The Net Curtain Strategist

Refaela Revach Looking out the window Painting

My childhood home in Romford looked out onto Heath Park Road, a relatively busy suburban street, lined with neat front gardens and pebble-dashed, semi-detached houses.

Over the rain-sodden school holidays my brother Martin and I often found ourselves stuck indoors, and our mother would invent tasks to occupy our time.

For one such assignment, she located us on stools by the living room window, supplying paper, pencils and a glass of squash. She then asked us to record the different colours of the cars passing by the house, in order to establish which shade was most popular.

‘Blue!’ ‘Red!’ ‘Blue!’ ‘Yellow!’

Eagle-eyed and attentive, with every new vehicle we added another stroke to a five-bar gate, setting about our objective with high seriousness.

I can’t say it was a particularly challenging or instructive exercise. Sometimes a metallic finish or striped van prompted a bit of debate. Sometimes the cars came past in a mad flurry all at once. And this being the ‘70s, most of the cars were just blue or red. (The black automobile was a rare sight back then.) 

Nonetheless, we spent many happy hours at that bay window.

Our monitoring of the traffic on Heath Park Road was given an extra frisson by the fact that, like secret agents, we were working unnoticed and out of sight. Most homeowners back then protected their privacy by hanging net curtains. These enabled residents to see out, but prevented passers-by from seeing in – a phenomenon quite beyond my crude understanding of science.

Over recent years the Planning discipline has grown in respect and recognition in the broader Agency community. We celebrate great insights and approaches. We cultivate our own flamboyant presentational styles. We lionize the best practitioners.

This is all of course to the good.

I would nonetheless suggest that for the most part good strategists work as if behind net curtains. Largely anonymous, quietly observing, seeing without being seen, they are unobtrusive and understated. They are also mindful of avoiding the Observer Effect, by which the act of measurement disturbs the object measured.

I am reminded that the great John Bartle, one of the BBH Founders, argued that Planners should contribute ideas without claiming authorship; that there is more chance of collective success if individuals are not striving for acknowledgement; that the best strategists are generous at heart.

‘Success has many parents, failure is an orphan - be happy to let others take the credit and success is more likely.’
John Bartle

I have occasionally wondered whether it was my mother’s car-monitoring exercise that set me on the path to strategy and research. Perhaps. But I’m not sure I ever really excelled at quantitative data and analysis.

'Every day now I can feel you watching me from afar,
And you've been leaving those love letters on my car.
So now I wonder, why you're so into me, in such a way
That you've got to take your spare time to chase after me.
What a shame.
So you like what you see?
Hey, you better put a hold on me.
So you like what you see?
Girl, you better put a hold on me.’
Samuelle, 'So You Like What You See’ (Samuelle, Foster & McElroy)

No. 470

Dugsi Dayz: Different Times Call for Different Tales

Munira: That’s haram you know. You can’t ignore a Muslim sister especially when she salaams you.
Hani: You didn’t even salaam me!
Munira: Assalamu’alaikum sis.
Hani: Wa alaikum assalam SIS.

‘Dugsi Dayz’ shines a light on the world of four British-Somali teenage girls held in Saturday detention at their Islamic school (Dugsi) in south-west London. A splendid play by Sabrina Ali, it was inspired by the 1985 movie ‘The Breakfast Club’. (Running at the Royal Court, London until 18 May, it certainly deserves a transfer.)

The girls’ Teacher (Macalin) has not turned up to invigilate, and so we watch them - shoes-off, bored and restless - as they bicker, debate and mess around to pass the time. Munira is the class joker - smart, eccentric and cheeky. Hani is cool, mysterious and aloof, quietly making notes in her journal. Yasmin, with bouncy curls popping out of her hijab, is obsessed with make-up, fashion and her phone. And finally there is Salma, the class swot in a black jilbab, diligently studying her copy of Islamic Reminders for Sisters, encouraging the others to reflect on their mistakes.

Salma: Seriously, Munira, music in a mosque?
Munira: It’s a podcast! What happened to assuming the best?

The girls speculate on what each of them has done to merit detention. They rummage amongst the confiscated items kept in the Macalin’s desk drawer.  They impersonate and poke fun at each other.

Yasmin: Dyslexia is not funny, Salma.
Munira: You’re not only mocking me, Salma, but a lot of great people. Einstein…Tom Cruise, Rosa Parks, Celine Dion.

We learn that, when they were younger, the girls’ mothers kept them in check by telling tales of fearsome long-eared Dhegodeer, who preys on badly behaved children; or the demonic Monkey Girl, who would come after them if they spent too much time listening to music, or if they threw the Quran on the floor.

Munira proposes that current teenage cohorts need new myths to help them navigate contemporary challenges.

Munira: I’ve realised, there’s like no scary Somali folk stories for the next generation of kids… Like for the younger kids… We need some hair raising, blood curdling …We need to basically pass on the torch.

Whilst conservative Salma thinks that youngsters should be warned about lack of respect, wearing excessive make-up and spending too much time on TikTok, the other girls have different perils in mind.

Yasmin: I say we should warn kids about things we wish we knew when we were younger.

Yasmin invents a story about an intelligent, beautiful, high-achieving girl who falls for a young man with ‘dazzling bling, a charming smile and spell-binding cologne.' The chap turns out to be a hopeless good-for-nothing.

Yasmin: She spent most of her time studying, so she didn’t have any experience dating or spotting red flags…The sweet musk he carried was gone and was replaced by the smell of old socks and BO.

