My Mini Cooper Negotiation: Strategists Don’t Necessarily Cut the Best Deals

I’d never bought a new car before. Nonetheless I was feeling flush, and I had always wanted a Mini Cooper. The elegant design, the compact, playful personality, all those associations with the Swinging Sixties, the Beatles, the Italian Job.

I’d spotted a classic example in the window of Stratstone Rover in Soho. It was in British racing green, and had a white roof and white stripes on the bonnet. I was smitten.

As I entered the dealership, I was approached by a charming young man in a suit.

‘Are you looking at anything in particular, sir?’

‘Well, yes actually. I’d like to purchase that Mini Copper in the window please.’

‘Beautiful, isn’t it, sir? And it just so happens that that car is available.’

He quoted me a figure. I hesitated. I’m not a car person, but I vaguely remembered conversations in the pub about always negotiating a better price.

‘Can you do me a deal on that?’ I asked nervously.

The salesman looked a little challenged. He perhaps realised he had a serious haggler on his hands.

‘Hold on one moment, sir. I’ll have to talk to my manager.’

He disappeared for a short while, and I began to wonder if I was being troublesome.

The salesman returned.

‘I’ve spoken to my manager, sir, and there is something we can do. We’ll throw in a walnut-look dashboard and a Union Jack gear knob – completely free of charge.’   

‘Oh, excellent. Thank you very much. Great. I’m in.’

And so we continued to the salesman’s office, and I paid full list-price for the Mini-Cooper – with a walnut-look dashboard and a Union Jack gear knob completely free of charge.

In my time at the Agency, I’d like to think that I was of some value - in making observations about changing consumer culture, in developing long term plans for Client brands, in writing briefs that pointed creatives in the right direction. But I would not claim to have been the toughest negotiator. 

Sales is a skill I have always respected, not least because it’s one in which I was so lacking. Strategists don’t necessarily cut the best deals.

Neat, nippy, and nimble, over the years my Mini Cooper gave me a great amount of pleasure. Sometimes uncomfortable, occasionally temperamental, but always enjoyable, it was like driving a go-kart round London. Other Cooper drivers winked their headlamps at us when we passed. And on long journeys, we would wind the windows down and sing along to ‘Birdland’ by Weather Report. 

What price happiness?

'This is the self-preservation society,
This is the self-preservation society.
Go wash your German bands, your boat race too.
Comb your barnet fair, we've got alot to do.
Put on your dickie dirt and your Peckham Rye.
'Cause time's soon hurrying by.
Get your skates on mate.
Get your skates on mate.
No bib around your Gregory Peck today, eh?
Drop your plates of meat right up on the seat.
This is the self-preservation society,
This is the self-preservation society.’

'Get a Bloomin' Move On!’ (Q Jones / D Black)

No. 542

Blitz: The Art of Cultural Commentary

Photo Sheila Rock

‘From half-spoken shadows emerges a canvas. A kiss of light breaks to reveal a moment when all mirrors are redundant. Listen to the portrait of the dance of perfection. The Spandau Ballet.’
Excerpt from poem introducing Spandau Ballet on-stage, Robert Elms

I recently visited a splendid exhibition mapping the story of London’s Blitz club. (The Design Museum, London until 29 March 2026)

For eighteen months between 1979 and ‘80, this intimate Tuesday night event, held in a World War 2-themed wine bar on Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, was the vortex of a thriving creative community that embraced fashion and music, film, art and design. It was the spiritual birthplace of the New Romantic movement. 

'One man on a lonely platform,
One case sitting by his side.
Two eyes staring cold and silent,
Shows fear as he turns to hide.
Aaah, we fade to grey (fade to grey)
Feel the rain like an English summer,
Hear the notes from a distant song.
Stepping out from a back shop poster,
Wishing life wouldn't be so long.
Aaah, we fade to grey (fade to grey).’
Visage, 'Fade to Grey’ (M Ure / C J Payne / W Currie)

Spandau Ballet, 1980 - Graham Smith

Publicised by word of mouth, the Blitz was co-hosted by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan - Strange enforcing a strict dress code at the door, Egan mixing art rock and electro-disco on the dance floor. 

