Good advice, good food - and a little light music

Back in September my friend Rowan Gormley said a couple of things worth remembering in his hilarious talk at our EADIM seminar in Brussels.

1. Never fall for other people’s bullshit
2. Never fall for your own bullshit

The first comes in handy when some Iconic/Legendary/Superstar /Wunderkind (delete whichever doesn’t apply) promises all you have to do to get disgustingly rich while you sleep is buy a course/set of DVDs/be “mentored”/attend a seminar etc., etc.

The second comes in handy whenever you start feeling pleased with yourself, which happened to me in Warsaw this week. It was at the leading Polish business school, and apparently I got the biggest crowd they’d ever had.

This was not because of me – but because three students did a great marketing job. So I don’t feel that smug, but I do feel grateful. Thanks, Kamila, Rafal and (I never got the other name – shame on me).

Rowan, by the way, is the man who set up Virgin Money, Virgin Finance and Virgin Wines with Richard Branson. Besides being a brilliant speaker, like many good folk he is also an excellent copywriter. But I’m biased.

On an entirely different topic, yesterday my partner cooked an amazing meal. It is a speciality of Puglia: mussels with cannellini, tomatoes and garlic. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

Over dinner I heard a recording of Moody’s Mood for Love by Amy Winehouse. I was once very unkind about her in this confessional. I apologise. She may be a foolish, sad girl, but she sure can sing – and she knows her jazz.

Moody’s Mood is fiendishly difficult to do. I first heard it in 1964, sung by King Pleasure – a forgotten name who was one of the pioneers of vocalese – singing words to well-known jazz solos. Another great exponent is Annie Ross, of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross – incredibly, still singing in her mid seventies.

I will never forget when I was about 18 I went to hear her sing in the local dance hall in Ashton under Lyne. She sat and talked to me right through the interval when she wasn’t on. God, she was beautiful –and how kind to spend time with star-struck teenager.

Funny how thoughtful gestures like that stick with you all your life.