Munira’s yarn features a spirited, independent teenager, not unlike herself. One night, when waiting at a bus stop, she is attacked by two sharp-toothed vampire aunties in long flowing jilbabs, who ‘sweep across the floor with a natural grace and swiftness, you would think they were on hoverboards.’

Munira: Don’t trust Somali aunties, cause they’re vampires who want to suck the life and soul out of you…I’m warning the girls of the next generation to run for their life if they ever see them blood-sucking vampires.

‘Dugsi Dayz’ is a tender, insightful, funny play, celebrating a community whose perspective is rarely seen; whose voice is seldom heard.

Popcorn Writing Award 2023 winner Sabrina Ali, for her play Dugsi Dayz

I was quite taken with its suggestion that different times require different tales.

I entered the world of work in the late 1980s, when corporate folk lore commended long hours, shareholder capitalism, winning-at-all cost  and a dog-eat-dog mentality. It was a fairly aggressive, muscular culture.

Surely young people joining today’s workplace need to hear about a new kind of heroism: stories of interdependence and the triple bottom line; of creativity and collaboration; of emotional intelligence and resilience.

By the end of the play, the four characters have grown closer, through shared laughter and storytelling. They are released to go their separate ways.

Salma: So wait, what? Does this mean we’re like friends now?
Munira: This isn’t The Breakfast Club, Salma. We’ll see you next Saturday in Dugsi.

'I wish that I knew what I know now,
When I was younger.
I wish that I knew what I know now,
When I was stronger.’

The Faces, ‘Ooh La La’ (R Lane / R Wood)

No. 469

Machinal: Why Do We Put Soft People in Hard Places?

I recently watched a fine production of Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 play ‘Machinal.’ (The Old Vic Theatre, London until 1 June.)

‘Machinal’ tells the tale of a young female stenographer who feels out of place in modern society. It is related in nine short scenes, and the dialogue is repetitious, crisp and jagged, suggesting the harsh rhythms of the city and office life.

Adding Clerk: 2490, 28, 76, 123, 36842, 1, ¼, 37, 804, 23, ½, 982.
Filing Clerk: Accounts – A. Bonds – B. Contracts  - C. Data – D. Earnings – E.
Stenographer: Dear Sir – in re – your letter – recent date – will state –
Telephone Girl: Hello – Hello – George H Jones Company good morning – hello hello – George H Jones Company good morning – hello.

The Young Woman (she is not given a name) is of a nervous disposition. She struggles with the precipitous pace and relentless pressure of day-to-day urban existence. She feels claustrophobic on the subway, and is frequently late for work.

Young Woman: I had to get out!
Adding Clerk: Out!
Filing Clerk: Out?
Stenographer: Out where?
Young Woman: In the air!
Stenographer: Air?
Young Woman: All those bodies pressing.
Filing Clerk: Hot dog!
Young Woman: I thought I would faint! I had to get out in the air!

The Young Woman has reached the end of her tether. But she receives little sympathy from her dependent, nagging mother.

Young Woman: I can’t go on like this much longer – going to work – coming home – going to work - coming home – I can’t - Sometimes in the subway I think I’m going to die – sometimes even in the office if something don’t happen – I got to do something – I don’t know – it’s like I’m tight inside.

Playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell (c. 1925)

She decides to marry her boss as a means of escape, a route to some sort of security - despite not being the least bit attracted to him. He is a bald, thin man with flabby hands, who repeats the same crude jokes, claims to understand women, and tells her to relax. She flinches when he touches her.

Husband: I got a lot of ‘em up my sleeve yet – that’s part of what I owe my success to – my ability to spring a good story – You know – you got to learn to relax, little girl – haven’t you?...That’s one of the biggest things to learn in life. That’s part of what I owe my success to.

And so the Young Woman remains trapped - now in a tedious, unequal, loveless marriage.

Husband: Aren’t you listening?
Young Woman: I’m reading.
Husband: What you reading?
Young Woman: Nothing.
Young Woman: Must be something.

In time she gives birth to a child she feels no connection with. Her anxiety is amplified by her husband’s solipsism; by his constant encouragement to ‘pull herself together.’

Husband: Now see here, my dear, you’ve got to brace up, you know! And  - and face things! That’s what makes the world go round. I know all you’ve been through but… But you’ve got to brace up now! Make an effort! Pull yourself together! Start the uphill climb!...Will power! That’s what conquers! Look at me!

The Young Woman finds herself on a path to an affair with a man she meets in a bar, and from there to a plan to murder her husband.

‘Machinal’ is a compellingly tragic tale of someone confined to a world to which she doesn’t belong; to a society with which she shares no values; to a hierarchy in which she is powerless. There is a sense that her downfall is inevitable. The French word ‘machinal’ means mechanical or automatic.

Young Woman: Leave me alone! Oh my god am I never to be let alone! Always to have to submit – to submit!

Sophie Treadwell was born in 1885 and raised in California. Despite suffering mental health problems, she had a successful career as a journalist - writing an undercover series on homeless women, gaining an exclusive interview with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, covering the First World War in Europe. Often inspired to pen plays by her experiences as a reporter, she wrote ‘Machinal’ after attending the sensational 1927 trial of Ruth Snyder - a woman who murdered her husband with the help of her travelling salesman lover.

In her preface to the play, Treadwell explains that the lead in her story is ‘an ordinary woman, any woman.’

‘The woman is essentially soft, tender, and the life around her is essentially hard, mechanised. Business, home, marriage, having a child, seeking pleasure – all are difficult for her – mechanical, nerve nagging.’

