I usually avoid motorway service stations. The food is dreadful and overpriced. The facilities are grim and uninviting.
So when I pulled into Roadchef’s Stafford services on the M6 last night for a snack, my expectations were none too high. I was very pleasantly surprised. The food was enjoyable. I got two large mugs of tea from the pot. And I ate my food on a quiet terrace overlooking a small lake – perfect on a glorious summer’s evening.
One to recommend rather than avoid.
Shock horror: Pauline Fowler is leaving EastEnders, the BBC’s gloom-ridden soap opera.
The character, played by Wendy Richard, has suffered a relentless succession of disasters over the years. Just a taster: her husband has an affair, suffers a nervous breakdown, is jailed and beaten up in a prison riot and dies soon after being released. Her brother dies in a car crash. Her son Mark is diagnosed as HIV positive and eventually dies. She marries a man who turns out to be a conman.
And people watch the show for fun?
The NatWest 3 were extradited to the United States today, under the glare of the world’s media. Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew have been accused of fraud connected with the collapse of the American energy giant Enron.
The case has been hugely controversial, highlighting the one-sided extradition treaty between Britain and the US. The men’s PR advisers have skilfully harnessed sympathy for their plight through the media. Their PR success could not prevent their extradition. But it has overshadowed the plight of another British businessman, Nigel Potter, who is already incarcerated in an American prison.
Potter is the former chief executive of Wembley plc, the former owner of England’s old national stadium. He was bizarrely and wrongly accused of trying to bribe the former speaker of the state assembly of Rhode Island. He voluntarily went to America to face the music – and was convicted in highly dubious circumstance. His co-defendant was sent to an open prison – but Potter languishes in a secure prison because he is an ‘illegal alien’. For the first 10 days, he was placed in solitary confinement, and for 14 days was unable to contact anyone – friends, family or lawyers.
Potter’s wife wrote movingly about her husband’s plight in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year. His friends have created a website highlighting his case.
Do you automatically bin sales leaflets that drop through your letter box? I usually do. But last winter, we received an appealing-looking flyer for Abel & Cole, a London-based supplier of organic food.
We gave them a go six months ago – and have been delighted. Food to restore anyone’s jaded palate. We usually go for the organic veg, but recommend the fruit as well. We pay £11 for a box of mixed veg, which is enough for the two of us for a week. The price includes delivery.
The world of PR has woken up to the impact of blogging.
I had the pleasure of speaking at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Northern Conference in Leeds on Thursday. The most popular workshop was Stuart Bruce’s fascinating introduction to the world of blogging. The questions confirmed that PR people are concerned that they don’t know enough about blogs – and anxious to learn. Stuart was joined by Simon Collister, another committed PR blogger.
In my keynote speech, I explained why blogging is such a powerful tool for consumerism. For the first time, consumers have the ability to create a voice for themselves in seconds. If the cause is topical, the traditional media will give consumer blogs plenty of publicity. The PR profession has to come to terms with blogging – and social networks such as myspace.com – if it is to give effective advice in the new media age.
My other favourite workshop was Michael Bland‘s session on crisis management, entitled When it hits the Fan. Michael did a lot of media training for me at Eagle Star in the 1990s and has become one of Britain’s experts on crisis communications. His advice is spot on: think about what your audience wants to hear, rather than what you want to say. It echoed what I said to the conference: in a crisis, always have sensitivity for human emotions and be prepared to say sorry, we got it wrong.
The event was superbly managed by Don’t Panic – what a wonderful name for an event management company!
After September 11 became 9/11, it was inevitable that the London bombings would become known – by the media at least – as 7/7.
The British, of course, would never have thought of September 11 as 9/11 – we’d have called it 11/9.
How odd that the date of Britain’s atrocity reads the same in date shorthand on both sides of the Atlantic.
Britain today remembered the victims of the July 7 bombings, one year on. The two minute silence was observed with dignity and sadness.
Here are a few of the photos I took on my mobile phone on that terrible day:
Queuing for the river boat from Canary Wharf to central London
Boarding the boat.
St Paul’s and Millennium Bridge.
And here is my earlier post about 7 July.
An email has just come through from Thomson travel, headed ‘what will you do now it’s all over?’
It’s a reference to the World Cup. But it’s totally misjudged.
It’s not all over. We’ve two semi-finals to look forward to, and the final a week today. (Ignoring the third-place play-off game.)
But of course Thomson are referring to England’s defeat. But I’m not English. Why do they presume I think the World Cup is over?
Poor marketing, if you ask me.
Britain’s railways need another £7 billion.
The privatlsed gravy-train hits the buffers again. And we’re the mugs.
Repeat after me: I do miss British Rail. It was the best bargain in Britain…
Another day, another article about English identity.
Bryan Appleyard in today’s Sunday Times does a quick resume of the debate about England’s identity. He cites complaints that the dominant nation in these islands has had its identity taken from it. Now, the English are claiming it back.
I think he protests too much. It’s as if the English were looking for permission to take pride in their identity. They feel resentful that the Celts seem to have their identity sorted. They feel that English pride is seen as nationalistic, while Celtic pride is accepted as pure patriotism.
The English should be more relaxed. Identity is a complex matter, and is often linked to uncertainty as well as pride. We Welsh are notoriously tribal – South Walians are as likely to quarrel with their northern cousins as with the English. If you’re English, fly your flag with pride. If anyone questions you, look at him in disbelief.
We need to reinvent relationships within these islands. A holiday in Dubrovnik, with memories of the brutal Yugoslav civil war still raw, shows how tame our own family arguments are. The Celts should let the English reinvent themselves. The English should take a relaxed view of their place here. Above all else, we must take pride in our inter-linked identities. Britain is a concept worth cherishing.
Ertblog 