Since the Blitz was located between the Central and St Martin's Schools of Art, it attracted an inventive, style-conscious crowd. Combining vintage finds from second-hand charity stores, with pieces from theatrical costumiers and their own flamboyant designs, the Blitz Kids displayed bags of sartorial individualism and ingenuity. They embraced frills, ruffles and high-waisted trousers; androgynous make-up, elaborate hairdos and ostentatious hats. Their eclectic, fantastical outfits looked both backwards to the past and forwards to the future, evoking Weimar nightlife and the Golden Age of Hollywood; pirates, Pierrots, Bohemians and dandies.

‘[Fashion] is irrelevant – style is all important.’
Robert Elms

‘I can’t stand people who wear pound notes – money is no substitute for confidence.’
Christos Tolera

‘I hate the High Street and suppression of individuality.’
Christopher Sullivan

Boy George - Andy Rosen

The show plots how the Blitz scene was born out of the economic and political turmoil of late 1970s Britain. Drawn from working class council estates and lower middle-class suburbs, the regulars took advantage of cheap rents and squats in central London; free university tuition and late-night buses. Kicking against drab consumerism and conventional youth culture, they were inspired by the restless creativity of David Bowie; by the experimentation of European avant-garde cinema and the sedition of punk; by the glamour of the soul scene and the transgression of drag acts and cabaret. 

‘I feel the gaze against my skin,
I know this feeling is a lie.
There's a guilt within my mind,
I know this feeling is a lie.
I don't need this pressure on.
I don't need this pressure on.’
Spandau Ballet, 'Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)’ (G Kemp)

The Blitz launched the careers of many musicians, including Spandau Ballet, Visage and Boy George (who was employed there as a cloakroom attendant). Influenced by Kraftwerk’s electronic sound, working with affordable synthesizers, innovative drum machines and reel-to-reel tape recorders, they created a futuristic brand of British synthpop. And while the music played, the clubbers - serious expressions on their faces, elbows pumping at their sides - engaged in their own jerky, metronomic dance. Like marionettes vogueing.

Marilyn 1982 - Robert Rosen

The Blitz catalysed new media vehicles, such as i-D magazine, and spawned a long list of designers, artists, filmmakers and writers - from couture milliner Stephen Jones and costume designer Michele Clapton, to DJ and fashion writer Princess Julia and broadcaster Robert Elms. 

‘I’d find people at The Blitz who were possible only in my imagination. But they were real.’
Stephen Jones

I was particularly impressed by the curation of this exhibition (by Danielle Thom) – the way it isolated source influences and trends; critical figures, disciplines and dimensions; far-reaching impacts and effects. This kind of granular cultural commentary, with its neat charts and flow diagrams, can sometimes seem too well ordered. In reality, history is inevitably a little more messy. But the approach really helps understanding. It’s one from which all Strategists could learn.

Chronology - Photo Jim Carroll

In mid-1980, David Bowie visited the Blitz and invited Strange and three other regulars to appear in the video for his single ‘Ashes to Ashes.’ This elegant circularity helped propel the New Romantic movement into the mainstream. 

I was too young to go the club (not that I’d have been let in), but old enough to comprehend its consequences. As with many such movements, in time New Romanticism became somewhat commercial and overblown; elitist, pretentious and absurd. But in its pomp, the Blitz clearly had something special: boundless creative energy and ideas; relentless optimism and youthful positivity. And it provided precious glamour to dispel the gloom. 

'Soldier is turning,
See him through white light.
Running from strangers,
See you in the valley.
War upon war,
Heat upon heat.
To cut a long story short,
I lost my mind.
Sitting on a park bench,
Years away from fighting.
To cut a long story short,
I lost my mind.
Standing in the dark,
Oh, I was waiting for man to come.
I am beautiful and clean,
And so very very young.
To be standing in the street,
To be taken by someone.’
Spandau Ballet, 'To Cut a Long Story Short’ (G Kemp)

No. 541

The Very Pleasant Man: The Challenge of Working in the Persuasion Business

 Norman Rockwell - Doctor and Boy Looking at Thermometer. 1954

After a recent visit to the doctor, he sent me a letter summarising how things stood.