We no longer live in a world of stenographers and adding clerks. And thankfully modern work culture is more fluid and flexible; more casual and informal; more sensitive to individuality and mental health.

Nonetheless the anxiety, claustrophobia and impotence at the heart of ‘Machinal’ may be painfully familiar to us.

We still expect complex, sensitive, messy human beings to work within rigid, relentless, rational systems. We create a pressure to conform, to fit in, to toe the line.

And this leads to an inevitable dissonance - which may be all the more jarring in the creative industries, where we need ‘soft’ people to invent emotionally compelling ideas.

It is worth being reminded: beware of placing soft people in hard places.

Adding Clerk: She doesn’t belong in an office.
Telephone Girl: Who does?

'And I have this dream where I'm screaming underwater,
While my friends are waving from the shore.
And I don't need you to tell me what that means,
I don't believe in that stuff anymore.
Jesus Christ, I'm so blue all the time,
And that's just how I feel.
Always have and I always will.
I always have and always will.’

Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Funeral'

No. 468

The Story Juke Box: Recognising the Positive Power of Humour in the Workplace

Wurlitzer Phonograph Jukebox Advertisement – 1951

'Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.'
W H Auden

A few times a year I have lunch with five former colleagues. Old friends, we discuss developments in our home lives and careers; recent holidays and overseas adventures; contemporary politics, sport and culture.

We also spend a good deal of the afternoon reminiscing about work. We remember much-loved characters, amusing meetings and pivotal parties. We exchange anecdotes about heroic pitch failures, disastrous presentations and awkward interviews. We interrupt and undermine the narrators, pursue wild digressions and make approximate impersonations. We dispute the creative merits of the Surf Bubble Man.

'A day without laughter is a day wasted.'
Charlie Chaplin

Over the years our yarns have been embellished and exaggerated. The identities and roles of the protagonists have sometimes changed around. Occasionally I wonder whether we’re recollecting an actual event, or simply recalling the telling and retelling of the story.

And yet, with every recounting of a tale we laugh like drains.

Odd perhaps. We’ve heard all these stories before. Their twists and turns are well rehearsed. Their punchlines are entirely familiar.

We sometimes refer to this phase of the lunch as the Story Juke Box. Press the right buttons and out pops the anecdote. C37 The Big Table in the Big Restaurant. A11 The Graduate Trainee Pitch Presentation. E15 Pep’s Conversation with the Ambulance Man.

What’s going on? Why are we doing this? Why are we playing the same old tunes, over and over again?

'I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.'
Maya Angelou

The recently published book ‘Supercommunicators' by Charles Duhigg considers how NASA recruits astronauts for the International Space Station. Mindful that they need people who can get along with others for six months - in low gravity, high proximity and high stress – NASA’s psychiatrists pay particular attention to how the candidates laugh in interview.

They have established that less than 20 per cent of conversational laughter is elicited by humour; and that most laughs are prompted by social factors. They believe that this social laughter is a reliable indicator of how much prospective recruits are predisposed to emotional connection.

Some may regard humour in the workplace as unnecessary, unprofessional and distracting. But I always found it useful for dealing with setbacks and anxiety; for establishing shared values; for undermining pomposity and speaking truth to power.

'Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.'
Bob Newhart

I suspect that when we veterans recount our yarns we’re really just signalling our ongoing emotional commitment to each other; reinforcing the ties that bind us together.

'There is little success where there is little laughter.'
Andrew Carnegie

Of course, there’s a concern that the Story Juke Box is pickling our relationships in the past. Restless Ben is always advocating new stories, proposing that we look to the future, focus on tomorrow.

I confess I tend to be the voice for nostalgia. I take a particular pleasure from ancient myths and golden memories. You can’t beat the old tunes.

'Don't play that song for me,
Because it brings back memories.
The days that I once knew,
The days that I spent with you.
Oh no, don't let them play it.
It fills my heart with pain.
Please, stop it right away,
Because I remember just what he said.
He said ‘darling’,
And I know that he lied.
You know that you lied.
You know that you lied, lied, you lied.’

Aretha Franklin, ‘Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)’ (A Ertegun / B Nelson)

No. 467

Byron’s Decoupage Screen: Reflecting on Celebrity, High Art and Low Culture

Decoupage Screen, Front and Reverse

'What is the end of fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.’
Lord Byron, ‘Don Juan’

At a recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London, I came across a large folding decoupage screen once owned by Lord Byron.

Decoupage is the art of decorating an object by gluing onto it coloured paper cut-outs from prints or magazines; and then finishing it with a special paint or varnish. Practiced by craftsmen in Italy and France during the eighteenth century, decoupage had become a fashionable hobby by Byron’s time.

This six-foot high, four-panelled screen was created around 1814 by Henry Angelo, Byron’s fencing coach. It could have been used to block out drafts or afford some privacy. Or perhaps it was simply intended for the poet’s amusement. 

The screen is covered on one side with notable characters from English theatrical history: portraits of Shakespeare, Sarah Siddons and Edmund Kean; scenes from plays and representations of monuments. 

On the other side we find bare-knuckle boxers in action poses – long forgotten figures like Jack Broughton and James Figg; Tom Cribb and Tom Molineaux, the formerly enslaved American fighter. These pictures are surrounded by biographies and accounts of bouts cut from the pages of Pierce Egan’s Boxiana or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism.

