Five Loaves, Two Fishes and Six Chicken Nuggets

by Barry Gibbons

  Luncheon was the meal for business – and notice it is luncheon, not lunch. This was not a rushed affair, and due process was rigorously observed on a number of fronts. The venue had to be away from prying eyes, preferably a private club where occasional indiscretions were gently rubbed with vanishing cream. It would start around 1.00 p.m., and no business was discussed before 4.00 p.m. Then, it was all concluded quickly, hands were shaken, and God help anybody who went back on his word. Luncheon was also the first proving ground of an astonishing mathematical phenomenon: half a bottle of wine is perfect for one, but a full bottle is not quite enough for two.

  The late afternoon saw the dictation of a letter or two back at the office, with the frugal accompaniment only of hot tea and a selection of cakes. Cocktails began promptly at 7.30 p.m., and a curtain came down – no more business affairs would be aired through that or dinner.

  The ‘Big Bang’ changed it all. That was when London went all high-tech and 24/7. The equivalent executive today has a breakfast of wheatgerm extract while running on a treadmill, sending and receiving e-mails on something called a BlackBerry, swallowing vitamins and watching his – or her – Bloomberg screen. And it is still only 5.00 a.m. Said executive may not eat again until late evening, when he/she regroups with a bunch of stressed-out peers around an organic (and team-bonding) vegetarian pizza. Caffeine is forbidden after 11.30 a.m., and the idea of wine with anything would send our hero/heroine into a three-month course of counselling.

  Somewhere in this transition, I moved to America – and a whole new set of variables was introduced to my confused digestive system. In 1990, having just arrived in the United States, I sat opposite a young (male) executive in a New York deli. The time was about 11.00 a.m. – neither one thing nor the other. He ordered a chopped liver sandwich. It arrived, and it was about six inches thick. To my dying day I will never forget the horror of him eating it across the table from me. Slowly, like a reticulated python, he unhinged his lower jaw, and swallowed it whole. I swear I could see the whole shape of it as it headed down his gullet.

  The changing habits of business eating have happened in the States in parallel with Europe, but our analysis of them must factor in two unique-to-Uncle-Sam elements, namely size and speed. Rule Number One is that good equals big, and a well-received meal in the US is still one you can’t see over. To this day, I have nightmares about the amount of food ordered and left uneaten.

  Speed is the other unique factor (that is, speed as in quick service). In Europe, it can take one hundred years to get a garden lawn to its first stage of acceptability. A game of cricket between two countries can take five days, during which the players stop for lunch and tea each day. England now boasts an official ‘Slow Food’ movement. We like things slow.

  Sadly, however, nowadays we are all much the same in our executive lives and habits. True, the Italians and French have defended a proper lunch, but most of us have changed with the demands of the times, and most of us are influenced by American-led habits and brands such as Starbucks.

  Today, my breakfast is All Bran, and skimmed milk. I don’t do luncheon – I eat lunch or brunch, and have no alcohol. But now and again, the rebel in me rears up and I clear the decks for the afternoon and evening, and get tucked in. I hit Joe Allen’s at 1.00 p.m., and head for my train about 5.30 p.m., frequently getting lost on the way back to the station. I attempt to read London’s evening paper, until I realise that it is upside down and give up the ghost. Sure, I pay for it the morning after, but I can see from here you are all jealous.

  And that’s not all I can see. My toes have disappeared. I must head for land.

  11. Taking to the streets

  The plan is working all right, but I am paying a personal price.

  As you know (and I’d like you to keep it to yourselves as much as possible), for some years now I have enjoyed a not-insubstantial monthly retainer, which has been paid into my Swiss bank account on behalf of one of the more notorious Chinese gangs.