He began with a few notes on the basic medical facts.

‘Jim Carroll is 61 and reasonably fit. He is 5 foot 11 and weighs 220 pounds. Blood group A+. Non-smoker.’

The report continued with various observations about my gammy leg. And then it added a statement that caught my eye.

‘Jim is a very pleasant man.’

I looked up from the breakfast table and called my wife over.

‘Listen to this. According to my doctor’s assessment, ‘Jim is a very pleasant man.’ That’s a scientific fact, indisputable, an objective truth. It’s ‘exactly medically accurate’. It must be in my DNA or something. I am a very pleasant man.’ 

I’m not sure my wife was impressed.

I reflected that it would be nice to work in a profession where opinions carry such weight; where the audience is predisposed to accept them as fact.

Long gone are the days when ad agencies’ perspectives on brands, consumers and communication were taken as definitive. Our analyses are often greeted with weary scepticism. Our proposals tend to be taken with a pinch of salt.

And so we are obliged to construct compelling arguments, to substantiate and exemplify. We must coax and convince, charm and seduce.

We are in the persuasion business. The persuasion starts with bringing our colleagues onside. Then we must persuade out clients. And finally we must persuade consumers.   

So being ‘very pleasant’ can come in handy.

'Now I'd be the last to deny,
That I'm just an average guy.
And don't you know, each little bird in the sky
Is just a little bit freer than I.
Ordinary Joe, people say you’re just a lazy so and so.
What they think is real,
Is nothing but an animated puppet show.
So don’t let time and space confuse you,
Don’t let name and form abuse you.
Let Big Joe Williams blues you.
In the light of the sun you can see how they run.
I’ve seen a sparrow get high,
And waste his time in the sky.
And don't you know,
He thinks it’s easy to fly,
He’s just little bit freer than I.’

Terry Callier, ‘Ordinary Joe'

No. 540

Folkestone Triennial: Art and Inspiration Are Everywhere, All Around Us

Photo: Mike Eggers ©

I recently travelled with The Americans down on the train to Folkestone. The seaside town has been hosting its Triennial, a large-scale outdoor celebration of contemporary art. This year the festival showcases work by 18 artists from 15 different countries. (Until 19 October)

Greeted at the station by a mural declaring ‘Folkestone is an art school,’ we took the walking tour through sleepy side streets, past brightly coloured shops and houses, past the tallest brick railway viaduct in Europe. Map in hand, we paused to locate a series of gilded models of fishing boats on poles, five water towers, and a shell sculpture; a three-headed bird, a large cheerful lightbulb painted on the curved side of a building, a miniature holiday home located awkwardly on the beach. We found the ‘Whithervane,’ a machine artpiece that monitors alarmist internet newsfeeds, pointing to their geographical source. The works were varied, charming, curious, eccentric. Some of them riffed on the town’s leisure, fishing and military past. Some took up current issues such as water pollution and the plight of refugees. 

Tracey Emin has placed small bronze casts of a baby’s toy and clothes at various locations around the town - by a station bench, on a kerb, beside a flower bed - poignant reminders of the challenges facing hard-up young mothers. Searching for one of the pieces by a school railing, we came across a real baby’s solitary woollen mitten.

From the lofty churchyard, we looked out across the silvery sea below, as a vintage steam packet sailed by. We wandered past palm trees, the Churchill Club offering pool, darts and social, the Party Bar open ’til 3 AM, the Pretty Good Café. We stepped out of the rain for a drink in a carpeted pub, and dined on battered cod cheeks and chips in a friendly restaurant on the Harbour Arm. We stopped at Folkestone Harbour Railway Station, where, in the First World War, countless troops disembarked for the journey to Flanders. It was dubbed ‘the gateway to the trenches.’ Nearby, on the shoreline, stood one of Antony Gormley’s life-size cast-iron human figures. 

