If you ever questioned consulting firm, McKinsey’s, view that two thirds of purchasing decisions are made as a result of word of mouth, take a look at the comments column on my blog. With a few minor exceptions, I have the good fortune to enjoy an eclectic mix of commentary that has, over the past year, totaled something akin to the square root of nothing. This weekend, the reason why came home to roost.

Among the many, sometimes less than many, people who have the courtesy, interest, curiosity or misfortune to stumble onto this blog, there’s always a good number who’ll trump up with a point of view at a later date. And very rarely, in fact, is that point of view anything less than the foundation for a healthy debate about one issue or the other. The thing is, they tend to wait until I’m in the room. Or on the phone. Or even on the other end of an email. Yes, come on, come on …. you know who you are. Sitting there, cringing at your screen as you wonder if you’re about to be globally fingered, so to speak. Fear not. I’m far too noble for that.

So where was I? Ah, yes. The inability or unwillingness of some/ many/ most to want to pipe up in the public domain. The reluctance to get up there on the virtual soapbox that is Planet Blog and share a point of view that has every good reason of being shot down in a blast of online shrapnel from all quarters. Or, to the contrary, celebrated as a moment of utter inspiration and genius of the MENSA busting kind. I suppose, in their defense, it’s no different in the real world. How many people are honestly comfortable to line up at Poet’s Corner to get the chance to speak to the masses on a chilled Sunday morning and espouse the virtues of lama milk – or some other trite piece of wisdom? At least blogging has the cloak of anonymity to shroud them.

Still, I digress. What’s interesting here is not the fact that I was taken to task on a point of view. That comes with the scenery in my profession. What’s (mildly) interesting is the position Mr He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named took. And it was this. Perception is not reality – countering what I had so loosely proposed in my last posting.

Nonsense, I say. And here’s 5 reasons why:

The Classics Rationale: “What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” Plutarch. This is more than a brilliant observation from a dude in a white smock. It is a recognition that our very existence impacts the lives of those around us in some way, large or small. And, presumably, the more we achieve, the greater our impact will be. Career hopefuls and planet savers, take note.
The Sporting Rationale: “Just Do It”. Nike. As we sprint, choking, towards the Olympics, we’re reminded that a globally recognised brand was build on the premise that if you truly believe you can do something, you will. Which not only makes it a reality for you. It makes it a harsh reality for those who come in second.
The Political Rationale: “I have a dream”. Martin Luther King. At the time of MLK’s speech in 1963, oppression was a reality in the Southern States of America. Freedom and justice for the African American community was a far away then as it is, so some would say, for the citizens of Iraq today. And yet it took a dream to fuel the imagination of what a free world could look like. And without that imagination, it could never have become what it has become.
The Science Fiction Rationale: “We choose to go to the moon”. JFK. Just as few could have imagined the future impact of the automobile in 1900, so fewer still thought the prospect of getting a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s was science fact. But Kennedy held the belief that it could happen and had the impetus to ensure that it did. Right up to his death, he created a momentum of belief that became impossible for future governments to reverse. He created the perception that it could be done and it was. Allegedly.
The Christmas Rationale: “Ho-Ho-Ho”. Santa Claus. Without wanting to spoil the fun, Father Christmas does not exist. He is the figment of the German’s imagination and the willingness of a thousand generations of parents to openly lie to their children all in the name of a glass of sherry, a mince-pie and an early night. For the innocent young, of course, Father Christmas is as real as Granny’s sloppy kisses on Christmas morning, Daddy’s snoring after lunch and the fact that batteries are still not included after all these years.

Perception is reality. If you truly believe something to be, you can not only change someone’s mind, but you can change the very essence of what they are capable of. And it is from that premise that anything can happen. It’s the Big Bang theory in miniature. Something, anything, can come from nothing. If you don’t believe me, let me know via this blog. That could be a real reality check.

