an idiots guide to dinner and the euro

Picture the scene, if you will.

You and a group of friends agree you will go out to dinner somewhere nice – let’s assume it’s to celebrate something. There are 27 of you in total.

In advance, you agree that because the bill will fairly hefty you’ll split it equally between all 27.

The big night arrives and you all meet at the restaurant, where everyone has an aperitif of the same value. Everyone has a starter course and a main course and all are roughly equal in value.

So far so good.

But then some of your group decide they want dessert and coffee, possibly dessert wine or a liqueur too. This causes concern and the group begins to fragment. There are 17 people who want the extra food and drink, 10 who don’t.

Of the 10 who don’t, some are now saying they are concerned that if the dinner doesn’t end soon they’ll miss the last train home. Others are refusing to put in an equal share of the bill – as previously agreed – because they haven’t had the extra food and drink.

So, what to do…?

Those who want to catch the last train home have two basic choices – leave now while some of their friends are finishing their dessert course and catch the train, or stay and find an alternative method of transport. They probably can’t impose their will on the others and deny them their crème brulee though. But nor should they stay and feel resentful.

The division of the bill is a tricky one too. You may well feel that by being asked to pay an equal sum but having consumed less, you are subsidising those of your friends who ate and drank more. But by reneging on the prior arrangement you risk being seen as mean. You may not get invited out again.

In the end one person refuses to pay an equal amount and leaves early in order to get the train, while everyone else stays behind.

Next time the group plans to go out together it is decided that despite the previous spat there’s no reason to exclude the grumpy and impatient friend. But no one is going to feel well disposed if that person starts out saying they won’t put in an equal amount this time, yet still wants to have an equal say in where to go and what to eat.

I think we all know how we’d feel about that one person.

And I don’t think we’d call it bulldog spirit.

why i deleted my google+ account

I was one of the first… fact.  I got my invite to join Google+ the day after it went live – a long time before the flood gates opened.

I very quickly got into the swing of it and found it useful and enjoyable. As it should be.

I also found that within a few days I was connected with a very high caliber of people from the creative industries whose opinions, observations and thoughts I was keen to share in.

It didn’t last long though.

I grew bored quickly of the goofing around some people indulged in, but that’s their choice. After all, just because I’d decided I’d use G+ more seriously than Twitter doesn’t mean everyone else should.

Then the echo chamber started.

People I knew via Twitter as well as on G+ were sharing all the same content in both places, with no objective other than to amplify their own social media echo. Unsurprisingly, their behaviour was applauded in both worlds by the same cabal of their followers.

Frankly, I just didn’t get it.  If you’ve shown off about something on twitter and your subset of friends and acolytes have jumped up and down whooping, hollering and sharing, why is the very same thing happening on G+, I wondered? After all, you’re clearly just patting each other’s backs, not really reading any of the stuff each other are sharing and looking like complete plonkers in front of the rest of us.

I got a tired of the territorialism I experienced too.

Then there was the wave of people I’ve never heard of adding me to circles even though there is nothing I was ever likely to say or share that would be of value to them and vice versa.

So, I wouldn’t add these people back.

I am not and never will be a social media numbers whore. I know too many of those. I rate them all pretty much the same.

That got worse, of course, once G+ became publicly available.

I forget the actual trigger but one day a combination of all of the above led me to conclude that I wanted out. So I deleted my account.

Now I read that the first person to have more than one million circles on G+ is Britney Spears.

I don’t think I ever felt more vindicated.

why i’ve fallen out of love with google

You and I have been together for a long time now, since 1998 in fact. I know that doesn’t quite make me a bona fide early adopter. And since I first looked to you to provide me with the answers to questions that plagued me, many others have followed in my footsteps. But even though you had only been available for about a year or so back then, compared with all the others I’d gone searching with – Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, even Alta Vista – you were…. different.

Things just seemed to click between us. You were there whenever I needed you and I soon forgot about the others. You never let me down. Things were simple. I asked, you answered. You never pretended to be something you weren’t.

Times change though. Indeed, times have changed. After a while it became clear that you wanted more, you needed more. I can’t blame you for that. It’s only natural.

I discovered that some people were using you for email. I was in no hurry to join in. But in the end I did. It was important to you, and that was enough for me to give it a go.

There were Documents, allegedly. I never paid much attention to them to be honest. It felt odd, too unusual. Out of character, even. I am not one who fears change, but it’s the little changes that allow one to read another’s motivation and behaviour and I detected a change in you that I hadn’t expected.

Maybe that’s why I ignored these Documents that so many people had begun to talk about so freely. I wanted to retain my grin of ignorant bliss for as long as possible.

There were other things too. But where it really started to go wrong for me was when you started asking everyone to Wave.

By and large, we didn’t want to. A few did – I was one of them. But it soon felt more like drowning than waving.

You then started to create a Buzz. It was starting to become embarrassing. You were becoming involved in everything. It felt like random, out of control behaviour. As though you didn’t know what you wanted anymore.

Throughout, I remained loyal, faithful and true. You were my search engine. Nothing was going to change that. Not even when someone asked me if I fancied having a Bing. Yes I was tempted. But I stayed resolute.

