Believe it or not, and you would never guess if you saw me (remember that bit), but I'm actually old enough to remember real life stories of times gone by, before the one minute silence, let alone life before the two minute silence. 

And now the do goody liberals can interrupt this post and tell us it's good to let it all out... I'll get my coat.

I understand from the Guardian newspaper that people are "Wyatting" in pubs these days.

This refers to the practice of trawling internet jukeboxes in pubs, with the express purpose of deliberately choosing tracks considered inappropriate for the setting. These are usually long and "difficult" works, such as those by Brian Eno or Robert Wyatt, hence the name. The newspaper articles debate whether or not this is some kind of statement, or just another childish prank, the next big thing etc.

Well, sod "Wyatting"; I didn't even know that there were internet jukeboxes! (Although, it does now explain the playing of the Argentinean national anthem in the Lord Nelson the other night, particularly as the version appeared to be from circa 1928).

And anyway, when I was doing this kind of thing thirty odd years ago, it was more simplistically called... wait for it, wait for it... taking the piss: just one of many tedious practical jokes to which teenage boys are genetically attracted.

Of course, as far as the pre-internet options were concerned, there wasn't a vast opportunity for dissent back in the 1970s, as the jukeboxes of the day would only hold something like 100 ‘pop ex’ singles of dubious quality, and these ranging from "Distant Drums" to "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep".

In fact, the only record available for subversive purposes around that era, was "Sultanesque”. This was an otherwise obscure B-Side of Roxy Music's "Love is the Drug", an early experiment in "electronic" music. This comprised of a long throbbing intro, with Bryan Ferry playing a single note saw tooth wave, manually turning the knob on an early synthesizer, producing a sound not unlike the electric current running through a badly wired guest house. This lacklustre din continues for over a minute until a simplistic "beat" arrives, followed by, well, little else. For 5 minutes & 24 seconds.

In the interest of research, I've just played my copy, and with the passage of time it doesn't sound too different to a lot of early electronic music of the period, (usually practiced by the Germans, and "avant gardists"). However, back then, hardly anyone had been exposed to that kind of thing outside of art-schools, and it wouldn't be unfeasible if some who had purchased the A-Side on the strength of its radio performances or its position at No. 2 in the charts, may well have played the B-side and concluded that the disk was faulty and needed to be returned.

Thus, armed with my only option, I would sit in the Rockley Arms, awaiting my moment to squidge across the beer-soaked carpet to the juke box, where I would deposit the freshly minted decimal coinage in the slot; select the track by punching the clunky buttons, before returning to my rickety seat to admire my work.

To the clients of that nicotine-stained boozer, the 5 minutes & 24 seconds that would follow was never considered educational or enlightening. No one said "Hmm; interesting, this could prove to be a prescient moment in popular music", or even "the brave thing to do would be to release this as an A-side!" 

No, what they would actually say was "BLOODY HELL, WHO PUT THIS SHIT ON?" or "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!" or even—amongst the more mannered patrons—"Excuse me Landlord, could you turn this down, it's giving my lady wife a headache!"

And yet to me it was all hilarious. There they were one moment, swigging their Watney's Red Barrel, moaning about the England football team, the perils of immigration and their disappointment with Brentford Nylons, whilst not really listening to "Hold Back the Night" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". Then the room would be slowly, and initially imperceptively, infused with a sonic fug, which would only slowly seep into their consciousness.

Conversations would stall, brows would furrow, and geezers would turn about in their seats looking in the direction of the Juke Box: possibly expecting to see an electrician sorting out the apparently poor earthing. The initial confusion would give way to general disgruntlement, which in turn would rapidly develop into opprobrium of the "WHICH ONE OF YOU CUNTS DID THIS?" variety.

I didn't need Cannabis back then, the response of the drinkers to that track could keep me giggling senselessly for months.

Mind you, I only witnessed this the once, as I was very much of the belief that practical jokes were not about schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, although I didn't know there was a name for it back then), and that it should be suffice to merely set up the circumstances of a prank, and then leave the hapless recipients to their fate*. I found the concept of their plight far more agreeable than the vulgarity of witnessing it firsthand. From then onwards, I would merely visit the juke box as we were leaving a bar, dial up "Sultanesque" and exit, smirking for the rest of the evening at the confusion to come.

*I went too far with this once, when, attempting to smoke bomb the Red Lion, I quickly realised that the Fumite I had just ignited was NOT appropriate for a prank, designed as it was to help plumbers detect the extent of blockages in flues. As the rank, over-bearing odour belched from the fizzing tablet atop the cistern I struggled, Napoleon Solo-like, with the lavatory windows, only to find that Jack, the world's meanest landlord, had NAILED them shut. Choking and blind, my eyes streaming with tears, I ran into the bar and gestured to my (unknowing) cohorts that it was time to leave. We donned coats and made our way to the door as brows furrowed and the atmosphere grew acrid as the locals began to rub their eyes.

