legal markets in the world,” as the Financial Times reported.

    Legal giants including DLA Piper, Herbert Smith Freehills and Baker McKenzie are all considering opening offices in India, having so far operated out of Singapore and Hong Kong when dealing with Indian-related business. Baker McKenzie says that it already has 300 lawyers in more than 40 countries working on mandates connected with India, helping companies raise investment or advising those wanting to buy businesses in India.

    Once they decide to commit to India, the major firms are likely to open offices in the country’s financial centre Mumbai, its technology centre Bengaluru and its political heartland of Delhi. Managing partner at one of India’s biggest law firms, Cyril Shroff at Cyril Amarchand Mangalas, is in favour of more international legal firms coming in.

    “The status quo has to change,” he says. “I think there will be an initial wave of those who have been waiting for a long time who will open at the first opportunity. I think the others will kind of wait and watch to see how it’s going.” It would be overall a positive development, he believes: “It will align with the India story of more global investment coming to take India to the next level, so there’ll be more quality work. I think fee levels will go up because, at the moment, there is a race to the bottom. I think this will change that dynamic, and there will be a greater focus on more modernisation of law firms.”

    Once international law firms gain a foothold in India, we can expect a further wave of investment into the country, as an ever wider circle of investors – including pension funds, private equity and venture capital – gain reassurance that their money is in safe hands, or at least that they have a strong chance of legal redress in case of difficulties.

    The economic momentum shift from China to India continues apace.

    Dinesh Dhamija founded, built and sold online travel agency ebookers, before serving as a Member of the European Parliament. His latest book, The Indian Century, will be published later this year.

     

  • Handwriting expert Emma Bache on Shakespeare, Rishi Sunak – and Obama’s unexpected trait

    Christopher Jackson

     

    Emma Bache is one of the leading graphologists in the UK, but she didn’t have an early interest in handwriting. “I’ll be honest – I’m interested in people and in their personalities. Handwriting is merely a vehicle to find out something about someone you wouldn’t normally know if you met them.”

    So how did she come to make it her profession? “I fell into this by accident. I was working for a financial institution in my very early twenties. A friend of mine said she was going to do a graphology workshop in Wapping. I knew what it was, but I had a very limited amount of knowledge. I went along with her.”

    After that she joined the British Institute of Graphology. “I was married to a photographer at the time who worked with a lot of events agencies so I joined with them and began doing events. In the late eighties, I got picked up and began writing for them and I’ve always worked for banks in terms of recruitment.”

    Bache says that graphology was widely accepted in Europe long before it was accepted in the UK. “The Europeans have always been into graphology – they’re more interested in people and psychology. The Germans, Austrians, Italians and French – even the Americans. We’re sceptical as a nation. We see analysis as criticism.”

    So what role does graphology play in recruitment? “In this era, it’s becoming more and more important to make the right choice, especially in finance and the legal profession. It’s costly to make a mistake. You’ve spent money needlessly and may have to pay money out to get rid of someone. What I do is merely another tool in the toolbox to make sure you make the right decision. It’s not just about employing the right person to do a job, it’s about thinking about the team. Often I’m asked to analyse the whole team; otherwise I’d be analysing individual handwriting when that individual invariably won’t be working alone.”

    Banks remain a core client basis, but Bache also does a lot of forensic work which she didn’t do initially. “That will include analysis in relation to criminality. But I also look at forgeries of signatures where I’m often asked for my professional opinion.”

    Bache’s career has straddled the increased use of laptops, but it hasn’t impacted on her workflow. “Funnily enough, in the younger generation, journaling is very much on the increase. The younger generation are writing more and more. Especially in the creative industries they know the correlation between holding a pen and putting your thoughts on paper. That’s more creative than typing.”

    So how does her workload stack up today? “I’m probably doing some helping with recruitment every day as I’m on retainers with various companies so that’s a certainty. I would also expect to get two or three forensic jobs per week, and then media work whether it’s King Charles or whoever it might be. Events are back on the scene too; Zoom events really didn’t work during the pandemic. It’s a bit quieter now due to the economic issues.”

    Bache is often asked about historical figures or celebrities. “I do a lot of historical documents. A new documentary came out recently called Becoming Ian Brady, and I am in that as he was a prolific letter writer. He committed his murders in the 1960s. We have a preset opinion of what we think he’s like – he’s horrific. I saw the original letters. It was quite chilling. He was highly intelligent and quite philosophical. I saw obsessive-compulsive disorder, and narcissism. I didn’t actually see a psychopath tendency. He was a deeply unpleasant man, who did have empathy for some things in his life.”