  The plan is to undermine most, if not all, Western governments and their lackey ‘global’ brands, so that, when the Great Day arrives, they will have been weakened and will be capable of less resistance. I have been recording notable success. As I said, however, I am paying a price. I made my mark on all the recent summit meetings of the G8 and the heads of Western democracies, and so far I have totted up a broken leg, five broken ribs, and pepper-spray burns (Seattle); a cracked skull, one lost eye, and nine broken fingers (Scotland); and I am still recovering from the bruising and the rubber-bullet wounds that the Genoa police handed me. These G8 meeting are getting tougher every year. There may have been some damage to my liver from the Edinburgh escapade, but, in fairness, that might have been due to the sixty-two single malts that I had before I took to the streets for my peaceful protest.

  I disguised my true cause well, hiding under the umbrella of (at various times) the following ‘campaigns’: anti-globalisation; pro-Kyoto; anti-whaling; anti-salmon farming; anti-genetically modified crops; anti-capital punishment; pro-cannabis legalisation; Save The Tiger; Don’t Save McDonald’s; ban pesticides; Minimum Wage For Nike Slaves; Third-World debt relief; Shoot Charlton Heston; and Bring Back Abba.

  Just what is it these Western leaders don’t get? Just because I have a job, money in the bank, a family, two cars, three pensions and all the toys I could wish for, can’t they understand I am still angry? There is a fire burning within me, and I need to trash buildings and throw Molotov cocktails at fascist-pig policemen to make my point.

  Now then, let’s you and me stop and reflect a moment. Does anybody know what the hell is going on here? No citizen of a developed nation should fail to understand that there is something different happening on the streets. As I write, France seems to be being burned down city by city (or, at least, car by car). It is ugly, by our own conventional definitions, but it is still some distance away from affecting our daily lives. There is a chance it never will – unless we live in a city daft enough to host a summit. As yet, I suspect it has not influenced big business decisions, other than at the margin. But it might soon encompass both, and we should therefore seek to understand it.

  I lived through the industrial relations ‘wars’ in British business, which was bad enough. I have witnessed first-hand the fight against racism, and other forms of discrimination, in the United States – but never have I seen two ‘sides’ so distant in core values. The big governments and global corporations spout righteous objectivity – that we must have law and order, we must have more summits, not less, and that the more they talk the better off the world is, and yada yada yada. They scan a world that has increasing wealth creation, relatively full employment, only a handful of localised wars, and now only two of its top fifty countries are not democracies. Life is good. They simply do not understand why there is a sudden widespread and growing alienation.

  Let me open my own kimono a bit. I’m a white male of sixty summers. I’m pretty boring. My consistent position through life has been socially liberal and financially conservative. In short, James Dean I am not. But, you know what – I am beginning to share some of the frustrations of the people on the streets.

  I have never – ever – felt further away from the politicians elected to represent my interests. I am not alone: barely half the populations of the UK and US actually voted in recent national elections, a terrifying statistic whichever side of the barricade you are on. While our ‘elected’ politicians pander to the vested interests of those who actually got them there, poverty and functional illiteracy grow daily in the US and the public services crumble in the UK. Add to that the growing influence of global brands, with half the world’s top hundred economies now being companies. These entities can now affect populations the size of small and medium-sized countries, but show no signs of democracy. Cut through the rhetoric and they are still driven by earnings per share.

  Real power in the world at large is now structured around the Pareto principle – that 80% of power is
held by 20% of the players, the latter being a mix of companies and governments. There is no great evil scheme to destroy the world, but these power-brokers are driven by their own agendas. They are the ‘haves’ – and they want to have more. They pursue cold-eyed logic. Their gods are EVA (economic value added) or market share. Governments are so myopic, sensitive to opinion polls, and openly wired into vested interests that they have become an embarrassment to the common man. None of them is driven by balanced interests, and it has become impossible for the ordinary folk to influence them in any way. That’s why the man on the street has become so alienated – in increasing numbers.

  I despair of this gap being closed. At best, I believe it will get worse before it gets better. Governments may then be forced to remember they are for the people, not just their ‘investors’. Brands may also be forced to remember they exist because of their employees and customers, and not just their ‘investors’. But don’t hold your breath.