After spending the rest of the evening at the Potter's Arms, it was decided to risk returning to the Red Lion on the way home. We arrived in time for last orders, just as a police car pulled away.

Apparently, my "prank" had cleared the pub with the impact of an early 70s counter-terrorism raid. The air was still vicious, and those few stragglers left stood around squinting through blood-shot eyes, sporadically coughing, and unable to taste their drinks (but then, in the Red Lion, that would not be a bad thing). Jack couldn't prove anything, but his grimace that night as he served me was more menacing than the usual distain he would normally display.

Of course, back in those the "good old days", we knew how to make our own entertainment.

Sometimes you need to be hit over the head two or three times with a blunt something or other, before things really sink in. And that’s what has happened to me recently. The lesson I learned – or at least the lesson I had reinforced – is so potentially life-changing, that you’d be mad to the point of insanity, not to give it some serious thought.

Although I profess to be quite interested in the written word, to describe my knowledge of classical literature as patchy would I’m afraid, be embarrassingly flattering. And that’s a shame really, because there are some amazingly profound lessons to be learned through it. For example, just recently I came across one of the most widely known quotations from Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing (Yes, I did have to look that bit up) – one to which I’d given very little thought before…

“All the world is a stage and all 

the men and women in it, merely players.”

And it only resonated with me this time because of three other things that have happened to me recently.

The first is that I read a book by Derren Brown (a UK magician) called Tricks of The Mind. In one chapter, Brown discusses the subject of developing and displaying confidence. Now if you’ve ever seen Derren Brown perform, I think you’ll agree that he comes across as being supremely confident. And yet it wasn’t always like that, and indeed isn’t necessarily like that today.

You see, in his early life, Brown suffered from the same doubts and insecurities as most of the rest of us. So what made the difference? Well he discovered something very simple, and yet extraordinarily powerful… in order to become confident, you firstly have to act confident. And once you start to act in a confident manner, others begin to treat you as being confident, and guess what? You become confident because of the way other people are now treating you. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for you…

But if it doesn’t come naturally to you, you have to,

‘fake it before you can make it’.

The second thing that happened concerns one of the actors who feature in the movie Clubbed. Part of ‘the deal’ when you star in a film is that at some stage or other, you’re expected to help promote it. Now acting and promotion are two completely different things, which is why the cast of this film were booked in for a training session on how to present themselves in interviews.

Some of the cast were ‘naturals’, but one guy (I won’t say who to save his blushes) just isn’t comfortable with this sort of attention. Whilst he fully comes to life on screen, in private he’s a pretty quiet and unassuming guy. Perfectly fine qualities in a human being, but not so great when you’re trying to excite and enthuse other people about the film you’ve just made.

The lady running the course had seen all this before and knew exactly what to do. Instead of giving him a whole list of specific instructions which she knew he’d probably forget anyway, she gave him just one instruction…

Just imagine it’s a part, and you’re playing a successful movie star!

As soon as he ‘got it’… that he wasn’t being himself in these interviews, he was simply playing a part, just as he did every day of his working life, the transition was almost instantaneously made. He acted like a movie star, so people started to treat and react to him as though he was a movie star. And by now, you should know what happens next…

He’ll start to feel like a movie star, and that will 

affect how he behaves naturally...

But just like Derren Brown, he had to fake it before he could make it.

Thirdly now (and I saved the best till last), I (yes dear, sweet, little, old me) have recently found myself more and more in situations that demand I engage with people face to face and even have to speak publically, in front of people, people judging me, judging the way I look, the way I speak, the way I fluff my lines almost every time, oh alright then, every time dammit.

I used to sell insurance back in the early nineties (believe it or not, I have sold kitchens and cars as well, brand new shiny ones too), and the catchword of the day then was that people will buy into your enthusiasm. And guess what, to be enthusiastic, you act enthusiastic ‘cos enthusiasm sells right?

Notice any parallels yet? Is there a common theme being reinforced? Is there an ‘aha’ moment anywhere in here for you? 

Like I've already mentioned, I know there was one for me. It seems that the world is indeed a stage and we’re all the cast playing our parts on it. And the great news is, is that we get to choose the parts we play. Nobody else chooses those parts for us. And if we play the part well, the world demands and dictates that we play it again and again for life.