    And people in power? “I do prime ministers and presidents all the time. We think of Trump as a psychopath and maybe Boris Johnson; neither are. Trump is a control freak and a narcissist but not a psychopath. Boris Johnson is a more complex character; he’s just careless and spoilt. He also has no filter.”

    Then Bache says something astonishing: “Certainly Obama is a psychopath. That’s not to say he does evil acts, but he has a lack of empathy and a lot of charm. He’s not exactly dangerous but scores highly when it comes to psychopathy.” Bache explains she’s not being anti-Democratic in saying this: “He has an enormous amount of superficial charm, which Trump doesn’t have. If you study Obama talking to people, from a body language point of view he doesn’t go onto his next soundbite without checking that he has won everybody over.”

    This makes me want to know more about historical figures. What about Abraham Lincoln? Bache looks up his handwriting on her phone as she’s talking to me. “A very strong right hand and a lot of charm – a lot of needing to be liked by other people. It’s incredibly regular; the filled-in ovals suggest someone very sensual. Very well-balanced, determined, and ambitious and takes his time over things. All this has to be balanced with the fashions of the time.”

    And what about the current PM, Rishi Sunak? “Bit of a loner, very heavy pressure, gets quite stressed about things, a little bit of a temper there which he probably keeps under control. Not really a team player.”

    I try to press Bache to Shakespeare, who I’ve always been interested in. “Unlike Rishi, all his words are really close together so very much a team-player and so needed the approval and interest of other people, which you’d expect as a playwright. Very long loopy lower zone so very creative but also caring about other people. He’s not very well-organised so I don’t know how practical he would have been.”

    Mention of Shakespeare leads us onto a contemporary equivalent who many find mysterious: Bob Dylan. She looks at some handwritten lyrics written in 1962, when Dylan would have been 22: “He’d be on drugs or alcohol then – which makes it difficult.” But the typical signature on his artworks leads to some interesting reflections: “He has really long ‘y’ stroke, meaning he’s quite aggressive. There’s heavy pressure, but there’s charm there and he’s very stubborn and quite difficult – quite money-oriented.” This last point is interesting. It was recently revealed that Dylan hadn’t in fact personally signed copies of his most recent book The Philosophy of Modern Song, instead getting a machine to do it for him – but still charging loyal fans as if they had been signed.

    Another interesting subject, Bache says, is Rupert Murdoch: “We all think we have a view about Murdoch, whether you like his political views. You have to remember his father was a newspaper magnate as well. Actually he’s a very nice man. Very intelligent an strong-willed but he’s not psychopathic – he has all these failed marriages. It’s interesting that someone so determined and successful falls in love very easily.”

     

     

    Reading Between the Lines: What Your Handwriting Says About You is published by Quercus Books, priced £18.99

  • Sir Rocco Forte: Rishi Sunak needs to think again on the Tourist Tax

    Sir Rocco Forte

     

    THE Conservative Party likes to claim to be the party of business – and in the past, when they have demonstrated this, I have supported them as a donor.

    But under Rishi Sunak, the party seems to have completely lost touch with what business leaders and entrepreneurs want to see.

    For a start, the tax burden is far too high – and there is no better demonstration of this than the decision in 2021 to scrap the traditional tax rebate scheme for foreign tourists, which had been in place for 60 years.

    Some of us warned at the time that taking this step when every single country remaining in the EU continues to offer tax-free shopping was bound to end in tears, but we were ignored.

    It is now sadly apparent that the decision taken by Mr Sunak when he was Chancellor has turned into the most appalling economic own goal.

    My hotel group has properties across Europe and tourists are simply not returning in the same numbers to the UK as they are elsewhere. Milan, Paris and Berlin can’t believe their luck.

    When challenged on the issue, Mr Sunak likes to claim that the £2bn a year tax break became unaffordable and only benefited a few luxury outlets in London’s West End.

    This is completely wrong – and hard to understand from a man who grew up seeing his parents build a small pharmaceutical business so should understand how business works. It is completely short-sighted to look narrowly at the cost of the VAT rebate.

    Instead, you should consider the broader economic benefits that tourists bring to our whole economy – their spending in hotels like mine, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions, museums, galleries, theatres, on public transport and so on.

