Tales of Minsk, plus a golden oldie from that fount of jokes, GTH

First of all, thanks to everyone who responded to my little plea yesterday. And if you were thinking of doing so but didn't get round to it, please do. All contributions gratefully received.

Enough of that. When I got to Minsk on Friday the greeting at the Visa office reminded me of my first visit to the old USSR 29 years ago, when the very idea that the customer might be right was anathema.

A deeply unpleasant little bureaucrat who clearly hadn't had sex with anything except unwashed domestic animals for many months told me that the document I produced was the wrong one, and I had to pay lots of money to come in and "this is very bad".

He was unmoved by the fact that the said turgid form was downloaded from their own consulate's website and there was a facsimile posted not twenty yards from where his skinny little arse was plonked. My worries (am I going straight back to London without making a speech?) only subsided when the lovely Olga Parkhimovich came in with some dollars to rescue me.

The first night was a drinks get-together chiefly notable for the astonishing quantities of brandy two local businessmen on my table managed to get through. It reminded me of Dr. Johnson's adage. "Claret is for boys, port is for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy".

The audience yesterday was amazingly enthusiastic, except for one or two professors from business schools who were furious because I always make marketing seem simple, when their entire racket is based on making it seem complicated. Neither of the two most famous business schools I have spoken at could promote or run a seminar properly. One I have been dealing with recently (allegedly one of the world's top three) can't even manage to arrange a meeting as far as I can see.

At a press conference yesterday someone asked what three pieces of advice I would give to local businessmen. I said: 1. Measure everything. 2. Ban meetings. 3. Never hire MBAs.

Someone asked me about the last bit, which I confess is a little extreme. I said, "Because they are taught to run things before they have done them."

But leaving that aside, here's an oldie my pal Glenmore sent me.

A father walks into a market with his young son. The kid is holding a 50 pence coin. Suddenly, the boy starts choking, going blue in the face.

The father realizes the boy has swallowed the coin and starts panicking, shouting for help. A well dressed, attractive, but serious-looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar in the market, reading her newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee.

At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down on the saucer, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the market.. Reaching the boy, the woman carefully takes hold of his testicles and starts to squeeze, gently at first and then ever more firmly.

After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the coin, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand. Releasing the boy, the woman hands the money to the father and walks back to her seat without saying a word.

As soon as he is sure his son has suffered no lasting ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic.. Are you a doctor?" No," the woman replies, "I work for the Income Tax."

I suspect that as we spend the next few years coughing up to pay for the Brooding Toad's awe-inspiring hubris and incompetence that little joke will take on a certain poignancy. And of course, the higher tax rates will themselves discourage entrepreneurship.

Am I the slowest, doziest direct marketer of all time?

If you've ever put off doing something you know you should have done, you'll understand what I'm about to confess to.

In 1984 when I was in Sydney, the head of the Australian Direct Marketing Association said “Why don’t you turn your Commonsense Direct Marketing book into a course?”

"Good idea", I said - and immediately did nothing.

So, 25 years and about 200,000 copies and five editions in 17 languages later I've got round to creating Drayton Bird’s Commonsense Marketing programme.

It's based not just on the book, but on my 101 helpful marketing ideas which some of you may get, my other books and everything I’ve learned wandering aimlessly around the world picking up ideas.

It’s basically an internet course, with a few twists you may like. I only hope a few people think it’s worth paying for.

Do you think it might interest you or your colleagues?

I’d love to know, because that helpful Australian was not the last to suggest the idea – quite a few others have since.

If you e-mail me at Drayton@draytonbird.com and say "maybe" I’ll tell you more - and there is a lot more, including monthly interviews with some of the world’s most successful marketers, and monthly seminars.

(Come to think of it, this little wheeze will give you a whole year’s good stuff on everything from why text messages may be the next big thing to how one man made £300 million from direct marketing – for less than you’d pay for one dreary chart and slogan-infested corporate seminar).

What do you think? The idea's not original - but the content will be, I promise you.

So just write back with the one word “Maybe” I’ll tell you more. But I won’t pester you.

Honest.

I'm off to Minsk in Belarus at some insane hour of the morning tomorrow, and my hostess Natalia says it will be my Golden Jubilee -- it'll be the 50th country I've spoken in.

Whoever would have thought it? Not me, for sure.

The man who never had a proper job

Those of you who live in foreign parts won't relate to this, but there was a controversy not long ago about whether the train robber Biggs should have been released from jail as it looked as though he would die of cancer.

The Home Secretary, a person called Jack Straw, overruled the decision of the parole board, whose chairman has just said that he was wrong, and "allowed politics to cloud his judgement."

This is among the funnier things I have read recently. Jack Straw has never done a proper day's work in his life but politics from the day he became head of the National Students Union. He has no way of making judgments other than politics. He has never had a real job.

Talking of which, the ability of those who run things to get things wrong never ceases to amaze and astound. On the one hand it is decided that a little boy who has spent all his life here and speaks nothing but English is to be sent to the Congo where they spend most of their time killing each other and speak French. The reasoning behind this heartless decision is almost certainly that he is black and "they" thought nobody would kick up a fuss.

On the other - as I commented the other day - a baby killer is sent home with £4,500 pocket money as some kind of thank you. Does anyone in charge ever apply commonsense?

I am currently reading Dickens' Little Dorrit - and am ashamed I never did before. In it a government department called the Circumlocution Office features heavily. Its purpose - which it pursues with prodigious skill - is "not to get things done" and to perpetuate injustice. How little Britain has changed since 1856! Remove the rest of the plot and you've got The Toad's Playground.

Here's the best thing I've read on typography in ages

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/on-web-typography/

Thanks, Michael Rhodes - who sends me a constant stream of good stuff.

Hey, folks, did I finally do a link properly? Am I useless, or what? No need to answer. Bring back quill and parchment!

Now why do you suppose nobody believes them?

Years ago I decorated an American Express committee that reviewed their financial services marketing. Fortunately for them someone far wiser was also involved - Lester Wunderman.

I always recall him commenting on constant discounting, "You are training your prospects to expect bribes".

This came to mind when I saw that despite the endless propaganda of those who run things, most British people think Global Warming is a load of old bollocks.

The reason is perfectly clear.

Gordon Brown, the Bliar, Cameron - and many of the others - are habitual, incessant, condescending, unrepentant, bare-faced liars. So any sane person must assume whatever they say is untrue. They lie about everything else. Why not this?

Anyhow, actions speak louder than words. If a smarmy oaf like Al Gore or a tax-dodger like Bono flies round the world in a private jet to tell you carbon emissions are killing the universe you have to assume they're as full of shit as Christmas turkeys.