  You know, I think I do myself an injustice. If the light catches me just right, I look a bit like James Dean might have looked like at sixty. I wonder if I still have my old ski mask?

  12. ‘I say, would you mind … ?’

  I love history, particularly its paradoxes.

  You can look at history through all colours of lenses. You can be depressed at the lies of omission taught today in the schools of our ‘developed’ society. You can be outraged at past ‘values’ that saw shell-shocked seventeen-year-olds summarily executed as ‘deserters’ during World War One, or ‘errant’ slaves sawn in half, while still alive, in Atlanta. You can make an objective case that Churchill should have been hanged as a war criminal in 1945. You can also wonder what might have been if some attitudes hadn’t changed so fast.

  Let me give you the case of Sir Hector MacDonald, commander of the British forces in Ceylon in 1903. He was a Boer War hero, but had been disgraced, exposed as a pederast, and faced a court martial. He was summoned back to England to have a pre-trial meeting with his Field Marshal. From that meeting, he was ‘called’ to a meeting with King Edward VII. After meeting his monarch, he thoughtfully cut the whole process short by shooting himself. Speculation has it the King suggested this solution – which is ironic, if true, because the King himself had many big appetites, only some of which were to do with food.

  I can’t help it. I am fascinated by why and how that meeting was staged, and how the hell King Eddie broached the subject. What do you do? Wait until the port (an 1877 Taylor’s, I presume) and then lean gently forward, let the first cigar smoke clear, and amiably let it drop:

  ‘I say, old bean. Had a chat with the powers that be, and it would be awfully bad sport to let this spot of bother reach the papers. You know, the good name of the Regiment and all that. What ho. Might make sense for all parties if you topped yourself – and sooner rather than later.’

  I can only imagine Mac never blinked or skipped breath:

  ‘Absolutely, Your Majesty. Took the words out of my mouth. Great, really great, idea.’

  What has this got to do with modern business? This bizarre incident reflects a time when public figures, faced with failure, were prepared to stand up and accept responsibility, and the ramifications that came with it. The last of these was John Profumo – to my eyes a troubled hero, not an enemy of the State. Not every one of these involved a bottle of whisky and a revolver, and not every one involved scandal. But a public failure was not necessarily seen as dishonourable in an age when honour was still worn as though it was your best suit. No, the dishonour came from the way you handled failure. If you openly accepted responsibility, you didn’t try to deflect the blame, and you stepped down from office and disappeared for a while, the chances are that you could rise again. Society at large, and your peers specifically, could forgive an honourable human failing, but they would not forgive a dishonourable attempt to lie, hide, and profit from it.

  Now, contrast that with today’s business heroes. Over the past few years, a whole gaggle of businesses have failed. It’s not the first time a bubble has burst in history – and it won’t be the last – but it has been widespread and painful. Investors saw market values tank, pensioners got beached and employees were laid off, again, in thousands. Behind all this were a bunch of business ‘leaders’, largely in technology businesses, who saw nothing to worry about when their price–earnings ratios were in triple digits, their borrowings (and gearing) were off the graph, their overhead burn-rates were chomping their liquidity and their revenues were a long distant promise.

  It is wrong to say their myopic leadership was solely responsible for bringing down this total house of cards, but they were on the bridges of their ships when it happened. Those who suffered when their particular companies crashed had nowhere else to look for responsibility and accountability than at the grand fromage who was leading the business at the time. Now then, have there been a bunch of honourable suicides, or – at the very least – some honourable acceptances of guilt and resignations as a result of all these failures and failings? Nah.

  Let’s take the case of Richard McGinn, who supervised the disintegration of shareholder value in Lucent (along with more than ten thousand jobs) during his three-year time on the ship’s bridge. (I could have picked any of fifty – a hundred, maybe – names, from either side of the Atlantic, to make this point.) Resign? I don’t think so. The ‘price’ Mr. McGinn ‘charged’ for leaving the debacle he had steered Lucent into was (approximately) $13 million, and he is entitled to a long list of future perks, including a near-$1 million annual pension.