But I must warn you, it works both ways. Choose a lousy part for yourself – and if you don’t apply any conscious effort and thought to this, you probably will do – and that’s going to be the part the world will allocate to you too.

So, once you realise that you become what you present yourself as being, it’s a tremendously enlightening and empowering moment, because it’s then that you know that your fate and fortunes lay entirely in your own hands. But it can also be a frightening moment too, because every excuse you ever had for not being where and what you want to be is stripped away from you in an instant. And you probably already know, there’s a lot of comfort to be had in those excuses.

In his book “A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market” John Allen Paulos tells a story of a man and his wife, who travel all the way to Las Vegas to do some regular touristy sightseeing, and maybe do a little conservative gambling.

Anyway, after a long night out, and losing $1,000 dollars, the hero of the story wakes up to find a $5 chip sitting on the hotel dresser in the room he was staying at. Naturally he thinks of it as some sort of magical sign or omen, jumps out of his bed and runs back down to the casino floor, in such a hurry that, he doesn’t even change out of his green bath robe. He ran to the nearest roulette table and threw the chip onto the red seven, which hit and paid 35-1 on his $5, or $175. 

He then continued to gamble and put the winnings on another single number, which in turn hit, leaving him with $6125. He continued like this for another two wins, leaving him with $7.5M. The casino would not take another wager, saying that they could not afford that payout if he were to hit again. The man ran to the nearest casino that agreed to take the bet. He threw the money on number 8 hitting once again. Ecstatic the man decides to let the £262M ride, only to lose it all on the next spin.

He left the casino and began to walk back to the hotel room where he met with his wife as she was waking up and asked him “Where have you been?” The man replied that he had “Been playing roulette downstairs for the morning.” His wife then responded “Well how did you do?” The man casually replies “Not bad I suppose, I only lost 5 bucks.”

Now in case you didn’t know, this is an example of what is called mental accounting, which was defined by Belsky and Gilovich in 1999 as “The inclination to categorise and treat money differently depending on where it comes from, where it is kept, or how it is spent.” 

The bloke in the green dressing gown had just lost a huge sum of money. But in this somewhat exaggerated example, he never really saw the money as his, and so he was extremely reckless and cavalier with it and the loss didn’t really hurt him. But there’s a lot more to this entry than that of just an academic interest or even an amusing story.

For example, it’s well documented, that people gambling while using a credit card, often place bigger bets than they would if they were using cash. Obviously, the money is the same, but the source for some reason, makes a complete difference. And even if you’re not a gambler, you can probably recognise the truth of this – it’s a lot less painful to pay for something using a card than it is paying with cash that you can see instantly disappear when you spend it. It’s totally irrational I know, but none-the-less it’s still a harsh reality for a great many of us.

Let me now give you another manifestation of this:

Let’s say you set out one Saturday evening to buy a well earned takeaway meal. It’s a very windy day this day, and as you take your phone out of your pocket, you pull a $10 note out along with it, and it blows away and down a gutter. It is gone. You still however continue to walk into the take away and buy your meal for $10. How much has the meal cost you? Most people would say it’s cost $10, and perhaps you’d agree. Assuming you still had enough money on you, you’d certainly continue with your plans to buy your much deserved takeaway.

Let’s imagine now that you get to the same take-away unscathed, you buy your meal for $10, but on the way out, you trip up and tip everything out on to the pavement before even taking a bite. Leaving a perfect pavement pizza for the whole world to see. You now have to go back into the shop again and buy the same meal if you still want to eat. So how much will this meal cost you? Most people would now say it will cost them $20, and may well decide to not proceed to buy it as a result. And yet the financial consequences of both visits to the takeaway are exactly the same. Logic would suggest that both situations are viewed, and reacted to, in exactly the same way. But in reality, that won’t happen for most people.

I’m sure you will agree (I can wait...), this is a huge and fascinating area which straddles the wide and varied fields of psychology and economics, but I still had to bring it to your attention for all of its practical applications to you, both as an individual and or a business person.

As an individual, it’s worth giving some thought as to what extent you use ‘mental accounting’ like this in your day to day life, and whether a more rational and consistent approach to money would have a positive effect on your finances. Because by all rational measures, money is just money. Its source, place of keeping and intended purpose should not really be relevant to its value or how easily you can part with it.

And moving swiftly now from gamekeeper to poacher, as a business person, it’s useful to know that your potential customers usually have a variety of sources for their money, and they are unlikely to treat each of them in the same way. They are attached to some money (cash, earnings and funds with a pre-determined purpose for example) much more strongly than other money, such as winnings, Paypal balances and credit card balances.