    Analysis we commissioned from the Centre for Economics and Business Research concluded that the tourist tax is costing the UK £10.7 billion in lost GDP and deterring two million extra foreign visitors a year who would otherwise be here spending money throughout the economy. For every £1 refunded in sales tax to foreign tourists, the exchequer would gain £1.56 in other taxes thanks to the dynamic economic effects of tourist expenditure.

    I have organised an open letter to the Chancellor calling for what we have branded ‘the tourist tax’ to be scrapped. So far, 350 business leaders have signed – ranging from Harvey Nichols to Marks & Spencer to Primark. Other signatories include British Airways, Burberry, Heathrow, Gatwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen Airports, Jigsaw, Victoria Beckham, the Royal Opera House, British Fashion Council, Fenwick, Charlotte Tilbury, UKinbound, Tate, The Really Useful Group, Shakespeare’s Globe, Southbank Centre and Bicester Village. This goes way beyond London and is affecting every high street.

    The chorus of criticism has become deafening – and Mr Sunak cannot responsibly go on ignoring it. If he does, I and other business leaders will conclude that while he occasionally appears interested in the concerns of his hedge fund friends, his understanding of entrepreneurship and how the economy works is sadly lacking.

    If you are a business leader wanting to sign Sir Rocco’s open letter to the Chancellor, please contact jamesc@j-hcommunications.com
     

  • Blur and the Narcissism of the Entertainment Sector

    Christopher Jackson

    There is a moment in the Beatles’ catalogue of which I’m particularly fond. It comes on the album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when Paul McCartney, ever the panting optimist, sings: “It’s getting better all the time.” Lennon improvises back: “It couldn’t get much worse.”

    The essentially dual spirit of the Beatles is encapsulated in that – and, of course, it’s the want of instances like it which, one feels, diminishes their respective solo careers. It’s one of those moments which charts the ideal of ‘being in a band’ whereby two contrasting personalities lay aside competitiveness, and work together for the creation of something grander, more expansive, and stranger than their individual selves could muster.

    A writer of manuals for office etiquette might call this ‘teamwork’. Musicians and listeners alike know it’s something far more magical: human difference overcome in the name of art.

    I remembered this moment when, on a sunny morning in May, I placed Blur’s new single ‘The Narcissist’ onto iTunes, and in the joy of the moment, on a wide and deserted road, almost went above the stipulated 20mph speed limit, risking a £100 fine.

    What does the new song sound like? For one thing, your summer suddenly has its soundtrack. What is it that makes a summer tune? When the intricate growth of spring gives way to the lazy months of July and August, we want our summer songs to mimic that: they should eschew detail and fiddly chord changes in favour of a languorous unfolding, leading with no particular hurry to anthemic choruses, simplicities learnable even in the heat. A summer anthem must speak to the most passive version of ourselves.

    ‘The Narcissist’ easily ticks all these boxes: the chord sequence turns out to be a straightforward exploration of the possibilities of E, C sharp and A, with various bouncings off the Asus11 and a cunning shift to the augmented chord of E in the chorus. An augmented chord, by the way, is a very good way of separating the amateur musician from the pro: an amateur will peer at its notation with a narrowing sceptical frown, myopically mortified at a difficulty. A true musician will instinctively see the progression, and intuit its justice, fingers manoeuvring knowledgeably.

    The song possesses a pattern of ingenious simplicity. This is frontman Damon Albarn taking it easy, and telling us it’s okay to relax. Next up, the singer’s regal and essentially inexplicable cockney imitations enter, immediately recognisable to any Brit between the age of 40 and 50:

     

    Looked in the mirror

    So many people standing there

    I walked towards them

    Into the floodlights

     

    The lyrical and the musical theme are perfectly intertwined. Not only this, but it’s the right thing for Blur to be singing about in this age of TikTok, Instagram live feeds, disposable memes, and Holly and Phil.

    Let’s consider the narcissism of the music industry. It is sui generis. Theatre, which might otherwise have given the sector a run for its money, lacks the turbocharger of a huge audience; if narcissism is ever attained it happens in a comparative vacuum, with insufficient adoration to feed off. Meanwhile film, though also a contender with its ludicrous red carpet set pieces and softball promotional interviews, seems to have its saving grace in the dull slog of a working environment which ostentatiously lacks glamour.

    The music industry by comparison is a cauldron of narcissism. Firstly, the musical skills required to make a ‘hit’ are relatively limited. You can get a long way in pop with an affinity for G, D, C and A minor. Most sentient adults can be taught to play ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ from scratch in an hour (though it goes without saying only Dylan could write it). Of course some – the members of Blur among them – become gifted musicians, but I don’t think any of them would say they were to begin with.