‘Each work is necessarily isolated, and is an attempt to bear witness to what it is like to be alive, alone in space and time.’
Antony Gormley

As we searched the townscape for art exhibits, I found myself mistakenly staring at a satellite dish, a stainless-steel beer barrel and an overflowing skip; a security camera and two men power-washing a distant roof. There was a red dress hanging from a tree. Art and inspiration seemed everywhere, all around us. And perhaps that was the point.

Above the old post office on Tontine Street, we spotted a large neon sign proclaiming: ‘Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.’ A nod perhaps to Folkestone’s popularity with retirees. I recalled the late ‘70s Talking Heads song ‘Heaven,’ which the artwork is quoting. When I was young, I couldn’t think of anything worse than a place where nothing happens. Now that I’m older and the world seems so turbulent, inertia does sound rather heavenly.

'Everyone is trying to get to the bar.
The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven.
The band in Heaven, they play my favorite song.
Play it one more time, play it all night long.
Heaven,
Heaven is the place.
A place where nothing,
Nothing ever happens.
There is a party, everyone is there.
Everyone will leave at exactly the same time.
When this party's over, it will start again.
Will not be any different, will be exactly the same.
Heaven,
Heaven is a place,
A place where nothing,
Nothing ever happens.’
Talking Heads, ‘Heaven’ (D Byrne / J Harrison)

No. 539

United in Dreams, Divided by Realities

William Dobell - Young Man Sleeping , 1935

‘All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
Leo Tolstoy, ‘Anna Karenina’

I read recently about a study into the brain activity of optimists and pessimists. (Kaya Burgess, The Times, 21 July 2025. Full report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.)

Japanese researchers recruited 87 respondents with predispositions ranging from sunny optimism to grim pessimism. The subjects were fitted with equipment that recorded their brain activity through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). They were then asked to imagine themselves or their partners experiencing various future scenarios. These included positive events, such as taking a trip around the world; neutral events, such as submitting their CV for a job application; and negative events, such as being diagnosed with a serious illness.

The researchers found that participants who scored highly for optimism displayed very similar patterns of neural activity. Pessimists, however, exhibited a much wider, more diverse, idiosyncratic, range of brain activity.

‘Optimistic individuals consistently exhibit convergent neural representations, reflecting shared patterns of episodic future thinking, whereas less optimistic individuals demonstrate increased variability.’

In short, as The Times put it, 'optimists are on the same wavelength, but no two pessimists are alike.'

This study prompted me to reflect on my own experiences developing communication strategies across different sectors, target groups and geographies.

It is often noted that brands can achieve intimate connections with consumers by reflecting nuanced insight into the particular realities of their everyday lives; that winning campaigns are characterised by well observed, granular analysis of the challenges that ordinary people face. This is true. But when one is advertising big brands over broad territories, it is harder to find unifying behaviours and beliefs. Cultures and communities differ so dramatically. 

Nonetheless, diverse consumer groups do tend to share the same general hopes and dreams for the future: for romance, freedom and independence; for trust, security and wellbeing; for friendship, family and community. And so the ambitious international advertiser is wise to focus on aspiration: fundamental desires, shared yearnings, unifying goals.

As we used to say back then: we are united in dreams, but divided by realities. 

'Don't let the sun catch you crying.
The night's the time for all your tears.
Your heart may be broken tonight,
But tomorrow in the morning light
Don't let the sun catch you crying.
The night time shadows disappear
And with them go all your tears.
For the morning will bring joy
For every girl and boy.
So don't let the sun catch you crying.’

Gerry and the Pacemakers, 'Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying’ (G Marsden, F Marsden, L Chadwick, L Maguire) 

No.538

Sargent’s Heiresses: In Generalising, We Should Not Lose Sight of People’s Individuality

John Singer Sargent - Mary Crowninshield Endicott Chamberlain (1902)

I recently visited a small exhibition of John Singer Sargent’s portraits of American heiresses. (‘Heiress’ is at Kenwood, London until 5 October.) 

‘I thoroly [sic] dislike…these international marriages…which are not even matches of esteem and liking, but which are based upon the sale of the girl for her money and the purchase of the man for his title.’
Theodore Roosevelt, 1906

Between 1870 and 1914, 102 American women married into the British peerage, and many more into the upper classes. Sargent, who was himself an American, painted more than thirty of them. Most were post-marriage and in their twenties. 