When businesses look at ways to increase sales, they usually look at the offer they’re making, their product and their pricing. But they rarely consider how they might exploit the ‘mental accounting’ of their customers, and tap into sources of funds which are valued less highly, and are more easily accessed as a result.

So in order to hopefully open a few of you up now, particularly if you have any kind of money making enterprise, I would suggest it could be worth giving some real thought to this little anomaly of the financial world, because while I’m sitting here all on my little lonesome, doing my best to entertain and educate you all without so much as a buy your leave, a pardon me or even a stray fart from you in your passing by, it would still be nice to occasionally hear from a few of you reader types. I’d be particularly interested as to how you guys think you might be able to use this information to your own advantage (Still waiting...).

As you might very correctly imagine, I’m on a hell of a lot of mailing lists these days, partly because I’m totally enthralled by all the tricks of the marketing trade (yes I’m that sad), and partly because I’m a sucker for anything that costs far more than it really should do. And it was for the latter reason, that I recently received an email (my inbox probably resembles most people’s spam folder) the other day about a new Porsche that’s been released.

And now, for your edification and delight, I’ve reproduced most of the email below, but cut it off at the point where the sending dealership is revealed because I suspect this is most likely a promotion filtered down from head office, and that the dealer was probably already embarrassed enough to be sending it, without me adding to his woes. Anyway, here’s the email…

Imagine now, the theme of the conversation in Porsche's head office in Stuttgart on an average Monday morning…

“So did you have ze good veekend Klaus?

“I did indeed Wolfgang, thank you very much for asking… and you?

“Excellent Klaus… excellent. But enough of ze pleasantries. We must now return to ze question ve are constantly asking ourselves…. ze one vee ver wrestling wiz on Friday afternoon, and every day for as long as I can remember. Just how can you engineer intensity? Not only zat Klaus, but how do vee capture it and instil it in everything vee do?”

“I’m buggered if I know, Wolfgang. To be honest, I still don’t understand ze bloody question. Vi can’t vee just try to make ze cars better like everybody else?"

Now what’s that I hear you say? You can’t imagine that? Well that’s because a conversation like that would never ever take place. In fact never in the history of human endeavour has anyone ever asked the question,”How can you engineer intensity? How do you create it, capture it and instil it in everything you do?” Not even once, let alone constantly.

It’s just an example of what I’m going to call (for the sake of a better term) ‘Advertising Agency Bollocks’… if you’ll pardon my French (which I’m guessing you gratefully will do after just enduring my German).

They get away with it for one very simple reason – nobody bothers or indeed needs to measure what they do, or compare it with something better. The cars sell of course because… well they’re excellent cars… and so the people creating ridiculous promotions like this will always get away with it – their contribution is never measured or properly assessed.

You and I on the other hand, don’t have that kind of luxury. We don’t have endless TV shows, newspapers, magazines and thousands of online sources telling the world how great our product is for us. We don’t have over half a century’s worth of manufacturing and racing heritage. And so for the most part, we stand or fall on the marketing we do today.

And when you’re in a hole like that, I hope you don’t open up a promotion with ‘Life Intensified’. I mean, have you ever felt the need to have your life intensified, by the way? No, me neither. It’s just meaningless arty farty drivel which does absolutely nothing to move a prospective customer any closer to making a purchase. And any advertising or marketing which doesn’t at the very least do that... is in my book; money down the drain.

Do you reckon you’d be reaching for your credit card any faster if you read ‘Life Intensified – A new room setting by Localad Services? I didn’t think so! (But if you do... nudge nudge wink wink).

If asked how to create a successful advertisement, sales letter or promotion, the first thing I’d suggest is to avoid copying the ‘big boys’ because they have budgets way beyond our comprehension, and no real way of measuring how effectively they’re spending them. We will all go broke very quickly, creating the kind of ad’s which Porsche turn out. So what should we do instead?

Well it’s a huge subject, but for now you could do a lot worse than follow a very simple three step formula I read once, which has always stuck in my mind and works really well considering how low tech and cheap it is to implement. It goes like this:

1. Tell ‘em what you’ve got

2. Tell ‘em what it will do for them

3. Tell ‘em how to get it.

Sounds ridiculously simple I know, but if you start analysing the myriad advertisements and promotions you’re exposed to on a daily basis, you’ll quickly realise that very few of them fulfil even these three basic requirements.

All anyone really wants to know is what’s in it for them. How will their life become better by owning or using what you have to sell? Follow the three step approach, and answer these questions convincingly and compellingly, then add how easily they can get their hands on it, and believe me, you will make sales.

Obviously by using the above three step formula, you can be certain you won’t be getting a job writing any meaningless promotions for Porsche and the like, but do it right and you might just make enough money to buy yourself one.