    Pop music is a question of conveying an appealing mood. The offshoot of this is that, if successful, just as one is being lavished with money and sexual attention, one’s intellect is likely being overpraised. These things taken together make narcissism all but inevitable. And once arrived at as a condition, it appears irreversible: witness Pete Docherty’s adolescent ramblings, still ongoing now at the age of 44; Liam Gallagher’s tweets, the work of a 50 year old; and even Dylan’s plain weirdness, undertaken at the age of 82.

    You can add to that the demographic certainty that pop stars are not made in middle age: my own experience tells me that the young are reasonably narcissistic even if they don’t have a hit with ‘There’s No Other Way’.

    Incidentally, what would the music industry do if someone in, say, their mid-50s suddenly wrote a string of brilliant pop songs? This intellectual feat would not necessarily be difficult for anyone with musical training: its equivalent happens all the time in literature and art. But there is simply no precedent for sudden middle-aged achievement in this art form, meaning that there can be no economic migration from other sectors. When you turn on the radio you are almost certainly hearing the thoughts of the under-40’s, and usually the under-30’s – and if you’re not you’re probably hearing someone whose identity was frozen in place around then: we are hearing Narnias bereft of Aslans.

    Is Damon Albarn a narcissist? Some of the signs have always been bad. Even his defenders must concede the knowing inauthenticity of his East End vocals. There was the Damien Hirst-directed video to ‘Country House’ in 1995, Albarn in a bubble bath surrounded by Page Three models. One never recalls without baffled solemnity his initial willingness to submit to the extraordinary dullness of the Blur v Oasis spat, an esoteric competition he only soured on when it seemed to be going against him. And always in these narratives there is the bland submission to drugs and alcohol, the back and forth of addiction and rehab, leading to other yawns: fallouts with bandmates and rivals; dewy-eyed ‘hurt’ at the tenor of press coverage; all leading to a generalised and moneyed whingeing, and its inevitable offshoot, rubbish music.

    Blur went through this phase with 13 – though note that even their low point contained ‘Tender’, perhaps their masterpiece. Despite all this, Blur has given the impression it knows what it’s doing, that it’s able to conduct the rituals of hedonism with a degree of ironic distance. Alex James, the band’s likeably louche bassist, is on record as saying: “Food is one of life’s really great pleasures. My 20th birthday party was all about booze, my 30th birthday was about drugs, and now I realise that my 40s are about food. It’s something you appreciate more and more as you get older.” This is a pleasing progression. By the way, where James says ‘food’ he predominantly means ‘cheese’.

    Blur are reminiscent again of the Beatles in that their ‘third’ member also turns out to be a highly interesting person in his own right, just as George Harrison was. For some reason it is pleasing to me to know when listening to Blur that a major cheese-farmer is playing bass, and that the band’s drums player Dave Rowntree is also a minor Labour politician and former Kingsley Napley solicitor. Blur have jobs – they have experience.

    Happily, that initial – and let’s face it, narcissistic – immersion in fame had its second act, consisting of a surprisingly mature resolution of the routine jeopardy of the pop star ‘predicament’. Albarn found salvation in the Hell of fame by discovering within himself an astonishing work ethic; he always seems to have five projects on the go, and all are ambitious. This might be why, in 2023, he feels able to tackle the question of narcissism and the entertainment industry: he’s traversed it.

    For the record, I don’t know how sane Albarn is. For all I know, he may possess all the usual madnesses of pop stars: the unwillingness to begin any sentence without the word ‘I’; the childish need to have a pool of secretaries, bouncers and admin staff to conduct the basics of daily administration; a powerful lack of interest in philanthropy of any kind, especially if any outlay doesn’t get in the press with their own name attached to it.

    But I think his work is sane: in his solo career, his Gorillaz albums, his musicals, and now in ‘The Narcissist’, he seems always to be using music to arrange the world, and make sense of it. In doing that for himself, he does it also for us. His artistry, and the endeavour required to produce it, breaks the typical cycle of narcissism.

    As ‘The Narcissist’ enters its second verse, we are reminded how happy he is when he’s in Blur. It’s an ‘It’s Getting Better’ moment:


    I heard no echo (no echo)
    There was distortion everywhere (everywhere)
    I found my ego (my ego)
    I felt rebuttal standing there

     

    The parentheses are sung by his old friend, Graham Coxon – and of course perfectly fit the theme of the song. At time of writing, it’s not clear whether Albarn sings ‘rubato’ or ‘rebuttal’ in that last line of this second quatrain. I think I prefer ‘rebuttal’, but with all due respect to Albarn, I don’t think he is quite sufficient a poet for it to matter, the way it might matter with Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan.