'The best of prophets of the future is the past.'
Lord Byron, Journal 1821 

It’s a rather beautiful object in its own right. Busy, bustling, bursting with life. An early nineteenth century version of Pop Art; a scrap-book of contemporary enthusiasms. It’s also a fascinating historical document. It demonstrates that the gifted poet did not just have his head in the clouds. He had a passion for sport and the dramatic arts; for popular culture and celebrity. He was a fan.

'But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.'
Lord Byron, ‘Don Juan’

Detail of painting: George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, in Albanian costume, painted by Thomas Phillips in 1813

We think of celebrity as a phenomenon of the modern era. But the public have been obsessing about famous people for centuries: athletes were lauded in archaic Greek poetry; actors kept the company of political leaders in Pericles’ Athens; gladiators were feted in ancient Rome; emperors had their profiles stamped on coins that travelled to every corner of their domain.

The cult of celebrity runs deep. We imagine we know these special individuals, that we have insight into their thoughts and feelings. We admire their looks and talents; their taste and wit. We aspire to their glamorous lifestyle. We love and envy them.

The phenomenon has, of course, been magnified by successive revolutions in media: from the printing press to radio and cinema; from television to social networks. In Byron’s time awareness of famous people was circulated through the booming platforms of periodicals and prints. Each innovation fuels the public’s appetite to know a little more, to get a little closer.

'Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.’
Lord Byron, Stanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa

In the world of advertising, celebrities have long been recognised as vehicles for conferring recognition and positive associations. Although consumers know that money has changed hands, there’s still a sense that their hero has endorsed this brand; that they genuinely like and use it. A form of cognitive dissonance, I suppose.

I confess that when I worked in the industry I tended to avoid celebrity campaigns. For me they entailed borrowed interest, taking a conceptual short-cut. And of course they often came at a high price and with reputational risk. But there’s no denying their effectiveness when brand and spokesperson act in synergy. People adore celebrity.

'All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.'
Lord Byron, ‘Don Juan'

Detail from Screen

I was particularly taken with the fact that Byron was a fan of both high art and low culture: theatre and boxing. As an adolescent I was concerned that my admiration of Homer and Handel; Goya and Graham Greene might be undermined by my devotion to sixties soul music and the Likely Lads. But then – prompted by Melvyn Bragg and the South Bank Show – I came to appreciate that different moods have different cultural modes; that any individual has multiple facets to their personality. 

It’s only human to seek out both the spiritual and the everyday, the sacred and the profane. We should just follow our passions.

'There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.'
Lord Byron, ‘Don Juan’

'Who killed Davey Moore?
Why an' what's the reason for?
"Not us", said the angry crowd
Whose screams filled the arena loud.
"It's too bad he died that night,
But we just like to see a fight
We didn't mean for him to meet his death,
We just meant to see some sweat.
There ain't nothing wrong in that.
It wasn't us that made him fall.
No, you can't blame us at all.”'

Bob Dylan, 'Who Killed Davey Moore?'

No. 466

Yoko Ono: ‘A Dream You Dream Together is Reality’

Yoko Ono with glass hammer. Photo credit: © Clay Perry

A phone rings as we enter the gallery.

‘Hello. This is Yoko.’

It rings again and the message is repeated.

And so we pass through into a world of strange music, cryptic events and grainy black and white films; of bizarre objects, bean bags and neatly-typed instructions. One of Landseer’s lions on Trafalgar Square is wrapped in drop-cloths. There’s a tape recording of snow falling at dawn; a stethoscope to listen to time passing; and an apple you can buy for £200 ‘to experience the excitement of watching [it] decay.’ There are some shards of broken milk bottles that have also been put up for sale, each labelled with a date to represent a future morning.

‘It is a useless act. But by actively inserting such a useless act… into everyday life, perhaps I can delay culture.’

Many of the visitors are young, revelling in the participation and playfulness. Some draw their overlapping shadows onto a wall. A man hammers a nail into a wooden panel. People write thoughts of their mother and pin them up alongside others. Couples play games of chess where both sets of pieces are white. A young boy jumps into a black sack and rolls around on the floor making shapes.

This is a retrospective of Yoko Ono’s multidisciplinary art from the mid-1950s to the present day. (‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’ is at Tate Modern, London, until 1 September.)

We realise that each piece has a serious intent. The snow recording and stethoscope suggest we should treasure time, appreciate our environment. The covered lion challenges the enduring legacy of empire and colonialism. The chess game prompts us to think of war and peace. (The accompanying instruction says it’s ‘for playing as long as you know where all your pieces are.’) The black sack exercise asks questions of identity.

‘When I did the ‘Bag Piece,’ we go in the bag, and we’re very different. And also we see the world through it, actually. And there’s a big difference between the world and us that way. By being in a bag, you show the other side of you, which is nothing to do with race, nothing to do with sex, nothing to do with age. Then you become just a spirit or soul. And you can talk soul to soul.’

 Born into a middle-class Japanese family in 1933, Ono grew up for the most part in Tokyo. During World War 2, when she was 12, she was evacuated to the countryside to avoid the bombing. She and her younger brother, short of food and basic necessities, would lie on their backs and look up at the sky, escaping the conflict in their imaginations.

‘We exchanged menus in the air and used our powers of visualization to survive.’

This she later observed was ‘maybe my first piece of art.’

Aged 23 Ono moved to New York where she organised events and concerts that combined poetry, atonal music, vocalisation and amplified sounds.

‘I wanted most things to be performed in the dark, thereby asking the audience to stretch their imaginations. A glimpse of things was seen by occasionally lit matches and torches. This went on for four hours.’