I can probably be blamed for many things, 

but my name isn’t going to be one of them, Oooooh no, not my name!! 

That's because I wasn’t around to choose it at the time; that was my parent’s fault (so don’t you come running to me about it). And yet, at the same time, don’t get me wrong here because, after living with it for nearly far too many decades to mention, I have gotten rather used to it and these days, I’ve got absolutely nothing against it – I’m quite happy with it in fact. 

But that’s where the real problem lies...

You see a lot of 'other people' are happy with it as well, and as a result, they insist on using my name for their own dastardly purposes. 

For the record, I am not…

 

Andy Robinson the American actor who played probably the most overlooked screen villain of all time as Scorpio in the film Dirty Harry, or the shape-shifting head of security, Odo in Star Trek Deep Space 9. 

Andy Robinson, the English Rugby Union coach and retired player. 

Andy Robinson, the English footballer who primarily plays as a central midfielder. 

Andy Robinson, the English comedian from Off the Kerb Productions. 

Or any of the other 'Andy Robinson' charlatans masquerading as me on line these days.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Some of these people had the name well before I did, but that’s not the point. It’s MY name now, and because of that, I want full exclusive use of it!

But why?

Because with all these other (and perhaps more famous) people using it, it makes it very difficult for me (the one and only Andy Robinson) to stand out on any Internet search.

I mean, who do you think is more likely to get the most prominence on Google if you type in the name Andy Robinson…the villainous shapeshifting actor who played Scorpio or me, a small world bloke from Springwood with an even smaller one man band business to promote?

Now I said at the start that I couldn’t be blamed for my name, but there’s something that perhaps I can be blamed for – and that's for using it! And that's because if you want to stand out online, and take advantage of the undoubted free attention and traffic which Google natural (organic is the term) searches can bring you, an unusual, unique or more offbeat name could certainly help you.

The aforementioned actor Andy Robinson is far more less likely to experience the same internet related Andy Robinson problems I do. Tap his name into Google and you’re not going to get an accountant from Worksop or a miniature lion keeper from Snowdonia (two other impostors who appear before me on a Google search). Neither is he likely to get Andy Robinson the surprisingly appealing and popular but microscopically small time entrepreneur from Springwood. (Actually, at some stage you will but it will likely be on page Goooooooooooooooooooogle, not the front page).

So, to steal a popular football chant that yet another listed Andy Robinson might better relate to… 

There’s only One Andy Robinson!

Well according to Google, there is. Mr Robinson the actor. He started out his career as plain Andrew Jordt, and I suspect he would have faced a lot more competition for search engine attention had things stayed that way without the fame that followed his name change.

And it’s the same story for a lot of other household names too. David Jones would have battled for a lot more attention from plumbers than David Bowie ever has, Reg Dwight would have probably got lost in a sea of Greengrocers whereas Elton John didn’t, and Richard Hall could have been swamped by listings for lawyers, but Moby never was.

Having a unique or unusual name was always important for TV, film and music personalities well before the birth of the internet. But today it’s increasingly important for everyone else too. When you run a business and someone types your name into Google, you want them to find YOU straight away – not some funeral director from Sydney or a cobbler from the Gold Coast (more imposters).

What this means is that you need to give some careful thought these days to the name or names you’re using to front your business or enterprises. And depending on the business you’re in, that may mean changing the name you use personally or what you call your business. And you certainly need to give it a lot more thought than I ever did – which was practically none!

But to jump to my own defence here for a moment, I’m so old now (yes, I really am) that there was no internet let alone any Google (can you believe that?), when I was making these decisions for the first time. But you might not have that excuse, particularly if you’re in the early stages of a new venture or business now.

So let me just ask you this... 

When people type your ‘name’ into Google, what will they find? 

The answer will instantly reveal what changes (if any) it would be wise to make when planning any kind of 'enterprise' (did you see what I did there? Enterprise - Star Trek. Oh never mind). And at the same time, with the onset of the latest and new improved 'personalised search' services, maybe you should look into clearing your browser history too.

Now I don’t get out and about very often... Most days you’ll find me exactly where I am right now – slumped in an old red office chair behind my computer keyboard staring into space with a more than blank expression on my face, desperately hoping that it’s my turn for a little inspiration to pay an all-too-rare visit my way. 

Sometimes, I’ll get up and move around a bit, look out of the window perhaps, maybe even talk to the cat perchance another human being may one day be present for me to actually imbibe in a conversation with – but most of the time (well all of the time really) it’s just lots of sitting and lots of meaningless staring, only to be punctuated by the occasional depressive sigh. Most days, inspiration for me is making house calls elsewhere.

