England, Service and Authenticity
I just got back from England, attending my aunt's 40th wedding anniversary.
I got the chance to put 100's of miles on a rental car(a hard task)visiting the remainder of the 92 professional soccer teams to highly touristic parts of the country, like Dagenham(where the Ford Fiesta used to be made), Bournemouth(scene of the Labour Party annual conference-terrible traffic), Morecambe(a tired old seaside town near the Lake District), Darlington(a notable railway junction), Hartlepool(where the townsfolk mistook a monkey for a Frenchman and hanged it), Hull(where the Germans practiced their bombing runs during World War II), Scunthorpe(an industrial town) and Coventry(another city devastated by German bombers, and some say never recovered).
I tell you all of this, because it's interesting to see the changes in my birth country year after year. In the last ten years, the UK has succumbed to "Mall Culture" killing downtowns all over. They said that the UK is the 51st state of the USA. When you see Showcase Cinemas, Burger King, Borders in massive malls, I have a tendency to agree...
I noted an absence of the kind of service you expect in the US, except for a fabulous butcher's in Helmsley in Yorkshire where I tried a delicious duck and chutney sandwich. The overall service experience led me to think about the necessity of supplying excellent service ALL the time. All I need to figure out is how...
In other notes, I have been fascinated by the concept of authenticity, both in terms of the product and the marketing. As I mention below, I am reading the The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, Law three of which states in order to gain power you need to conceal your intentions and set a smokescreen to conceal your intentions...I'll have to figure out how to make them co-exist...
My current reading list:
Minnesota by Greg Breining
Father/Land by Frederick Kempe
Brooklyn: A State of Mind edited by Michael Robbins and Wendy Palitz
Feel by Chris Heath
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Out of the Blue by Richard Bernstein
The Italians by Luigi Barzini
Cybill Disobedience by Cybill Shepherd
Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty by Harvey MacKay
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
Authenticity by James Gilmore and Joseph Pine
I got the chance to put 100's of miles on a rental car(a hard task)visiting the remainder of the 92 professional soccer teams to highly touristic parts of the country, like Dagenham(where the Ford Fiesta used to be made), Bournemouth(scene of the Labour Party annual conference-terrible traffic), Morecambe(a tired old seaside town near the Lake District), Darlington(a notable railway junction), Hartlepool(where the townsfolk mistook a monkey for a Frenchman and hanged it), Hull(where the Germans practiced their bombing runs during World War II), Scunthorpe(an industrial town) and Coventry(another city devastated by German bombers, and some say never recovered).
I tell you all of this, because it's interesting to see the changes in my birth country year after year. In the last ten years, the UK has succumbed to "Mall Culture" killing downtowns all over. They said that the UK is the 51st state of the USA. When you see Showcase Cinemas, Burger King, Borders in massive malls, I have a tendency to agree...
I noted an absence of the kind of service you expect in the US, except for a fabulous butcher's in Helmsley in Yorkshire where I tried a delicious duck and chutney sandwich. The overall service experience led me to think about the necessity of supplying excellent service ALL the time. All I need to figure out is how...
In other notes, I have been fascinated by the concept of authenticity, both in terms of the product and the marketing. As I mention below, I am reading the The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, Law three of which states in order to gain power you need to conceal your intentions and set a smokescreen to conceal your intentions...I'll have to figure out how to make them co-exist...
My current reading list:
Minnesota by Greg Breining
Father/Land by Frederick Kempe
Brooklyn: A State of Mind edited by Michael Robbins and Wendy Palitz
Feel by Chris Heath
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Out of the Blue by Richard Bernstein
The Italians by Luigi Barzini
Cybill Disobedience by Cybill Shepherd
Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty by Harvey MacKay
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
Authenticity by James Gilmore and Joseph Pine
posted by warwick at
2:13 PM
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