Yoko Ono performing ‘Lighting Piece’ (1955) at the Sogetsu Art Center, Tokyo, in 1962. Photo: Yasuhiro Yoshioka; © the artist

Ono started issuing instructions for paintings. Viewers were invited to ‘complete’ the artwork in their heads, the idea taking primacy over the object. Back in Japan she wrote further instructions, some physical and some mental.

‘Scream.
1. against the wind
2. against the wall
3. against the sky’

‘Cloud Piece
Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put it in.’

‘Stone Piece
Find a stone that is your size or weight.
Crack it until it becomes fine powder.
Dispose it in the river. (a)
Send small amount each to your friends. (b)
Do not tell anybody what you did.
Do not explain about the powder to the friends you send.’

In 1964 Ono first performed ‘Cut Piece’, in which she sat silently on stage wearing a suit while the audience excised pieces of her clothing with a pair of scissors.

‘To strip means not ‘to reveal to others’, but ‘to discover something hidden in humans’.’

Yoko Ono performs ‘Cut Piece’ (1964) in New York © Minoru

Ono’s work was funny, absurd, bonkers. But it was also fresh, thoughtful and disarming. Often partial or unfinished, it existed in the realms of the viewer’s imagination. It challenged preconceptions, asked questions and invited participation.

'The only sound that exists to me is the sound of the mind. My works are only to induce music of the mind in people… In the mind-world, things spread out and go beyond time.’

Between 1966 and 1971 Ono worked in England. At an exhibition in the Indica Gallery, London she encountered the musician John Lennon who offered her an imaginary five shillings to hammer an imaginary nail.

‘I met a guy who played the same game I played.’

PLAY IT BY TRUST aka WHITE CHESS SET (1966) “Play it for as long as you can remember who is your opponent and who is your own self”. Yoko Ono. 1966

In 1969 Ono and Lennon were married in Gibraltar and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam, campaigning with a week-long ‘Bed-in for Peace.’ The couple settled in New York, using their public platform to promote peace, co-opting the techniques of advertising and propaganda to amplify their message.

In 1980 Lennon was murdered outside their apartment building.

Ono has continued to call for peace, to raise awareness about migration issues, to criticise violence. Her 2009 work ‘A Hole’ featured a pane of glass shot through by a bullet. A label reads: ‘Go to the other side of the glass and see through the hole.’

She has often returned to the consoling presence of the sky.

‘Even when everything was falling apart around me, the sky was always there for me… I can never give up on life as long as the sky is there.’

I found this exhibition inspiring. It asks us to unmake the world; to reframe and rethink our deeply held assumptions; to act and join in; to imagine peace together.

‘A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality.’


'Walking on thin ice
I'm paying the price
For throwing the dice in the air.
Why must we learn it the hard way
And play the game of life with your heart?
I gave you my knife,
You gave me my life,
Like a gush of wind in my hair.
Why do we forget what's been said,
And play the game of life with our hearts?
I may cry some day,
But the tears will dry whichever way,
And when our hearts return to ashes,
It'll be just a story.
It'll be just a story.’
Yoko Ono, ‘Walking on Thin Ice'

No.465

Dame Shirley Bassey and the Audience of One

Some years ago I was representing the Agency at a dinner marking the 50th anniversary of Haymarket Media Group. A very smart affair in the ballroom of one of the Park Lane hotels, it was hosted by the company’s founder Lord Heseltine.

I was attending alone and didn’t know any of the other guests at my table – which was well located, close to the stage. Before too long, as the wine and conversation flowed, we were all getting along famously.

After dessert was served, Heseltine announced that there would be some entertainment. I hadn’t been expecting this. And so I was particularly thrilled when he invited the legendary songstress Dame Shirley Bassey to join him onstage.

Dressed in a figure-hugging silver gown of sequinned silk, ‘the girl from Tiger Bay’ confidently swayed, shook and shimmered. And with her big-hearted vocal delivery, she launched into one of her signature numbers.

'The minute you walked in the joint,
I could see you were a man of distinction.
A real big spender,
Good looking, so refined.
Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind?’

The very definition of glamour, Bassey was instantly in total command of her audience. As she reached the song’s chorus, she directed an elegant arm towards the eponymous Big Spender and pointed precisely.

I shifted a little uncomfortably in my chair and focused on the stage. Yes, it was true: with her radiant smile and alluring gaze, Shirley was looking directly at me.

Blimey.

‘So let me get right to the point.
I don't pop my cork for every man I see.
Hey big spender,
Spend a little time with me.’
'Big Spender’ (C Coleman / D Fields)

On reflection, I imagine there were a lot of people in that ballroom that felt that Shirley was pointing at them. And that is perhaps the key to her appeal. She has a tremendous voice, bewitching style and a luminous personality. But she also sings as if you two are alone; as if you are an audience of one.

I recall reading once that President Bill Clinton’s charisma derives from his ability to make you feel like you are the only two people in the room. Ignoring the crowds milling around him, he grasps your hand, fixes you with a beaming smile and looks you straight in the eye. Regardless of politics or reputation, it’s hard not to be beguiled.

'In the particular is contained the universal.'
James Joyce

There’s a lesson here for all of us in the world of business and brands.

When we address a room, or a meeting, or an audience of any kind, we should always avoid bland generalisations and universal banalities. Rather we should speak as if the conversation is personal, intimate, one-to-one. We should deal in the individual and specific; illustrate and exemplify. Because, as the old marketing aphorism puts it:

'When you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one.’