    That’s because Albarn is very good at displaying generalised intelligence: the listener will likely feel at this point that he is simply using a word which we don’t normally hear in pop songs, bestowing a sense of non-specific sophistication. We don’t actually mind which word he’s using so long as it’s an interesting one. It has been said that some writers (Stoppard, Wilde) have the kind of intelligence which flatters the audience, and makes you feel more intelligent than you actually are. Others (Nabokov, Joyce) possess the intelligence which bludgeons you a bit, lets you know that you’re their inferior. There is another category, the highest of all – in Tolstoy, for instance – where you stop minding about the question of intelligence altogether and just take in a work of art as a chunk of life.

    Anyway, Albarn is in the first category: we can partake of his intelligence without feeling overwhelmed. As tertiary gifts go, it’s a fine one to have. But the most important aspect of the stanza is in the call and response. Really when we talk of Blur as distinct from any other Damon Albarn project, we’re discussing the relationship between him and Coxon, singer and guitarist – songwriter and interpreter.

    In the annals of Britpop, there were probably two ‘great’ guitar players: Jonny Greenwood in Radiohead, and Coxon. In neither instance are we discussing guitarists in the ilk of Slash from Guns N’ Roses – the purveyor of the note-riddled mountaintop solo. We are instead discussing something far more embedded.

    Coxon is seemingly able to do almost anything with a guitar: he can make it scythe unobtrusively through a landscape of disco (‘Girls and Boys’); imitate the sound of a fly bumping again and again into the frustrating transparency of a windowpane (‘Beetlebum’); or give it a loose twangy mid-American verandah ranginess, which seems to let a song walk on a sort of leash (‘Tender’). He can make a guitar riot (‘Parklife’); mourn (‘Badhead’); headbang (‘Song 2’); and yearn (‘Under the Westway’). His limitlessness is entire – in Blur. But that’s his limitation; he needs Albarn to realise his own greatness.

    But more notable than all this is what Coxon chooses not to do. Every Coxon contribution to Blur is generous not just to the listener, but to his bandmates: humility is implied in all he does. This is especially in evidence in ‘The Narcissist’. The chorus passes off agreeably (‘I’ll shine a light in your eyes/you’ll probably shine it back on me’), and then the interlude reverts to four straightforward notes by Coxon which I am sure I could teach my six-year-old to play. But a lesser guitarist would have sought to play forty. Such a solo would have been more complicated to play. There’s no doubt that Coxon can play it, or anything you put in front of him: but such a performance would have been obtrusive and spoiled all our summers.

    Ever since Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Symphony was booed and mocked by the classical music fraternity at its premiere, there has been the question of how good at music you have to be to be a pop musician. It is a complicated question: on the one hand, there is no evidence yet of McCartney being able to play Scriabin on the piano. Equally, none of his tormentors has yet had the wherewithal to write ‘Penny Lane’. My allegiance is probably – just – with McCartney, as I’d always rather have the thing itself than the interpretation of the thing. But I also know I don’t need to take a side if I don’t want to. And I don’t.

    Yet the question seems to matter if we’re considering whether the 21st century finds us in some kind of musical decline – and perhaps therefore in some broader societal decay. One thought experiment is to imagine your way into Beethoven listening to Coxon’s guitar-playing. It’s possible to go round the houses on this. Sometimes I imagine Beethoven sternly wanting to educate Coxon on classical progressions; at others I imagine him going quiet, knowing the game is up, then meekly asking Coxon if he might borrow his guitar.

    A good summer song should be like a good summer’s day: it shouldn’t go anywhere. ‘The Narcissist’ makes good on this. I’m not sure if lyrically it says much more than: “I’ve been a narcissist in the past but now I’ll not be.” If we were strict about it, it’s probably a minor song, but something in its beguiling expansiveness makes me want not to be strict about it. Besides, it’s minor status only really makes sense if you take it out of context as a record and as a release.

