YouWish

Hi All

Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse  - swine flu.

My advice is just get on with what you enjoy and do what we Brits do best in taking our pleasures modest and often. 

I did by going to the fantastic Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted where you can sit at a your own table and watch the film with occasional trips to the bar.

Fantastic evening and not too pricey (particularly if you can blag some free babysitting).

So come on then what’s your idea of a simple pleasurable evening out (preferably legal decent honest and truthful)?

Art decoriously.

Until tomorrow.

Nick

Hi All

All hail my cousins Clive and Adam;  50 year old father and 18 year old son who ran the London marathon yesterday in  very comfortable sub 5 hour times. 

I ran the 2000* Marathon with Clive when he told me that he’d run it again at 50 with his son (he has 3 of them so some choice there). That he has  done so is  fantastic by him and a great wake up call to those of us who never seem to achieve things we would like to year on year. Talking is always easier than doing. What stops us – money, time or simply the fact that we are all too busy getting through the days to think about the years?  What’s your excuse?

As I have said all too often already in this blog,  the first step in a marathon is way harder than the last. So think for a moment about what you want to achieve in the next 6 months and make the first step today.

You may not get a medal or cheese sandwich at the end  of it but you might just get a life that’s a bit less ordinary.

Personally I commit to enter the marathon next year because wearing my medal in bed every night is wearing out my old one.

Until tomorrow.

Nick

* Lowest moment – being overtaken by a man dressed as a tub of Utterly Butterly

Hi All

Yesterday’s entry was something of a marathon (snickers).

Today’s isn’t because the consequences of the budget  have left me near speechless.

The only (only) good thing is that for sure companies will be working harder than ever to provide great service to win our custom as the recession stops nibbling their toes and takes their legs off at the knee.

Duh-DUH, duh-DUH.

Until tomorrow.

Nick 

PS. Am I alone in thinking that Roy Keane should be put in charge of regulating the city.

Hi All

Oliver Burkeman’s piece in the Guardian magazine on April 11th, focuses on the surprising findings of Ran Kivetz & Anat Keinan.  They demonstrated that regret over an indulgence not partaken outlives the guilt over giving in to the temptation.

Whilst not subscribing to a social life of  full on hedonism myself (my wife won’t let me) and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to order the Ferrari to replace the Mondeo just yet, I draw re-assurance from these findings and exhort them to you all.

This is not too foolhardy in the self propagating credit “crunch” we are in. The beauty of the British, as Bill Bryson  suggested, is that we take our pleasures small – delight at hot buttered tea cakes vs a 6ft pile of pancakes and maple syrup or a condo by the sea for our transatlantic cousins.

Hence we can all go crazy without too much damage (I once had a woman in a research group  I was moderating tell me that her idea of bliss was to buy a family sized bar of Galaxy and hide in the airing cupboard!).

Burkeman’s article  cites other research from Kivetz that affirms respondents would take a $80 spa day voucher instead of $85 cash because they know the decision of spending it so indulgently is taken out of their hands. Armed with this thought, sitting here dreaming up promotions  in You Wish towers , we played the “what would you do with a gifted  £500″ game.  In 1988, sitting in my ad agency  it might have meant a  new pair of red specs  the size of dustbin lids*  and a hangover to match but today  it would be  something I can experience pleasure through collective experience. We are therefore going to offer soon a stay in the Landmark Trust’s Pineapple – watch this space.  

Finally and not least I am going to leave you with a quote. It’s  by Emily Dickinson,  just to prove that whilst this is  (so) not the  Harvard Business Review,  I don’t get (all) my quotes about life from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. 

“That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet”

So on this fine day, take the wrapper off and get into whatever indulgence your airing cupboard contains.

You Wish (sic)

Until tomorrow.

Nick

* I clearly resisted saying the specs would fit the eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg as that would be a literary allusion too far and fool no-one.