There is a light...

I have an apology to make. Emerging on the other side of 50 in a whirl of social celebration, I see that I have not been myself. Two dirges on something as banal as politics tell me that I have rushed to the surface too quickly, some time before I had intended to take the air. It was a case of the bends. Too many people, too much activity, too little time for contemplation. So, I’m sorry. I shall henceforth return to the depths to resume a colourful relationship with the denizens of my imagination, my true world. There you will again recognise me. Then, what I have to offer the world - through words and branding and general advice about how to get to the heart of things and communicate this essence – will once more make sense. For this reminder to return to a state of grace, I have the following to thank: Alain De Botton for The Architecture of Happiness; a painting by Marc Brown that I wish I’d bought on a visit to Southwold; Sean Lock for making me laugh in his narration for The Great British Sunday, on BBC 4 last night; and a brilliant photograph I took of light fading over the 21st Century Museum of Modern Art in Kanazawa a couple of months ago. I write this as a constant reflection on identity. And to keep a record of what matters to me. For, in these blogs, and only in these blogs, even after millions of words written over decades of life, have I found it possible to say what I need to say, from the place that I need to say it. And, sometimes, this is only possible in the middle of the night.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

The Re word

Resurrection. No, that’s not the word. Reconstruction. No, not that either. I was only half-listening when the Dean of Coventry Cathedral mentioned the ‘re’ word while introducing the Robert Fripp/Theo Travis concert, an unlikely part of the Coventry Jazz Festival the other Saturday afternoon. Restoration. No, not that. Resolution. Again, no. Not even when the Frippertron himself interrupted his own performance, to introduce his concert himself and mentioned the same ‘re’ word, did I consider retaining it in the anteroom of my memory. Restitution. Resonance. Reconnection. No. No. No. At half-time, I wandered into this modern cathedral’s colourful corners, which reminded me less of church than the atrium of a giant theatre. Rejuvenation. Reformation. Not even close. In an annexe to the left of the entrance, my eye was caught by what appeared to be a kaleidoscopic sculpture made entirely of coloured strips of paper. Something drew me closer. Parts of my mind rushed me towards recognition. When and where had I seen this before? Nearer, I made out the shapes of paper birds. Then, it hit me. It was a smaller version of the paper crane exhibit created by the Japanese schoolgirl, Sadako Sasasi, who died from leukaemia in 1955, having been exposed to the atom bomb in Hiroshima at the age of 2. Knowing she was terminally ill, Sadako was trying to complete the folding of 1,000 paper cranes, following the belief that this goal would see her granted a wish. The story says she reached 644. I’d visited the real exhibit only a month before at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. I don’t really remember making my way back to my chair for the second half of the concert. All I know is that I enjoyed the music as if hearing Robert Fripp play for the first time. He finished the set with the beautiful and rarely played Threnody For Souls In Torment. But I found myself unable to recall the ‘re’ word. I just knew that it was a combination of all. Resurrection. Reconstruction. Restoration. Resolution. Restitution. Resonance. Reconnection. Rejuvenation. Reformation. Reggie Perrin. Later, much later, I turned to the world wide wonder and found Robert Fripp’s diary with his photo-journalistic review of the day, cathedrals old and new (www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm?member=3). Before I went in, I’d walked the same steps, absorbed the same views. I wondered if I’d thought the same thoughts as Fripp. You see, there’s a collective view of Coventry that’s apt here. The city gets such a bad press. Concrete monstrosity. Well, people too easily forget the awful price the city and its people had to pay one night in November 1940, when Winston Churchill sacrificed it for the price of retaining the secret of breaking the cipher of the Enigma machine. Many UK cities suffered during the war, but none quite as unexpectedly as Coventry that night. Rather than the opprobrium it receives from the ignorant today, it somehow deserves a special place in our considerations. Those who know me well will also understand the significance of Coventry in my life from a personal point of view. How difficult it is for me to return or spend any significant amount of time there. I’d thought the Fripp gig would be an appropriate opportunity for some kind of catharsis. I was thinking about this when the Dean introduced the event, when Fripp re-introduced himself and his music. Now, reading his own review of the day, it was clearly a special gig, the end of his world tour, the end of something. “The new Coventry Cathedral is a remarkable space. The sound from the guitar stool was astonishing. At one point, high notes and harmonics flew upwards and kept going, as if angels in the roofspace had picked them up and were singing.” I did not find it hard to connect the man playing guitar before me with the man whose wizardry lay behind King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man back in the early 70s. A man whose diary notes continued: “The first set was introduced by the Dean, who referred to the Cathedral’s mission of reconciliation.” And there it was, my ‘re’ word. As I left the concert, still unable to recall this word, I remember thinking how it was the most magical of days. That morning, I’d woken to a blinding headache and felt too weak to complete my lawnmowing. Yet, I’d sensed this was an important day. After Fripp, I drove back along empty roads under a startling blue late afternoon sky to see Julius Caesar at Stratford – the first time I’d seen this performance, having studied it for O Level English Literature 35 years earlier. Greg Hicks was a better Caesar than he had been Leontes, King of Sicilia, in A Winter’s Tale. But it didn’t stop him dying with all the others. Something came to an end. I may spend some time yet wondering why I had to go to Hiroshima to settle my own personal conscience with what went on in Coventry, collectively before I was born, and personally, during my youth. Reconciliation surely implies some kind of acceptance. After reconciliation comes the time to get on with life. And that seems a suitably transcendent place to surrender my forty-something self, after eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty three days on this planet, and take up the mantle of quinquagenarianism. Something has ended. Something is beginning.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Charming