The heiresses were admired for their beauty, style, wit and intelligence. They were often sporty - riding, hunting, fishing and playing golf. They immersed themselves in British life, joining charitable institutions, overseeing the restoration of the great country houses. During the First World War many worked for the Red Cross.

However, establishment figures on both sides of the Atlantic spoke out against the marriages. The ‘dollar princesses’ were characterised as ‘sad poachers,’ the British peers as feckless fools.

‘There is always a British title going a-begging – always some decayed or degenerative or semi-drunken peer, whose fortunes are on the verge of black ruin, ready and willing to devour, monster-like… an American virgin, provided bags of bullion are flung, with her, into his capacious maw.’
Marie Corelli, 1905

John Singer Sargent - 'Mrs. Wilton Phipps', 1884

As the Kenwood curators point out, there was a good deal of stereotyping and misogyny at play here. 

‘Stereotyping usually involves people of a different nationality, social class, or gender, but the American heiress stereotype embraces all three.’
Maureen Montgomery, ‘Gilded Prostitution’ (1989)

The exhibition endeavours to set the record straight, by accompanying each of Sargent’s portraits with a miniature biography of the sitter. 

What emerges is a compelling cast of distinctive characters.

Margaret Leiter, Countess of Suffolk, drove fast cars and had her own plane and helicopter. Grace Hinds, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, had a relationship with Sir Oswald Mosley, who was also the lover of all three of her stepdaughters. When Eloise Breese, Countess of Ancaster, ended her affair with Lord Londonderry, she sent all his presents back in a sack. Consuelo Yznaga del Valle, Duchess of Manchester, smoked cigars and played Louisiana folk songs on her banjo.

‘Oh! I am a true American in my love for everything bright and cheerful about me… I can’t bear darkness and gloom, I like sunshine and light, and plenty of both!’ 
Consuelo Yznaga del Valle, 1891

John Singer Sargent - Nancy Witcher Langhorne, Viscountess Astor (1908)

Many of the heiresses had singular talents and used their position for the benefit of others. Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, working as a Councillor for Southwark, secured a minimum wage for women in ‘sweated’ trades. Adele Grant, Countess of Essex, was a vegetarian activist. Pauline Astor, a noted gardener, developed new strains of rhododendrons and azaleas. Nancy Langhorne, Viscountess Astor, became the first woman to take her seat as an MP, and campaigned for women’s issues, and against unemployment and alcohol. 

‘I know what I am talking about, and you must remember that women have got a vote now and we mean to use it, and use it wisely, not for the benefit of any section of society, but for the benefit of the whole.’
Viscountess Astor, maiden speech in the House of Commons, 1920

The ‘Heiress’ exhibition may give commercial strategists pause for thought. We are in the business of segmenting and categorising audiences. We make assumptions and take overviews. We simplify, summarise and abstract. But in so doing, we should never lose sight of the fact that, at the heart of our analyses, reside unique human beings, with their own quite distinct behaviours and beliefs; their own very particular lives.

In generalising, we should not lose sight of people’s individuality.

'I don't want to ball about like everybody else,
And I don't want to live my life like everybody else,
And I won't say that I feel fine like everybody else.
'Cause I'm not like everybody else.
I'm not like everybody else.
But darling, you know that I love you true,
I'd do anything that you want me to,
Confess all my sins like you want me to,
There's one thing that I will say to you:
I'm not like everybody else.
I'm not like everybody else.’

The Kinks, 'I'm Not Like Everybody Else’ (R Davies)

No. 537

The Double Denim Marketing Meeting: Can a Corporation Be Original?

Through the ‘90s and ‘00s, I attended many meetings of European Levi’s clients as a representative of their advertising agency, BBH. At these events the senior executives would generally demonstrate their commitment to the brand by sporting a selection of workwear – bleached jeans, checked or chambray shirts, trucker jackets - perhaps finishing off their outfits with an ornate brass belt-buckle. It was like a marketing meeting crossed with a rodeo. 