  There is no public disgrace with these people. They are hidden behind a panel of attorneys. The exit packages are all definitive agreements. Everything is legal.

  After a lot of thought, I have concluded that there is no need for these failing people to kill themselves in these sanguine times. But that may need to change soon, and my suggestion to today’s business community would be that somebody should take on the role of the King in 1903 – you know, making sensible and sensitive judgements, but being prepared to make an example now and again.

  It would work, I know it would – and I am available.

  13. First, finish your chicken

  I have lived a full and contributive life. It was I who brought all our children back to their senses by inventing, planning, and overseeing the execution of the punk rock movement. I cannot claim full authorship – but it was I, together with a thin, wiry Elvis Costello, back in the seventies, who decided one night, albeit after a jug or two of grappa, that the Moody Blues had become too fat and orchestrated. The rest, of course, is history. Our children were saved.

  For many, that would be enough for one lifetime. Not me. Angered by the docility and comfort of the wealth-creating institutions of the eighties, I sat down with another friend, Ivan Boesky, and this time, helped by a decanter of fine port, we planned the whole junk-bond thing. That proved so radical that I had to call in a few IOUs in the White House to stay out of jail. Ivan, of course, was not so lucky.

  You would think that reforming the whole youth movement and the basic structures of wealth creation would be enough – but I’m off again. This time I need to sort out these things called ‘consumers’. They are becoming their own worst enemies.

  I’ll start with chicken, move through salmon, and on to airlines. On the way I’ll develop a theory. At this stage you’ll just have to trust me on that.

  The free market is like democracy and the internet. The benefits of all three of them are extensive and obvious, but the pitfalls are significant and usually swept under the rug. All three of them can be defended on the basis that, on balance, we are much better off with them than without them.

  One of the tenets of the free market is that competition will provide the required Darwinism. Supply and demand lines will cross on a graph and fix a value for a product or service. If the market is left alone, the aggregate of all those points will optimise the ‘welfare’ of the maximum possible number of people. The pr
oblem is that the common way of measuring value is the price you pay for it, and the increasing assumption is that the cheaper it is, the better it is for the buyer. Therefore, the cheaper it is, the more you will sell of it.

  This works well in areas where nobody is actually put at risk or exploited by cheapening the products. But the reality is that the ‘hunt for low overhead’ increasingly involves exploitative practices (for example, using Third-World labour). In my observation, it can also involve real risks to the ignorant but enthusiastic consumer.

  In my childhood, we were neither rich nor poor. A roast chicken, however, was still something of an event in our post-war English house, and tasted delicious. Salmon was a true rarity, costing, as it did, the price of a dozen alternative meals for a pound of it. Air flights were still a dream. Today, all three are virtual commodities. On the surface, that is welcome news for the consumers of the world. It should also be terrifying.

  Chicken is cheap. Why? Because, if the average reader knew the true conditions of the battery farming techniques brought into play to make that cheapness possible, they would faint. I am not going to go into detail here – but it is fairly indisputable that at least twenty million battery chickens are killed, world-wide, each day, in a none-too-pleasant way, after about six weeks of a none-too-pleasant life, at the end of which they can just stand up in the space they are allowed after being pumped with growth-promoting antibiotics. Sure, it’s cheap. But the only way you can get any flavour in the ‘meat’ is to coat it with sauce or spices.

  Salmon? The ‘salmon’ on most of our plates today bears no relation to the athletic king of the wild stream that is the true bearer of the name. The natural habitat of most of these ‘fish’ is a bathful of chemically tainted, louse-and-parasite-infested, excrement-laden, and occasionally toxic seawater. Their diet is mainly colorant. Many of them ‘escape’ their prison farms and infect their wild cousins. They now threaten the very existence of the real thing. Sure, it’s cheap. The cause of that cheapness, however, is such that I will never knowingly eat farmed salmon again.