Half way through a massage from my reflexologist, Kate, the other evening, I stopped her nimble fingers in their tracks just by mentioning that Clint Eastwood was 79 this weekend. Fifty-something Kate found this hard to digest. How could someone as young as Clint be so old? I said he is about the same age as my father. She said he is about the same age as the father of Greg Hicks, the favourite Shakespearean actor currently headlining in A Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar at Stratford. For some, Clint will always be Dirty Harry, or the bloke with the chimp in Every Which Way But Loose. For me, he’ll always be the man with no name in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Then, I was at pains to explain to Kate that, althouth I abhor violence in films, I adore Clint’s spaghetti westerns. Yet, I cannot stand the modern, gangster-loving trash of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, and certainly not the latest two James Bond films starring Daniel Craig. And then it hit me. I knew why the Clint Eastwood brand was better than the Daniel Craig brand. I’d answered the question that had been hanging over me these last two years about why I didn’t like these new Bond films, when everyone else did. Clint’s movies have something important in common with most of the Bond movies before Craig. Charm. Whereas the two Craig films have been dark, graceless essays in violence and abuse, no better and no worse than anything else of their ilk, the staple Hollywood fare. Quite clearly, in any brand, that much pursued and hard-to-define charm is worth its weight in gold.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Whatever you want

Today, when many people think of Status Quo, they think of Argos. Whatever you want. Yet, when I was growing up, they were one of the leading rock bands of their time, the first band I ever went to see. I can still hear the ringing in my ears thirty four years on. The next time I saw the band I queued up for hours outside the venue, even though I already had a ticket. It was something about the blue denim atmosphere, the flailing hair boogie and all the time in the world. If you shop at Argos you need all the time in the world. I’m at a loss to understand just how this high street brand has stayed the pace, when others, like Woolworth’s, with a longer tradition and a sense of customer loyalty, have not. Back when I was working on the rebranding of Argos earlier this century, there was much talk of moving the retailer out of its comfortable status quo, away from Whatever you want, and towards something a bit more 21st century. Several agencies were forced together for a fission branding exercise that would find this new place to be, this new slogan. We all made our suggestions. I remember one particularly hairy advertising designer flying into a carpet-chewing rage when presented with alternatives to his latest TV ads for Whatever you want. The thing is, as much as they wanted to, nobody could get the rhythm out of their heads. In the end, all that changed was the swoosh of the tail of the S of Argos. It gave the impression of a smile. All still backed up by the good-time boogie of Whatever you want. For the simple reason that Whatever you want was no longer Status Quo, it was Argos. And that was the status quo. The emotional core could not be moved. Not by any logic that said this archaic, time-consuming, Soviet-style ordering, buying and collecting procedure had had its day - a system that had once been the hook, the whole appeal of shopping for everyday items in a different way. But Argos also went online early, whereas Woolworth’s did not. The logistical complexities for both retailers must have been similar. Thousands of hungry suppliers. One coped. The other didn’t. Woolworth’s - a shop where, seemingly, you could also get whatever you wanted. Both brands had this in common. It seemed that you could get whatever you wanted, even though you couldn’t. But Argos reminded consumers that they thought that they could. Whereas Woolworth’s didn’t. So, increasingly, you’d go into Woolworth’s and find all sorts of stuff but nothing you ever wanted; and you wondered what it is they were actually there for…whatever you didn’t want. There is resurrection. But I’m waiting to see what the new online Woolworth’s can offer people that they cannot already get somewhere else from people who have been doing online for years. And what will be the hook? Not the way you buy. Not the range you buy. I’m intrigued. I can’t believe that the reasons business people are resurrecting Woolworth’s online are purely down to a nostalgic belief that this brand should continue to exist. Woolworth’s, it seems to me, is a brand for whom the status quo has changed forever. Anyway, it happens that Status Quo lead guitarist, Francis Rossi, is 60 today. You may remember that, back in March this year, he finally cut off and gave away his trademark ponytail in a competition organised by The Sun. A female 30-year old, ‘long-time’ Status Quo fan won what she had always wanted and could never buy at Argos.


Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Miles

Herbie Hancock said people always remember the first time they heard Miles Davis. For me, it was late September 1987, over a pair of headphones in Stafford Public Library. And I didn’t even know I was listening to Miles Davis. Newly back from a four-month stint in the south of France, where I’d stayed with my long-lost friend, Dean - writing a hopeless novel called She Was Only The Comedian’s Grand-Daughter - I was surprised to discover that the third album from one of my favourite bands, Scritti Politti, was sitting there, waiting for me to find it in, of all places, the library. The track in question on Provision (entitled Oh Patti) contains a haunting solo from Miles, drifting away in the background of a wistful lyric from Green Gartside. I listened to this album for years without realising that this was Miles Davis. Miles Davis would have been 83 today, but he died when he was 65. I do remember what I was doing around the time he died, but I don’t remember his passing. Why would I? Miles Davis meant nothing to me. Only in the past few years has my discovery of jazz been prefaced by his work, alongside the bossa nova rhythms of Stan Getz and A C Jobim. For me, as I sit inevitably at the centre of my own universe, Miles Davis will always be my ticket to a whole planet of music that might have passed me by. And, in the retrograde motion that has been my forties, I thank him for that. As I travel to London this morning, to run a writing workshop, I’ll be sure to play my favourite track, appropriately titled Miles.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

I cried all the way to the chip shop

Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me
I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop
No hope, no harm, just another false alarm
When I came out there was Gordon standing at the bus stop