The casual observer may conclude that I’m not doing very much at all – that I’m wasting my time. And most days the casual observer might be 100% right. But last Monday was to be different. Last Monday wasn’t going to be most days.

You see, the sun was out, it was 30 odd degrees centigrade in the shade and I decided it was time that I parted company with my trusty office chair and actually make plans to go see what the outside world had to offer me. And nobody could ever dare say that I didn’t get anything done on that day, because within an hour of arriving in the wonderful expanse of countryside known as the great outdoors, I had:

Stood in the biggest and sloppiest dog turd on the face of the planet in open-toed sandals no less.

Had my sunglasses stolen by a naked toddler.

Halted the filming of a period drama.

Quite impressive, I’m sure you’ll agree. And you’d be right because you can’t do any of that from an office chair in Springwood, I can tell you!

We (Madi and I) had gone to the Daisy Hill Koala Centre, a place I’ve wanted to visit many times before (mainly down to the lack of Australian wildlife I have experienced in all my time here). What I hadn’t realised though, is that the gardens don’t actually open until 11.00am and we’d arrived quite a bit earlier than that. Now you might wonder why I wasn’t aware of this fact? 

Well the answer is a simple one – I’d only ever been out and about with my wife Jodie before now, and such is the degree of preparation and preamble which any outing with my wife normally entails, that it’s flat impossible to arrive anywhere before 11.00am, let alone somewhere less than an hour from home. In fact as Madi gleefully pointed out as we pulled up in the car park, “We wouldn't have left the house yet if Mum was coming!” 

However, a few minutes later, I had cause to wish that she’d come along after all.

Since the gardens were closed we decided to kill a little time by walking down by the adjoining river, an area completely devoid of animals. But they’d clearly not been long gone. And I realised this when, like previously mentioned, I looked down after stepping backwards to take a photo, to see the sloppiest, smelliest dog turd clinging to my open toed sandal and perilously close to making a final assault over the top on to my toes. I suspect you might think I make these things up round about now, but Madi likes to photograph anything bad that happens to me (she has a file on her phone labelled Andy being ‘Special’). So here’s the evidence for all to see.

Anyway as we approached our destination, I saw a man in his later years, walking slowly across the road towards us – apparently deep in thought about things more ethereal. And as we got closer and I realised he was a vicar/priest/pastor/man of the cloth and for a brief moment I wondered what God bothering duty he was about to perform and perhaps much more to the point, where he was going to do it? The thought didn’t last for long though.

That was because a metallic green hatchback was coming at him from the other direction. The vicar was oblivious to its presence, and the car had to slow right down as he continued his leisurely crossing of the road. The driver was clearly infuriated by the delay caused and blasted on his horn to the vicar as he passed. We weren’t in the least bit prepared for what happened next. The clergyman spun around, made a familiar Churchillian hand gesture and yelled “F*** OFF!” at the stunned motorist before proceeding on his way.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” asked the daughter.

“Yep.” I replied.

“And he was a vicar?” added the wife.

“Unless he was on his way to a fancy dress party!” was my answer.

We all dissolved in laughter at the incongruous turn of events. It appears Father Jack (of Father Ted fame) is apparently still alive and well and living in Loganholme of all places. Who would have guessed?

What we were witnessing of course, was a quick peek beneath the veneer that he presents of himself to the outside world. I’m sure the 'vicar' wouldn’t normally talk to people like that, but the combination of being startled by the car horn and a surge of anger caused his spiritual ‘mask’ to slip and offer us a quick glimpse at what lay beneath.

We’re all like this of course. We present ourselves with an image in line with how we’d like the world to perceive us, but the reality can often be very different. Most of us don’t want the world to view us in a negative way – say as unsophisticated, uncouth, greedy, lazy or self centred individuals… or with a strong interest in some of the more base pleasures in life. And so we apply a veneer that is more refined, cerebral and sophisticated in both taste and action, than is our underlying pre-disposition. The monster within only makes an appearance when we’re under pressure or stress, when alcohol or drugs remove our inhibitions a little, or when we think nobody is looking!

But that monster is instrumental in most of the decisions we make, and he’s certainly making his opinions well and truly heard when we’re considering whether we will buy a particular product or service.

A great deal of marketing fails to hit the spot because it’s aimed at the prospect with the veneer still firmly in place. Over the years I’ve spoken to dozens of people about their marketing and have often had cause to criticise it for being too safe, too boring and too corporate. The reaction is nearly always the same… ”But our customers are sophisticated/serious/refined people. They wouldn’t like anything too extreme.” In my experience, this is nonsense. They all have a monster lurking within, and he’s the one holding the purse strings. He makes decisions based on strong emotions, and you don’t light a fire under those by being too safe or corporate.