At the end of the splendid evening, the tall, rather dapper Heseltine gave a graceful speech in which he recognised many of the people who had helped his business along the way. Amongst others, he singled out his local NatWest bank manager, who had stuck by him in the early days, through tough times. The chap happened to be sitting nearby, and I noticed he was clearly touched. As if in an audience of one.

'I, I who have nothing,
I, I who have no one,
Adore you and want you so.
I'm just a no one, with nothing to give you, but oh
I love you.
You, you buy her diamonds,
Bright, sparkling diamonds.
But believe me, dear, when I say
That she can give you the world,
But she'll never love you the way
I love you.
You can take her any place she wants,
To fancy clubs and restaurants.
But I can only watch you with
My nose pressed up against the window pane.
I, I who have nothing,
I, I who have no one,
Must watch you go dancing by,
Wrapped in the arms of somebody else.
Darling it is I
Who loves you.’
Shirley Bassey, ‘I Who Have Nothing’ (C Donida / G Rapetti / J Leiber / M Stoller)

No. 464

Frida Kahlo: ‘I Paint My Own Reality’

“Self-Portrait with Hummingbird and Thorn Necklace” by Frida Kahlo. By Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

I recently watched a thoughtful documentary about the life and work of artist Frida Kahlo. (‘Frida Kahlo’ 2020, directed by Ali Ray)

Kahlo painted magical realist works that were forthright, beautiful and challenging. And she created a unique identity that was resilient, independent and inspiring. Having endured extraordinary physical and mental turmoil, she demonstrated how creativity can be a vehicle for making sense of one’s suffering. It can be a means of survival. 

'I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.'

Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 and grew up in Coyoacán, a fashionable suburb of Mexico City. Her father was German and her mother was of mixed indigenous and Hispanic descent. She suffered from polio as a child and consequently her right leg was shorter than her left. The condition gave her a limp and an enduring sense of difference and isolation.

'Don’t build a wall around your suffering. It may devour you from the inside.'

Kahlo was admitted to a good school, thrived at the sciences and was on track to becoming a doctor. However at 18 she was involved in a terrible road accident - a tram crashed into the bus on which she was travelling home. She broke her spinal column, collarbone, ribs and pelvis, and had 11 fractures in her right leg. Her right foot was dislocated and crushed, and her shoulder was put out of joint. The incident sentenced her to a lifetime of pain, surgery, medical corsets and leg braces. 

In the months immediately after the accident, Kahlo resumed her childhood interest in art. A mirror was installed above her sick bed so that she could paint at a special easel while lying on her back. 

'The most powerful art is to make pain a healing talisman.’

In 1927 Kahlo joined the Communist Party, through which she met the painter Diego Rivera. He was a key figure in the Muralist movement, which, in the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), sought to establish a new national art form by drawing on indigenous, pre-Hispanic culture. The couple married in 1929 and in the early 1930s travelled together in the United States. 

'The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become 'somebody,' and frankly I don't have the least ambition to become anybody.’

Eager to set herself apart from conventional American society, Kahlo adopted native Tehuana dress: braided hair, colourful embroidered blouses and long floral skirts. Her art also underwent a transformation. She rejected European traditions and, inspired by Mexican folk culture, created work that was intentionally naïve. Her pictures told stories in the style of votive paintings: small devotional works on metal (to protect them while hanging from damp walls), typically depicting a dangerous incident and the survivor’s gratitude. 

'At the end of the day we can endure much more than we think we can.’

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932 by Frida Kahlo

In 1932, while living with Ribera in Detroit, Kahlo suffered a miscarriage. She subsequently recorded the event in ‘Henry Ford Hospital.’ 

Kahlo lies naked on a hospital bed, tethered by red threads to a piece of medical equipment, a teaching model of the female reproductive anatomy, a pelvis bone and her unborn foetus. She is weeping.

'My painting carries with it the message of pain.'

Kahlo and Ribera returned to Mexico, but their relationship was turbulent. He was consistently unfaithful and she had affairs with, amongst others, the exiled Leon Trotsky. She also turned to drink.

‘I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim.'

In 1939 the couple divorced, but remarried a year later. Soon after the separation, she painted ‘The Two Fridas’ (1939): two versions of herself sit side-by-side, holding hands against a stormy sky. One is in white European dress, the other in colourful Tehuana costume. Both have their hearts exposed, and they are connected by an artery. Mexican Frida, with a healthy heart, grips a small portrait of Rivera. European Frida, with a broken heart, clasps forceps and has blood from a severed vein spattered over her dress.

'There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the tram, the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.'

Frida Kahlo, Heart to heart … The Two Fridas (detail) 1939.
Photograph: Museo de Arte Moderno/De Agostini Picture Library/G Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images

Kahlo created 150 paintings over her lifetime, of which a third were self-portraits. 

She stares out from these pictures, unsmiling and resolute, usually with her head at a three quarters angle. Her distinctive unibrow and the hair on her upper lip defy stereotypes of beauty. While her face remains fixed, the elements around her change. There are ribbons, flowers and braided crowns; dogs, spider monkeys, parrots and butterflies. There’s lush vegetation and a dead hummingbird suspended from a thorn necklace. It is as if she is saying: I am consistently me, but I am endlessly complex.

'I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.'

'What the Water Gave Me' (1938) presents Kahlo’s pictorial biography from her perspective in a bathtub. Her legs and feet stretch out before us and on the surface of the grey water we see an empty Mexican dress, a seashell full of bullet-holes, the artist’s parents and two female lovers. There’s a skyscraper bursting forth from a volcano, a dead woodpecker and a small skeleton resting on a hill. A faceless man holds a rope that throttles a naked female figure in the distance. 