Now, like you, I reckon I can identify with both sets of lyrics. Personally, I am touched beyond reason that people as far apart and close together as Steven Morrissey and Jilted John could possibly share the same day of birth 50 years ago today. Thanks to Jilted John, I’d long thought that Graham Fellows was a one-off in our cultural milieu. Whereas the boy with the thorn in his side always knew that he had started something he couldn’t finish. Busy as I was, trying in vain to project the image of a serious funster on the world, I shouldn’t have been listening to Jilted John – such a punk parody, although John Peel was the first to champion it. Truth be told, punk was over long before Jilted John hit the airwaves in July 1978. But, very catchy it was. And, let’s face it, if you’ve ever been jilted, Gordon is a moron and it is so unfair. Yeah yeah. (Nobody has ever said this but, of course, Jilted John paved the way for The Undertones. Jimmy Jimmy. My Perfect Cousin. And we know whose favourite band they were!). After seemingly disappearing, the singer of this solitary song made things worse. You must remember Graham Fellows as Les Charlton in Coronation Street - a young biker chasing married Gail Tilsley! Gail didn’t fancy him any more than Julie had. He must have been so upset. But, Graham Fellows has tried very, very hard. More famous to most people as comedy character, John Shuttleworth, since as far back as 1986, a man who has shot TV documentaries aimed at discovering whether UK people are nicer the further north you go or softer the further south. Radio Shuttleworth. The fabled four-part TV series, 500 Bus Stops. In 2007, inspired by Jamie Oliver’s better food for schoolchildren campaign, Shuttleworth toured the UK with a stage show entitled With My Condiments. Later in the same year, he recorded 4 Rather Tasty Tracks in a wardrobe, which actually reached number 96 in the UK charts and number 29 in the indie charts. Apparently, he revived his Jilted John character in the 2008 Big Chill festival, where he joined a line-up including Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Leonard Cohen. You couldn’t make it up. It goes on. After Jilted John and John Shuttleworth comes another character, rock musicologist, Brian Appleton, one of whose claims to fame is being responsible for the gap in Steve Harley’s Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) hit. Now, you’re going to have to visit the website (www.shuttleworths.co.uk/brian/index.html).
Back in 1985, Graham Fellows released an album under his own name, Love at the Hacienda. Apparently, it has a cult following in Japan. I’m not surprised. He’s a man who sounds like a cross between Mike Yarwood and Steve Coogan singing The Buzzcocks’ Greatest Hits. And that’s a greater reality than anything virtual to be found in the gadget shops of Akihabara. As for Mozza, well, there never was a man who could coin longer song titles and still be going strong at such a tender age. There is and remains a mystery to Morrissey, that not even Arthur Conan Doyle, born 150 years ago today, could solve. As there was around the late George Best, who also belongs to this day. Have you ever thought how alike they look…George and Steven? I don’t much care for the besuited gangster persona he’s adopted for the past decade…a love of boxing, references to sporting heroes and obsessions with young skinheads that would get Gary Glitter in trouble. Most of this doesn’t work with a man who claims to have the admirable trait of preferring the company of women to men. But he is allowed to change. His official website shows a man, well-worn, at 50. Yet we remember his words. Of his generation, only Ian Curtis and David Sylvian could compare. If these icons had anything in common, perhaps it was a certain diffidence. Shyness is nice. But shyness can stop you doing all the things in life you’d like to. In my case, it was the 80s that stopped me. Yet the wreck of my 80s would have been even more unbearable without The Smiths. The Smiths appeared in the spring of 1983, exactly at the time I decided that I was too old for pop music and took up cookery instead. We became acquainted with each other because I had made the logical decision that the best way to learn to cook was to become vegetarian. Whereas The Smiths’ first album had passed me by, their second hit me between the eyes. Meat Is Murder said it all in early 1985. I fell in love with Morrissey not so much through his music but through his vegetarianism and accompanying support for animal rights. It was The Smiths’ only album to reach number one in the UK charts. I saw Morrissey live only once. 5th November, 2002. Brixton Academy. Tonight, on his 50th birthday, he’s actually playing live at the Manchester Apollo. Good for him. And him. Steven Morrissey and Graham Fellows. 50 today. These men have touched your lives. Now my heart is full. And I just can’t explain. So, I won’t even try to.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

I so want to go to Chelsea

Speaking to a creative agency acquaintance yesterday I was astonished to discover that he wasn’t attending the current Chelsea Flower Show or even following its progress on TV. Aghast, I asked him how he could hold his head up as a branding consultant without any knowledge of the very best of living design that the planet has to offer – and on his own doorstep, to boot. ‘I get by with a little help from my friends', he replied. I quickly realised that he was celebrating the 65th birthday of Joe Cocker, but, all the same…come on. I note from the diary of my life that it’s five years today that I appeared on Robert Elms’ BBC London radio show, promoting my book, Guinness Is Guinness: the colourful story of a black and white brand. Now, Elms was exactly the kind of person, a self-styled image guru, for whom design, albeit in the world of clothes, was his way in, his ticket to ride. Someone with Chelsea in his back yard who never had the nous to skip off the King's Road and visit the Flower Show and attempt to understand where top design is really at. Come to think of it, I’ve worked with many ‘designers’ who thought that design is what they did at their computers. Or something in the cut of their perfectly rumpled hair. I’ve never met one who has visited Chelsea Flower Show, the foremost exhibition of contemporary design in the world today. OK, there’s outstanding design in the metallic mosaic of Kyoto railway station. And there’s appealing design in the gladdening gleam of the i-Phone. But real, living design only truly exists in the ephemeral gardens of Chelsea Flower Show for one annual week in May. It’s the Hermitage come to life. I don’t want to go to Chelsea/Oh no, it does not move me is the refrain I’ve always heard from graphic designers. Given the blandness and conformity I see in much everyday branding design, I wonder where designers actually get their inspiration from. Chelsea may well be run by a set of stuffed shirts and thronged by representatives of the society of gits, but the quest for bravery in design should pull anyone who really cares about design beyond all that. You haven’t seen a gold medal Chelsea garden, you don’t know what love is.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/