Friday evening began with a burp and ended with a bang. The Sydney Opera’s version of Don Quixoti was all coke fueled modern Italian, the main man frolicking around the stage like some soporific banshee, belching like a Cane toad with indigestion. If that wasn’t enough to divert our attention away from child rearing duties for a couple of hours, the news awaiting us at home soon focused the mind.

QF30 could be code for the latest Bosch tumble dryer. In fact it’s the Qantas flight from London to Melbourne and will go down in history as one of the few aircraft that shed its skin mid flight and still managed to return to earth with all its passengers breathing. What happened on that aircraft, an hour out of Hong Kong, is really something that a frequent flyer would rather avoid thinking about. It was akin to opening the Space Shuttle sun roof at T -45 seconds. A bad hair day followed.

And so, two days later, I found myself sitting on the QF1, waiting for the doors to close in preparation for our departure to Bangkok. I have to say I was nervous. Really nervous. There was nothing rational about it. Flying with an airline with an accident free record (unless you count the QF1 smashing through the perimeter fence at Bangkok Airport after a botched attempt to land in September 1999) should be a pretty jitter free experience. But it wasn’t. And it had nothing to do with the airline or aircraft. But it had everything to do with me. When perception and reality are at odds, it’s usually perception that comes off best.

The journey to the airport didn’t help either. Driving late afternoon rain with strong gusts of yukiness. And then we were delayed by 1.5 hours. My right leg hung over my left, the foot tapping away with perpetual concern. Something had to be wrong. The oxygen tanks. It must be the oxygen thanks, I thought.

When the call finally came, I gathered myself up and headed to the Gate. Blocking me were more that 200 teenagers, humming “Jerusalem”, strumming guitars and demonstrating more than their fair share of goodwill to mankind. The flight to Rome was packed with onward Christian soldiers heading home from the trenches otherwise known as World Youth Day. Nice? No. It was a scene from Airplane ‘76. I was going down, I thought. Had to be.

As we took off, in torrential rain, I held my breath and waited for a shudder and bang that, mercifully, never came. I strapped in tightly for the rest of the 9 hour flight, dealing with a crew that seemed just a little more tense and sitting next to people who insisted on reading the Safety Instructions throughout the journey.

Of course, we all made it to Bangkok in one piece and the nerves all seem rather silly on reflection. But my rummage around the box named Worst Nightmares stemmed from little more than a misplaced perception that things were going to go horribly wrong. They didn’t and we carried on with our lives. But perception really is everything and it really doesn’t take too much imagination to wonder what could have happened if.. well, you know.

The power of the imagination can be our best friend or our worst enemy. What sparks that imagination can be the smallest thing: a song; a scent; or a smile. The difference between chaos and calm is infinitessimally small. Like it or not, perception is everything.

Has it really been 6 weeks? Can I really pace through one full month and a fortnight without sharing or proffering an opinion on something people, media or communications-related? It’s not as if we’ve been short of news, after all. Economic meltdown seems to have got a decent run for a start. That must merit a mention. Iran’s decision to toy with Israeli patience could well get a look in on one of those “tipping point blogs” that some of my Weber Shandwick colleagues do so well, too. And then there’s the really serious stuff – like whether calling your child a day of the week demands the interests of the social services department, celebrity or not.

So rather than try to play catch up with a flurry of blogtesimally dull posts, I thought a quick one-liner on the top five stories that have caught my imagination since late May might fill the void.

A word of caution though. The fact that I was holidaying in a sleepy village on the Suffolk coast for some of those weeks has, by my own admission, coloured my perspective. But then The East Anglian Daily Times is not known for its groundbreaking stories. Nor is the pebble-dashed coastline, that makes for a perfect family retreat, particularly well regarded for its wireless connectivity. In Suffolk, wireless connection means no connection at all; a LAN is a crossbred farmyard animal; and a router is a map. You get my point.

So, in no particular order, here’s what tickled my fancy.

A big word up, as they say in literary circles, to Salman Rushdie for being the recipient of the Man Booker Prize’s Best Book of Former Booker Prize Winners (a mouth full if ever there was one) for Midnight’s Children. A whopping 7000 (yes seven thousand) people voted online for the ex-fatwa man’s novel of genius. Which, when you consider American Idol had weekly audiences of 120 million (half of whom voted), gives you a perspective on people’s 21st Century reading habits. Or voting interests. Or both.