Only the Italian delegation broke with this sartorial strategy. Whilst happy to sell denim to young consumers, they did not regard it as appropriate corporate attire. And so they turned up at the international conferences in elegant slacks, smart shirts and sports jackets. I rather admired their independent spirit.

I recall a particular exchange with the most senior Italian executive, Tullio, a dapper silver-haired gentleman, who always had a cashmere sweater casually slung over his shoulders.

The agency had been presenting an argument that Levi’s, as the creator of the original jean, the 501, should sustain its primacy in the category by continuing to originate. Only through ongoing innovation, we argued, could the brand maintain its sector dominance.

Tullio objected. He could not comprehend our reasoning.

‘I’m sorry. But Levi’s is a huge American corporation. It can be many things. It can be efficient, dynamic, in touch with trends. It can be successful. But it cannot be original. To be original you need an exceptional talent, a unique individual.’

He raised his hands in an expressive gesture.

‘You need a genius… like Georgio Armani.’

I have always thought that Tullio was posing a compelling question: can a modern business, with all its complex processes, disciplines and hierarchies; with all its sophisticated systems, checks and balances, genuinely innovate? 

We all celebrate innovation as the magical ingredient of commerce – the factor that sets a business apart, that gives it a competitive edge, that builds the foundations for future growth. But innovation is hard to cultivate. It can be inconsistent and temperamental; unruly and unpredictable. It requires investment and patience, and the empowerment of free-thinking mavericks; of troublesome, independent creative talent. 

Originality is more than just a set of clothes you put on in the morning.

'Girl, put your records on.
Tell me your favourite song,
You go ahead, let your hair down.
Sapphire and faded jeans,
I hope you get your dreams.
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.’

Corinne Bailey-Rae, 'Put Your Records On’ (J Beck / S Chrisanthou / C Bailey-Rae)

No. 536

Millet: The Dignity of Labour

Millet - The Angelus. 1857-1859

I recently attended a small, one-room exhibition of the art of Jean-Francois Millet. (‘Life on the Land’ is at The National Gallery, London, until 19 October.)

Born in Normandy in 1814, into a prosperous farming family, Millet helped work the fields as a child. Having studied painting in Cherbourg and Paris, in 1849 he moved to the village of Barbizon. At a time when people were deserting the country for cities and factories, he celebrated the industry and integrity of the rural peasantry. 

Millet - The Sower 1814 - 1875

In a gloomy barn, a winnower shakes a wide, shallow basket, to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the moonlight, a milkmaid steadies herself, as she carries a copper pitcher, secured to her shoulder by a leather strap. On a bleak hillside, a sower stumbles across a field, throwing grain from his heavy sack. Two sawyers toil in harmony, facing each other across an imposing tree trunk. A line of women stoops under their hefty loads of faggots. An exhausted goose girl rests her head on her staff, ignoring the honking birds at her feet. A barefooted shepherdess, propping herself against a tree, directs a wistful gaze towards us from under her hood.

Millet rarely used posed models, instead working from quick life sketches. Faces were not painted in detail. Character was conveyed through physicality, posture and bearing; through stretch and strain, twist and turn. These realistic, unsentimental images suggest quiet resolution, silent dignity.

Millet - Norman Milkmaid. 1871

The star of the show is 'The Angelus,' created in 1859. It’s sunset, and, as the Angelus bell chimes in a distant church, a husband and wife set aside their fork, cart and basket of potatoes, and stand in the fields with their heads bowed. He, in a teal jacket and clogs, has removed his black felt cap; she, wearing a blue apron and yellow headscarf, clasps her hands in prayer.

‘The idea for ‘The Angelus’ came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor dead, very piously and hat in hand.’

Jean-Francois Millet

Millet - THe Goose Girl at Gruchy. 1854-6

Nowadays we understandably expect employment to be challenging, fun, inspiring. We want careers where we can learn, develop and grow. And yet, at a fundamental level, work offers purpose, meaning, identity; a feeling of fulfilment as an individual, and a sense of belonging to society. 

We should remember the inherent dignity of labour.