It’s as if we are being invited to share Kahlo’s bath; to witness her darkest private reflections.

'Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?'

Frida Kahlo, What the Water Gave Me

Kahlo was not prepared to be boxed-in or categorised. In the same year as she painted 'What the Water Gave Me' the leading surrealist writer, Andre Breton, visited Mexico and pronounced her pictures ‘pure surreality.’ But she maintained her independence from any art movement.

'They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.'

Kahlo returned again and again to the theme of her pain. 

In ‘Broken Column’ (1944) she painted her spine as a classical column, cracked and fragmented. Standing in a barren landscape, she is naked but for a white skirt and metal corset, her face and body pierced by nails. Again she is weeping. But her gaze is defiant, resolute - like a martyr.

Self Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill, 1951 - by Frida Kahlo

In her last signed self-portrait, ‘Self Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill’ (1951), Kahlo depicts herself in her wheelchair alongside a painting of the surgeon who that year had performed seven operations on her spine. Her palette carries the image of a heart and her brushes drip with blood.

'Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change.'

Clearly Kahlo used her art to provide some relief and distraction; to understand her pain; to navigate her sadness. ‘The only way out is through.’

In the 1950s Kahlo's health deteriorated further. In 1953 she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico, and she died the following year. She was 47.

After her passing, Kahlo became an icon of individuality. She was admired and adored for her fierce resilience and independence; for her beautiful mind; for painting her own reality.

'I used to think I was the strangest person in the world. But then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too.’

'Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving.
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming.
I have no thought of time.
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving.
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving.
I do not count the time.
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
And I am not alone while my love is near me.
I know it will be so until it's time to go.
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again.
I have no fear of time.
For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?’

Sandy Denny, ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’

No. 463

Shifters: Making Something Beautiful Out of Broken Things

‘Two little Black kids
destined to oppose each other
push each other
shift each other
until they could be formed again.’

I recently watched ‘Shifters’, a fine play by Benedict Lombe now running at the Bush Theatre. (Directed by Lynette Linton. Until 30 March, and sold out I’m afraid. It will be a crime if it doesn’t receive a West End transfer.)

Dre: So why are you looking at me like that?
Des: How do you know how I’m looking at you when you haven’t looked at me once?

‘Shifters’ is a touching philosophical rom-com that focuses on the evolving relationship between Dre (Tosin Cole), a working class British-Nigerian, and Des (Heather Agyepong), the British-Congolese daughter of a neurologist. They first encountered each other at school in a small town near Crewe, and they have been friends, lovers, soulmates.

When we meet them at the start of the play, at a funeral, they are both 32. Dre, who has remained in that same small town, now owns a restaurant. Des has a new life in New York as an artist and illustrator. They haven’t spoken to each other for eight years.

Dre: You didn’t stay.
Des: You didn’t ask.
Dre: I’m asking now.

Over the course of the play we learn through flashbacks what has passed between them. And we explore the idea of true love, fate and free will.

Des: If every decision you made led you to where you are now – that means there are paths you didn’t choose, right? So if you chose a different path, you’d probably have a different life, in a different world, with a different person, right? So that means there has to be more than one out there for us.

Heather Agyepong (Des) and Tosin Cole (Dre) in 'Shifters' at Bush Theatre. (Photo by Craig Fuller)

It’s easy to see why Dre and Des were first attracted to each other. They are both similarly quick witted, charming and funny. And they are also amusingly different. They spar over their contrasting social and cultural backgrounds, their tastes in music and food.

Dre: Our house looks like your house gave birth to it.

Their intimacy is revealed in the way they switch so naturally between humour and seriousness; in the way they dance so comfortably together; in the way they occasionally adopt each other’s language; in the way they clearly know each other’s character.

Des: You smile when you’re happy. You smile when you’re sad. And when you’re angry and scared and upset, you just keep smiling … like you don’t think it’s safe to stop.

But we also learn that their relationship has been impaired by their experiences of family trauma, grief and abuse.

Des: One day you have a mum. Next, you don’t. But no one tells you – how to remember that she was yours. And you were hers. And you belonged - to someone.

These individual tragedies clearly prevented their romance from blossoming. And catalysed their separation.

Des: Maybe this is the moment you can both sense that something is ending that never truly began.

So, can their love be rekindled?

Dre is, on the face of it, outgoing, relaxed, positive - always asking ‘Why not?’ He views the world simply, sentimentally, romantically. We note that his restaurant serves a fusion of west and central African cuisines. He believes that this encounter at the funeral is their opportunity to start again.

Des: What I feel, deep in my bones, is that soulmates are real – then Des you have always been mine. You always believed in me. And I believe in you. And when you believe in someone, it’s not just for a moment or for a while. It’s forever.

Heather Agyepong (Des) and Tosin Cole (Dre) in Shifters at Bush Theatre. Photo credit Craig Fuller

Des is the deep thinker of the two, a self-confessed ‘recovering perfectionist.’ She is cautious, introverted, deeply rational.

Des: If we say there are only two choices, what about all the rest? All the other ways of doing things?
Dre: I dunno – maybe decisions wouldn’t get made if there were too many choices?
Des: Maybe decisions shouldn’t be the most important thing?
Dre: How would anything get done if there were no decisions?
Des: You’re asking the wrong questions.

Des suspects that the powerful recollection of their first love has constrained her ability to form new partnerships; that her past has infected her present and haunts her future. She ponders the concept that ‘memory shapes our reality.’