If you’re reading this it’s safe to assume that you’re familiar with my company’s services and the way that they’re marketed (Not the tamest methods in the world, see www.facebook.com/localadserv ).

So who do you think would respond to an advertisement that says, “The information the police don’t want you drivers to have’ and then goes on to sell a book about avoiding speeding tickets in the UK. Teenage boy racers in baseball caps, perhaps?

Well I questioned the author who took a little look at his database of buyers and here are a few interesting highlights he gave me:

- There are 34 men of the cloth (and they’re just the ones using their titles!)

- There are 51 knights of the Realm

- There are 26 Lords and Ladies

Plus at least a dozen household names from film, music, politics and TV that he happened to notice when their orders came in.

Now of course, I don’t know anything about the other people who bought from him, but it’s safe to assume that a great many of them are far removed from what you might expect, and far too refined/serious/sophisticated to respond to the sort of advertising and promotion I would personally favour. Except, of course, they all too often do respond.

So if for some reason you’re not getting the results you want from your advertising and marketing, it could be because you’re trying to sell to what you see rather than what you get. And what you get is often a lot more base and ‘earthy’ in its behaviours, needs, wants and motivations than it would like you to believe.

In other words, you need to sell to the vicar out on the street, the one sticking two fingers in the air while ‘effing and jeffing’ at wayward motorists, not the one standing in his pulpit.

Generally speaking, I have a Golden Rule for my food preparation, which if I’m honest, can be a little restrictive to say the least. The rule itself goes like this: If any dish takes longer to prepare and cook than it does to eat, then it’s strictly off the menu. And that’s because anything else just seems to throw the effort/reward relationship completely out of balance for me. 

I’ve yet to find too many kindred spirits though, and if the popularity of TV cookery and food programmes is anything to go by, I appear to be in a very tiny minority. But appearances can be deceptive!

It will probably never happen, but occasionally I have the odd fantasy about appearing on Masterchef (the UK version because that’s where I came from right?). The show’s hosts Greg Wallace and John Torode are whispering to each other conspiratorially off camera as I make my entrance…

“So John, I gather this Robinson bloke is something of a novice?”

“That’s right Greg, but I’m expecting great things from him today.

“Why’s that?”

“Well he’s been talking himself up Greg, something about blowing all the other competitors away with his dish. He’s really up for it.”

“That sounds exciting John, I like a chef with confidence. So what’s he cooking for us today?”

John refers to his notes…

“For his main course, he’s preparing baked Haricots in a light tomato jus on a bed of grill-seared Ciabatta, and for his pudding he will be serving a fermented milk and summer fruit thickening, presented in a foil preserved crock. This should be interesting; I can’t wait to see how he pods the Haricots… wait a minute… what the hell’s he doing with that can opener?”

“It looks like he’s got a tin with a bright blue label there, John. Can you make out the lettering on the side? H… E… I…”

And then John would refer back to his notes and the penny would drop…

“Strike me down with a Didgeridoo Greg, the shyster’s doing us beans on toast and ripping the lid off a strawberry yoghurt carton!”

Cooking is huge business on TV these days. Aside from Masterchef you’ve got the likes of Come Dine With Me, Ready Steady Cook, The Great British Bake Off, Hell’s Kitchen, Two Fat Ladies, The Hairy Bikers, Two Greedy Italians… and myriad series and shows featuring the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, and Heston Blumenthal.

And all of this is a bit puzzling to me – and not just because I don’t cook. You see, at first glance it doesn’t make sense. It’s a bit like radio conjuring. The main senses impacted upon by the activity don’t come into play. You can’t taste anything through your TV. You can’t smell anything through your TV. All you can do is look and listen. And to add to the confusion, the effect on the audience’s cooking and eating habits is nowhere near as great as you’d expect from the number of people watching. We (the UK) are still a nation of take away and convenience food addicts.

So why the popularity, and what’s going on?

The answer tells us something important about human psychology, in as much as what really interests us, and ultimately what you need to do if you want to get people’s attention and draw them towards your business, product or service.

Although there is a fair amount of interest in food and cookery, it’s at a much lower level than the viewing figures for the shows would actually suggest. In most of the popular programmes, food and cooking are little more than a vehicle for serving up (did you see what I did there?) what people are much more widely fascinated by – theatre, drama, characters and personality.

The success of Masterchef is partly due to the food and cookery content, but much of the audience tunes in for something else – personalities, drama and jeopardy (Will the dish work out or be a disaster… who will be knocked out… who will cope and who will crumble?) 