'Oh, I'm out here trying to make it,
Woman can't you see?
It takes a lot of money to make it,
Let's talk truthfully.
So keep your love light burning,
Oh, you've gotta have a little faith.
You might as well get used to me
Coming home a little late.
Oh, I got work to do
I got a job baby.
I got work to do.
I got work to do.
I'm taking care of business, woman can't you see?
I gotta make it for you, I gotta make it for me.
Don't wanna make you feel I'm neglecting you,
I'd love to spend more time, 
But I got so many things to do.
Oh, I got work to do
I got work baby.
I got a job baby.
I got work to do, everybody's got work to do.’

The Isley Brothers, ‘Work To Do’ (O'kelly Isley / Ronald Isley / Rudolph Isley)

No. 535 

Good Night, Oscar: Where Is the Line and When Do You Cross It?

Sean Hayes and Rosalie Craig as Oscar and June Levant in 'Good Night, Oscar'

‘It’s not what you are; it’s what you don’t become that hurts.’
Oscar Levant

Doug Wright’s splendid play ‘Good Night, Oscar’ (The Barbican Theatre, London until 21 September) considers (in Wright’s words) ‘the thin line between entertainment and exploitation; the cost of entertainment to the individual; censorship and what constitutes acceptable humour in our increasingly tender age.’

Oscar: What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.

It’s 1958 and Jack Paar, the smooth-talking host of NBC’s The Tonight Show, is asked by studio executive Bob Sarnoff to defend his decision to invite Oscar Levant as a guest. Levant is an accomplished pianist, composer and raconteur. But he is also unreliable, irascible and outspoken.

Jack: Folks are in bed, watching the TV screen through their feet, and Oscar jolts them awake. They know he’s a goddamn lion, and all I’ve got is a whip and a cane-back chair. And for that they’re willing to pay five hundred bucks for a twenty-one inch Zenith, and go to work groggy every morning. All in the hope that they’ll catch him saying something on television they know damn well that you can’t say on television. That’s the moment no one wants to miss.

When we meet Levant, we discover a morose man, with poor posture and shabby clothes. A superstitious hypochondriac, prone to mood swings and addicted to pills, he suffers obsessive compulsive disorder, and has a ritualised way of smoking a cigarette and preparing coffee. He is always in search of ‘a new audience for old stories.’

 Oscar: Underneath this flabby exterior, there’s an enormous lack of character.

We also learn that Levant has recently been committed by his wife June to the Mount Sinai mental health facility, and that he’s only been released today on a four-hour pass.

Oscar: She’s a cunning woman, my wife. She drove me crazy, then had me committed. Talk about your perfect crimes… 

Jack Paar hosting The Tonght Show

When a sceptical Sarnoff asks Levant to sketch out the interview in advance of the show, Levant is incensed.

Oscar: You’re gonna kill the one thing you’ve got going for you? Spontaneity?

Sarnoff explains that some themes are out of bounds.

Bob: There are just a few topics we’d like you to avoid – the same ones you’d avoid at, say, a dinner party.`
Oscar: I don’t go to dinner parties…I don’t like it when people watch me eat.

Sarnoff perseveres, and contends that a chat show should not take viewers by surprise, shock them, or make them uncomfortable.

Oscar: You know what people do when they’re surprised, uncomfortable and shocked?...They laugh.

Finally, for complete clarity, Sarnoff demands that Levant steers clear of politics, religion and sex.

Oscar: You just took the whole world off the table!...What else is there? Take away the big three, there’s nothing left. What’re we gonna joke about? The weather?... 

At length Parr and Levant embark on the interview, and, perhaps inevitably, Levant ignores all the warnings, and cracks jokes about politics, religion and sex.

Oscar: You know what a politician is, don’t you? A man who’ll double cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Oscar: We have a great deal in common, [my wife] and I. Neither of us can stand me… I asked her once if she’d ever divorce me. ”Nah,” she told me. “I’m a good Catholic. I’d murder you instead.”

Oscar: Oh, sex is a topic I can’t resist. I’ve been married for nineteen years, so I’m very nostalgic about it.

After the show, as the recriminations fly, it’s left to Levant’s wife to point out that culpability does not entirely reside with Levant.