    So what does Blur mean now in 2023? Initially, Blur could be pegged as an act nostalgic for the music of the 1960s – this was because Albarn looked to Ray Davies as a way of navigating the shallowness of the 1990s. In relistening to songs like ‘Lola’, ‘Days’ and ‘Autumn Almanac’, Albarn found a useful crutch because the country hadn’t really changed all that much since the Jenkins reforms of the 1960s. But the band was always more than that. For instance, Albarn also leaned on Martin Amis’ comic novels. Just as Amis gave us John Self, Keith Talent – and later, his most hilarious name of all, Clint Smoker – Albarn created Tracy Jacks, Dan Abnormal, the Charmless Man, the rural escapee who lives in the country house ‘reading Balzac, and knocking back Prozac’ and a myriad others. Even when he was caught up in the satire moment, Albarn took care to have a range of satirical influences.

    But he was always omnivorous: amid all the satires in Parklife, there was nothing satirical about ‘To The End’, or ‘This is a Low’. It’s immensely to Albarn’s credit that he knew satire wasn’t enough. He had to go on seeking, until he became a kind of search. Through the digressions of Gorillaz, The Good, the Bad and the Queen, Mali Music, and his musicals (themselves astonishingly diverse in influence and intent), he has amassed a body of work which you would only underestimate if your main image is of the blonde boy singing ‘Parklife’ in front of an ice cream van. Unfortunately, that accounts for almost all of us.

    But I don’t think Albarn minds this. In fact, we can now see that his fame gave him useful cover for his essential seriousness – not to mention an ongoing audience. As a result, he has smuggled into the mainstream so much that’s interesting that he has come to merit extended study while belonging to an industry that all balanced people try to ignore.

    It amounts to a remarkably generous corpus, of which Blur will always be the cornerstone, as ‘The Narcissist’ reminds us. It’s a marvellous thing that Albarn has again made time to return to his old friends, in one fell swoop continuing a conversation which we all love to hear, and eschewing the cliché of the spat that turns into an everlasting split. Each Blur record now has the wisdom of the renewal of old friendship attached to it.

    From Amy Winehouse to Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and all the others, musical careers often seem to end in tragedy – and the tragedy is always the tragedy of narcissism. Blur have gone a different route: this isn’t tragedy but a sort of romance, as in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale when the statue of Hermione starts moving, and suddenly all the altered world is singing again.

  • Andrew Lloyd Webber: “If I were in the House of Lords today, I’d resign the Conservative whip”

    Emily Prescott catches up with the impresario at the reopening of the London Palladium after a major renovation, and finds him in bullish mood

    What’s the best night you’ve had in this theatre?

    I’ve never had a show on at the Palladium. It would be nice at one point – it’s one of the few where I haven’t.

    Any shows which you particularly remember when you were growing up?

    When I was a child I saw John Gielgud in The Tempest and I remember it started with a lantern swinging. It was very clever – the magic of that.  That was followed by My Fair Lady. It was a memorable production because John Gielgud on the last night broke Prospero’s staff and said: “This theatre will be lost forever to musicals!”

    And did that prove the case?

    Well, I’m going to prove him wrong. There’s a lot of emphasis on Shakespeare here. He’s in pole position as you come in and you have those really exciting pictures that Maria Crane has done. I just thought: “Wouldn’t it be great to have something modern, something contemporary?”

    It’s also an interesting space. What sort of potential does it have?

    This theatre is very flexible. You don’t have to just play in the conventional shape but in the round, which is very exciting. Architecture is my greatest love, and this is the finest space I now. I just want this to be open and for people to be enjoying it and see this. By the way, despite the fact that this is the biggest restoration of an historic building, there’s no support from anybody in government.

    I’ve heard that you have a photographic memory for music? Is that true.

    Not really no. Though there are certain things in theatre one does remember!

    How do you feel about all the stop-starts to theatre this past year?

    I’m feeling pretty devastated – we’ve had to cancel four weeks of sold out houses for Cinderella. For a Conservative government to ignore this sort of thing and also not to realise the economic importance of theatre is beyond belief. I just don’t think anybody in the Treasury could have really gone through what the figures are.

    Can you talk us through those?

    Well, the most successful movie of all time is Avatar – that’s in pure money terms. It grossed $2.8 billion. But The Lion King – which is the most successful musical of all time – grossed $9.1 billion – and that’s not including the film. The Phantom of the Opera is $8 billion. The combined gross of Cameron Mackintosh’s productions is ten times the gross of Avatar – yet films get insurance and theatre is sometimes considered this bolt-on nice-to-have inessential thing. I might add that The Lion King in the theatre has outgrossed the entire Harry Potter franchise.

    So you’re not thrilled with the government?

    They’re either economically illiterate or Philistines – probably both. I retired three years ago from the House of Lords, but if I were still there I would resign the Conservative whip.