In my mind’s eye you were still young, fresh, challenging.

But your obsession with doing more and doing it with more and more people had by now taken such a grip on you that, if I’m honest with myself, you had changed beyond comparison with how you were when we first met.

Sharing. It was like a virus.

You called it GooglePlus and it was your desperate attempt to create your own social life, having so resolutely missed the boat when others created theirs.

You wanted people to share with you. You wanted people to share with each other. Where would it end, I wondered. Frictionless sharing, that’s where. Good lord… is this really what you have become?

Nothing and no one can take from me the memories of those early days. Back in 1998, colleagues scoffed at my boyish enthusiasm for you. But they soon succumbed to your charms. I felt vindicated. And a little smug. I was on the side of an up-and-coming challenger. It felt good. I felt good.

But times move on and people change. You are now a dominant force. No longer a plucky challenger with coquettish ways and winning performance to get you through. You don’t listen like you used to. You make assumptions about what you can get away with.

I want to tell you that it isn’t you, it’s me. Thing is… it is you.

But even so, I can’t quit you – as the line goes from Brokeback Mountain. You are everywhere I look. I am reflected in your Chrome. And even as I write, somewhere a courier is bringing me my first Android-powered smartphone.

I searched for the phone online.  I.... Googled it.  For all your fancy ways, underneath it all, you are still my search engine.  Nothing can change that.

The meaning of Christmas, and of PR

I went to see my youngest son’s school Christmas play recently. Twice. It was very enjoyable and he got a kick out of my being there such that I would have sat through anything he asked me to.

As I sat looking at the scenery my mind wandered inexplicably to a question both my children have asked me from time-to-time. What is it, they have asked, that I do for a living. It’s a question that I’ve often struggled to answer in terms they understand. And as I sat there, I asked myself…. what would Jesus do?

No, I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. But I did find myself wondering if I could take the elements of the nativity and use them to create an explanation of what I do for a living.

Let’s consider the main characters.

The inn-keeper

I’ve played the “no room at the inn” card when denying journalists access to my clients in times of crisis control and damage limitation. So he fits.

The angel Gabriel

If the angel of the Lord had come down and confronted a journalist the exchange would have gone something like this.

Angel: “I bring great news for you and all mankind!”

Journo: “If you have a press release you can email it to me and I may read it later, but please don’t call to ask me if I’ve received it.”

So the angel Gabriel fits the bill.

The shepherds

They watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground. I haven’t done a great deal of sitting on the ground during my time in PR, but I have frequently felt like I was watching my flock. Although herding cats is a description that feels more apt.

Either way, I look out for my clients’ reputations, and I look out for the best interests of the people I manage. So grab your crooks fellas… you’ve made the cut.

King Herod

Well, let’s face it…. we’ve all got a few client-from-hell stories to tell. You’re in, your majesty.

Three Wise Men

Trying to make sense of events that go on around them, they fit perfectly.

The holy family themselves is where I struggle. So I’m leaving them out – for now at least.

Were I to then take all the above elements and weave them into an explanation of what PR is, it might go a little like this.

I try to tell people important news, not my news. But news from someone else – I’m like a messenger. When I’m not doing that I’m protecting my clients from anyone who is trying to say bad things about them. And sometimes, like the inn-keeper, I have to be a bit stern and say no.

I often feel like one of the wise men, as I understand the bigger picture (Balthazar, probably, because he’s the only one of the wise men who ended up with his own animated TV show in the 1960s and 70s).  And I work in an industry so full of arrogance and ego that you’d be forgiven for thinking every other person believes they’ve been cast in the role of son of God.

Or daughter. No gender bias here, folk.

As descriptions of my job go, it’s far from perfect. But it beats the one my eldest son came up with at school when he was seven. Asked what his dad’s job is, he said “he visits people in their offices and they have to give him money.”

november 2011 word cloud

My summary, in world cloud format, of my blog posts in November 2011. There were only a couple of them!

last night i dreamt...

Last night I had a very strange dream. It wasn’t exactly disturbing, at least not in the way people usually use that word in connection with the nocturnal wanderings of their minds. But it did disturb my sleep.

I was in a house that was a combination of several places I’ve lived in. That’s a fairly common dream motif for me. In one of the rooms my father (who died in January of this year) was sitting at a table talking about my mother – who died in 1997.

I don’t recall anything he said. But I remember wishing he would stop talking. The other thing I remember was that he had no ear lobes.

I left that room and walked into another. In this room stood a wardrobe that belonged to my mother before she was married. This is a real wardrobe, I had it collected from my parents’ house in 2002 and had it shipped to mine. Back to the dream, where the wardrobe was the only thing in this particular room – a room that resonated to the sound of a low-buzzing.

On closer inspection, the whole inside of the wardrobe was a hornets’ nest. Which was a cause for concern as I was then struck by the realisation there was something important in there that I needed to get to.

What could it all mean….?

Answers on a postcard please, to the following address:

Sean Is Clearly Bonkers

PO Box 999

Etc etc etc….


(or leave a comment)

why cameron could learn from papandreou

Two weeks ago there was a rebellion by some Conservative MPs against David Cameron in a vote in the House of Commons.