Come Dine With Me is more about the interaction and conflict between the competitors, than it is about the food. Anything with our Mega Chefs Gordon, Jamie or Nigella is driven more by their personalities and enthusiasm. And that means that a large proportion of the audience tune-in just to see them, rather than to get cookery tips that they’ll never ever act upon.

In fact, select any cookery or food programme on TV and you will find either drama or personalities holding the whole thing together. So what’s the connection? It’s not about the food… it’s not about cookery… almost nine times out of ten it’s about the people! And that’s because people are far more interested in other people than they are in anything else. If they do have an interest in other things, you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s at its strongest when there’s a connection with a human story, drama or personality.

People come first. Other stuff comes a very poor second.

This has huge implications for anyone marketing products and services. If you attempt to sell things by talking about the product or service in isolation, you’ll lose a large part of your audience straight away. It would be a bit like a cookery show without the format or the characters. The most successful marketing does what the most successful cookery shows do… it creates personalities, it creates stories with a human angle, and it places the ‘product‘ in a wholly human context. It gives it life.

So whatever you’re selling, give some thought to how you can bring it to life through stories, drama and interesting characters. How was your business formed? What difficulties or pieces of luck have you experienced along the way? What characters or personalities have been connected with your business or product? The answers to these types of questions are what can raise your marketing from the banal to the barnstorming.

Remember this one thing and you’ll multiply your chances of success every time. Simon Cowell has made a whole career out of it. His millions are there because he knows that... 

People are interested in themselves first, other people second… and what you want them to buy, a very poor third.

In 1895, Albert Einstein’s father received a discouraging appraisal from his son’s teacher…

“It doesn’t matter what Albert does, he will never amount to anything.”

Hermann Einstein needn’t have worried though. Within ten years, young Albert had blossomed into an intellectual giant and was already beginning to unlock the secrets of the universe. And in the fullness of time he became the foremost Theoretical Physicist of the twentieth century (other than Sheldon Cooper of course), and his is the name that comes to most lips when the word genius is mentioned.

Likewise, his stage and film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Gene Kelly hailed him as the pioneer of dance on film. And yet when Fred Astaire arrived in Hollywood, the director giving him his first screen test, summed up his potential as follows…

“Can’t sing, can’t act... Balding... Can dance a little.”

I was reminded of these somewhat wayward assessments today while reading about Sir John Gurdon who recently won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his groundbreaking work using DNA. Like Astaire and Einstein, he had also been subject to an appraisal of his abilities which proved to be somewhat wide of the mark.

As a 16 year old schoolboy, Gurdon had received a report from his Biology tutor containing the following withering assessment…

So how did Gurdon become such an accomplished Biologist? Indeed how did Astaire and Einstein achieve such great success in their respective careers after receiving such damming criticism from on high? Well I don’t have any insider information here for you, but I believe the answer may lay in a sentence I omitted from Gurdon’s 1949 report, and here it is…

And here’s what separates out the great achievers from the also-rans… the thing that carves a clear divide between the cogs in machines and the creators of machines – Doing things your own way.

Do things the way everyone else does them, or the way they’ve always been done in the past and you will never be responsible for breaking new ground, no matter what field you operate in. The furthest you can ever go is as far as others have gone before you. All you can ever be is a cog in a machine which someone else has created for you. But insist on ‘doing work your own way’ and there’s no end to what you might discover and accomplish.

Having said that, teachers are cogs, programmed no less to create nothing but more cogs out of us. Indeed, everyone in authority from the government down, tend to put systems in place to churn out compliant and homogeneous cogs. The world needs cogs, and it needs lots of them. And so it tends to criticise and punish those who refuse to conform to the norm – at least in the short term. But what Astaire, Einstein and Gurney all had in common was their refusal to conform to expectations, and their insistence on doing things differently – in their own way. In short, they were more interested in what could be than what already was. Subsequently, the results speak for themselves.

A word of warning though – this only works if independence of thought and action is married with effort, application and ability.

It isn’t enough just to be different. But there are millions of individuals in the world who tirelessly work away as facilitating cogs in a pre-existing machine, when they could so easily have the potential to be architects of new, improved machines of their own creation. It’s only the fact that they have been indoctrinated into conforming to a particular mode of operation that prevents them from doing so.

So if you find you haven’t yet had the breakthrough moments you’d hoped for in your life, it could be worth considering whether doing things right, your own way, rather than following a well worn path, might be worth a try. After all, Einstein himself once said,”Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.” 

So do it your way. You can be sure of encountering severe resistance, and it certainly won’t be easy – but then the things that are really worth doing rarely are now are they?