Des: Even now, as I’m trying to remember the conversation I had with her, my mind’s already modified it.

She resists the idea that she and Dre are destined to be together. She wants to be independent; to remain in control; to release her future from her past.

Dre: You think you can control how much you love someone?
Des: I think we can control anything if we try.

This leaves Des in a quandary.

Des: I’m just stuck, at this crossroads, looking at all these paths in front of me, and I can’t – move.

Of course, ‘Shifters’ is a play about the enduring power of young love; the shadow it can cast over the rest of people’s lives.

Benedict Lombe

But it’s also, on a broader level, about the tension between fate and free will; between independence and belonging.

It suggests we should be aware of, and make accommodation for, the many external factors that impact our relationships: past tragedies and historic attachments. We should refuse to accept that our destiny is pre-determined, whilst at the same time not letting our autonomy deny us happiness. And we should be prepared to adjust our positions; to evolve, change and shift.

As Dre optimistically tinkers with an old record player he’s sure he can fix, Des quietly observes:

Des: I think we can still make something beautiful. Out of broken things. If we’re careful.

'When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see,
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me.
When the tears you cry
Are all you can believe,
Just give these loving arms a try, baby,
And have a little faith in me.
Have a little faith in me.’

John Hiatt, 'Have a Little Faith in Me

No. 462

Hans Holbein: Successful Careers are the Product of Cultivated Relationships

Hans Holbein the Younger, Mary Shelton, later Lady Heveningham, c.1543?

I recently visited a fine exhibition of the work of Hans Holbein at the Queen’s Gallery, London (until 14 April).

Holbein painted the Tudor court in soft velvets, shining satins and luxurious furs; in elegant gable hoods, smart caps and expensive jewellery. With compelling precision he conveyed his sitters’ warmth and humanity, confidence and wit. At the show you can marvel at the vitality of his preparatory sketches, in coloured chalk - scribbled, scratched and smudged to achieve his desired effects.

I was particularly taken by the way Holbein managed his career, making good use of patrons and sponsors; establishing new connections as the economic and political climate shifted around him.

Born into an artistic family in Augsburg around 1497, Holbein trained with his father and then established himself in Basel, where he painted religious panels and portraits, and designed book illustrations.

During this period Holbein produced several portraits of Desiderius Erasmus, the celebrated philosopher and writer, and illustrated some of his books. Holbein’s relationship with Erasmus came in useful when in the early 1520s religious reforms hit the market for devotional images. The artist decided to try his luck in England, where the Tudor court of Henry VIII was flourishing. He arrived in 1526, carrying a letter of introduction from Erasmus to the lawyer, author and statesman Sir Thomas More. 

'The arts are freezing in this part of the world, and he is on the way to England to pick up some angels.[English coins]’
Erasmus

More thought Holbein’s work ‘wonderful’ and became his first patron in England. With Erasmus’ endorsement and More’s introductions, Holbein soon found work with a rich array of senior courtiers, merchants, landowners and diplomats.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) - William Reskimer (?-1552) c.1532/34

But power and influence shifted rapidly in Henry’s orbit. When More refused to support the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the lawyer fell out of favour. He was executed in 1535. 

Holbein meanwhile established new patronage amongst the emergent power circles of the Boleyn family centred around East Anglia; and with Thomas Cromwell, the king's secretary. Cromwell commissioned Holbein to produce reformist and royalist images, and by 1536 the artist was employed as one of the King's Painters on an annual salary of £30.

Holbein created the defining image of Henry: standing in heroic pose, with ornate robes, direct gaze and his feet planted apart. He also drew and painted three of the king’s wives, his daughter Mary and son Edward. Through careful management of his connections, Holbein had made his way to the top of the artistic tree.

Holbein was particularly valued because his portraits were considered accurate. With the king periodically jettisoning his wives, his ambassadors found themselves scouring the royal courts of the Continent for potential new partners. Nervous about ‘whether their images were like to their persons,’ they trusted Holbein to paint them.

Hans Holbein the Younger, John Godsalve, c.1543 CREDIT: Royal Collection Trust/ His Majesty King Charles III 2023

On one such mission Holbein created a portrait of Anne of Cleves whom Henry subsequently wedded in 1539, at the encouragement of Cromwell. The king however was disappointed with Anne in the flesh, and he divorced her after a brief, unconsummated marriage. Cromwell (rather than Holbein) was blamed. He fell out of favour and was executed in1540.

Although Holbein had steered a course through the choppy waters of the Tudor court with admirable dexterity, his career never quite recovered from the demise of Cromwell. He took private commissions, produced miniatures and painted his final portrait of Henry in 1543. He died the same year at the age of 45. 

Of course, Holbein was an artist of exceptional skill. But his success also derived from a considerable gift for networking.

In pursuing our own careers today, we may like to think that we will thrive purely on the basis of our talent and industry; that our worth will be justly recognised by our corporate leaders. But we all need help navigating complex company structures and hierarchies; finding our way through changing industries and sectors. We would do well to nurture mentors, patrons and sponsors; people with experience who believe in us, who will open doors and set us on the right path. Because, as Holbein demonstrated, successful careers are the product of cultivated relationships.

'Don't know what I'd ever do without you,
From the beginning to the end.
You've always been here right beside me,
So, I'll call you my best friend.
Through the good times and the bad ones,
Whether I lose or if I win,
I know one thing that never changes,
And that's you as my best friend.’

Brandy, ‘Best Friend’ (K Crouch / G Mckinney)

No. 461