The vote concerned a motion that called for referendum on whether the UK should exit the European Union, renegotiate the terms of its membership, or leave things as they are. The motion was put before the House by David Nuttall, a Conservative MP. There was also an e-petition on the matter, which gathered the support of over 100,000 UK citizens.

David Cameron called upon all his MPs to vote against it, and the Tory party whips went into action - cajoling and coercing Members to do just that.

When 81 Tory MPs voted counter to the wishes of their leader (two others abstained) this was the biggest ever rebellion by Conservatives in the House of Commons over the thorny issue of the UK's relationship with the EU.

The motion was still comfortably defeated though, by 483 votes to 111. That outcome was never in any doubt. Had the unthinkable happened, and the motion had been passed, the result would not have been binding on the government anyway.

The only significant outcome there could ever reasonably have been was the one that happened - a number of Tories voted with their conscience as opposed to toeing the line. Some stated they were voting in accordance with the wishes of their constituents. 

By making such a big deal out of insisting his MPs did as he told them, Cameron ended up suffering from the biggest rebellion etc etc etc.

What was he thinking? He should have publicly said that he was happy to see all MPs vote however they saw fit - safe in the knowledge nothing bad could ever happen. But instead of being big enough to relinquish control he allowed himself to appear defeated in a fight that mattered far less than the issue of whether the Prime Minister has the full backing of all of his party.

Meanwhile, this week in Greece saw Prime Minister Papandreou accept a Franco-German orchestrated bailout, only to turn round and say he wanted the Greek people to be able to vote in a referendum on whether they were happy with its terms. The French were not happy (plus ca change, mon ami). Likewise, the Germans were less than tickled.

Ultimately, Papandreou's call for a referendum has been shelved.

So what? How likely is it that he ever thought it would come off? 

Maybe something else was behind this move. Perhaps, knowing he was returning home to ask the people of Greece to swallow a very bitter pill that had been designed by France and Germany, and would see years of hardship and austerity, Papandreou sought a way of deflecting the bad news. 

Under the circumstances, he has managed to underline the fact that there was nothing further he could have done. Even when he wanted to use democratic means to enable the Greek people to feel they had a say, that their opinons might be heard, the dark hand of Europe's pay-masters was seen to be shutting him up.

Well played George.

Everyone suspects your domestic political career won't last much longer. But once you're looking for something new to keep yourself busy, you should consider a visit to Downing Street where a bloke called Dave could really do with someone explaining to him how politics really works.

Footnote:
David Nuttall's motion was a massive red herring anyway. The UK cannot unilaterally renegotiate the terms of its EU membership and there is absolutely no motivation for the EU to agree to any new terms the UK puts forward. Withdrawing from the EU is crazy talk - we all know that. So the only viable option from the three contained within the motion was the one where everything stays the same.

Further reading:
EU referendum: Rebels lose vote in Commons
Papandreou scraps Greek referendum as open warfare erupts in his party

october 2011 word cloud

This is the third month that I've done a round up of what I've written in wordcloud format.

recalling a humbling evening

On this day last year I visited a firework display in the grounds of a local hospice.

It caused me to reflect on life and death, a theme I've visited more than once on this blog. Also on the things you should be grateful for.

You'll find it here:

• up in smoke

the countdown to a federal europe has begun

The European single market has been a good thing. It has enabled the free flow of labour across the continent (well, most of it), which has brought about innumerable economic and social benefits.

The European single currency, aka the Euro, has of late revealed itself as a flawed project.

A great deal of attention has been focussed on some of its more obvious problems:

• the collapse of the Greek economy
• the size of the bailouts required by Athens
• the threat of economic contagion (hello Italy, sorry... maybe I mean goodbye Italy)
• the growing influence of Germany, blah, blah, blah.....

But there is one thing that has been happening behind the scenes which I cannot help but feel is being allowed to go unnoticed.

By most measures, the Euro is in a mess.

Yet one of the long-lasting consequences of this will be the increasing influence of the European Central Bank.  In effect, a completely undemocratic institution will soon be making decisions that will impact very directly on the everyday lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

How has this come about? Chiefly because of a collective failure on the part of the major European leaders. A failure to get to the heart of the Euro crisis, to take difficult/unpopular decisions and see them through to the end. Instead they have fallen into one of the old and familiar habits of the bureaucratic mind - allowing institutional influence a freer hand to deal with problems which existing instituions have already failed to deal with effectively.

I can't think of many other walks of life when failure to deliver X means you have carte blanche to press on with X + 1.

Only in high finance.

Only in European politics.

Well, I'm only a simple soul, clearly. I'm sure there are very good reasons for this.

But as someone who has always been a supporter of the European project (although not of political and fiscal union) to see the gradual shift of democratically-elected powers from Europe's capitals to the institution of Europe itself does little to bolster my sense of bon homie.

I'm not sure it's for me to say whether there ought to be a federal Europe or not. I am sure there are excellent arguments both for and against. But should that day come, I would hope that it is something that the citizens of Europe's many and varied nations get the chance to have their say on and not something that slips in unannounced while we are all distracted.