June: You don’t book a zebra and then bitch about its stripes. My husband makes people laugh. But laughter’s not innocent, Mr Sarnoff; don’t pretend it is, because that’s a lie. It always comes at a cost. To someone.

Oscar and June Levant

We in the world of commercial communication may recognise the themes explored in ‘Good Night, Oscar’. On the one hand, we don’t want to disturb or upset our audiences. And we are bound to be ‘legal, decent, honest, and truthful.’ On the other hand, we aim to cut through: to earn attention, admiration, affection, recall.

It’s incredibly difficult for Clients and Account Teams to draw the line: to define the parameters of what is acceptable. And while Creatives may not actively seek to cross that line, they will understandably endeavour to dance on it.

Oscar: Analyzing a joke, it’s like dissecting a frog. When you take it apart, you find out what it’s made of, but you kill it in the process.

I’m not sure this is an area where rigid distinctions and literal limitations help that much. Ultimately, what is called for is taste and judgement; an appreciation of where culture is right now; and a commitment to  truth.

Oscar: The best jokes? The ones worth tellin’? They’re dangerous on account’a they tell the truth.

'If I expected love when first we kissed,
Blame it on my youth.
If only just for you I did exist,
Blame it on my youth.
I believed in everything,
Like a child of three.
You meant more than anything,
All the world to me.
If you were on my mind all night and day,
Blame it on my youth.
If I forgot to eat and sleep and pray,
Blame it on my youth.
And if I cried a little bit when first I learned the truth,
Don't blame it on my heart,
Blame it on my youth.
Nat King Cole, ‘Blame It On My Youth’ (O Levant / E Heyman)

No. 534

Zambian Chimpanzees with Grass in Their Ears: Stop Making Sense

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen et al / Animal Cognition

I read recently (Rhys Blakely, The Times, 9 July 2025) that Zambian chimpanzees have taken to placing blades of grass in their ears. This practice seems to have no practical purpose. It’s just a fashionable trend or fad.

Dr Jake Brooker of Durham University, co-author of a study published in the journal Behaviour, commented:

‘This isn’t about cracking nuts or fishing for termites. It’s more like chimpanzee fashion. It mirrors how human cultural fads spread: someone starts doing something, others copy it, and it becomes part of the group identity, even if it serves no clear purpose -  and even if it’s sometimes uncomfortable.’

The chimpanzees with grass in their ears were observed in one tightly bonded group at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage. As juveniles they had been rescued from the illegal pet trade, and their time in captivity may account for their modish behaviour.

‘They don’t have to stay as alert or spend as much time searching for food. That may give them more cognitive room for play, experimentation and copying each other.’
Dr Edwin van Leeuwen, Utrecht University

The grass-in-the-ear trend is in fact a revival. It was first seen more than a decade ago among a separate group at the Chimfunshi refuge. The best fashions - like smocks, white socks and doing your top button up - always come back.

Chimpanzees have often been seen engaging in seemingly pointless activities – such as throwing rocks at trees, or creating collections of stones. In east Africa chimps have been recorded drumming with syncopated jazz beats (whereas in west Africa they prefer a 4/4 rock rhythm).

And it’s not just monkeys that are fond of fashion. Orcas living in the Pacific Northwest were recently observed wearing ‘salmon hats’: swimming around with dead fish on their heads.

Such eccentric behaviours may not have a functional survival benefit. But they could still have a purpose. Researchers have observed that they enable self-expression and strengthen social bonds. Shared rituals signal membership of the group.

Those of us working in the communication business should be mindful of this. Our strategies tend to assume that consumers are entirely sensible, practical, predictable. 

The truth is we all do daft things. Our behaviour is often inconsistent, illogical, absurd. 

‘It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.’
Anatole France

Sometimes we need to stop making sense.

'Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street.
From my window I'm staring while my coffee goes cold.
Look over there (where?)
There, there's a lady that I used to know.
She's married now, or engaged, or something, so I am told.
Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
Because if my eyes don't deceive me
There's something going wrong around here.’

Joe Jackson, 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?'

No. 533