Well done the English public. Your unrelenting belief that an Englishman can win Wimbledon deserves a Queens Garden Party at the very least. In one short week, Henman Hill became Murray Mount (his girlfriend is suing the All England Club) and then, without warning, the hopes and aspirations of a nation came crashing down as quickly as you could say “Three Sets to Love”. The fact that the English Hope is a Scotsman is a fabulous reminder of the media’s ability to ignore the facts if they get in the way a decent story. My money is on Rafael Nadal being embraced as a local by the Daily Mail during next year’s Championships for the simple reason he hails from Majorca – which, of course, is effectively England’s south coast.

A special mention must go to the attendees of the G8 Summit. At a time when each and every political leader is telling its countrymen to tighten their collective belts in the face of economic adversity, and the state of the planet looks more grim each and every day, our Right Honourable representatives failed once more to do anything more than compliment their Japanese hosts on the smoked eel. Putting things off to next year, in the knowledge that half of them won’t be there anyway, is neither astute politics or ethically sound judgement.

Still at the G8 summit, lots of high fiving for the White House’s press team. Here’s a group of very serious looking ex-hacks who clearly understand the power of a Freudian Slip when they see one. Far from making any public comment about the politics of those political leaders around the table, they simply provide some relevant material of interest in the travelling journo’s media briefing pack. Of course, on the face of it, the Encyclopaedia of World Biography would seem like a reasonable source of info to slot between the sheets. Alas no. The EWB’s profile of Silvio Belusconi described him as “one of the most controversial leaders in a country known for governmental corruption and vice …. regarded by many as a political dilettante who gained his high office only through the use of his considerable influence on the national media until he was forced out of office in 2006”. Uncle Sam has a sense of humour. Can’t wait for the Italian’s response. I bet it includes the word, “Florida”.

And last, but not least, it would be remiss of me not to mention the Democratic nominees, Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton. I, like many others, had hoped that the end of their highly charged contest would be a wonderful thing, allowing us to get on with the rest of lives with a degree of peace. Retrospectively, this seems ill-judged. Since the referee rang his final bell, there’s been a stream of media commentary that must be considered accountable in part for fuelling the economic, political and commercial gloom. What’s been missing from our media in the past 6 weeks has been the quiet sense of optimism about what the future (albeit America’s future) could be. Now the optimism has left the headlines there’s only one thing to do. Bookmark the East Anglian Daily Times and sign up to Nadal’s Fan Club. Next year’s Wimbledon could finally bring an English(ish) winner and that simply has to be good news.

Pick up any decent newspaper. Go to any worthy business website. Meet any informed business leader. One word has been their common language for the last 2 years, may be more. China.

Everyone has a point of view about it’s future, it’s impact on global commerce and community and its government.

For some, Chinese success flies in the face of their capitalist values. Nearly twenty years after the fall of the iron curtain, Communism still terrifies people. The power of the government is spooky, they say. The economic growth trajectory can not possibly last, they cry. So many urban mouths to feed, its little wonder the price of commodities is going through the roof, they protest. And if they don’t stop polluting, they’ll kill us all, they scream.

Telling China what it should be doing to control its markets, its people and its ambitions has become a political and media sport. People are making a very decent living out of it.

All of which made Henry Kissinger’s comments in the Financial Times this weekend past, just a little more poignant.

“China is a country with a record of continuous self-government going back 4,000 years, the only society that has achieved this. One must start with the assumption that they must have learnt something about the requirements for survival, and it is not always to be assumed that we know it better than they do”.

Disaster movies, good and bad, tend to follow the same storyline. Ostracised protagonist tracks pending doom, but no-one’s listening; detractor looks out of his 22nd floor window to see tidal wave/ meteorite/ aliens surfing the coat-tails of the grim reaper and coming his way; protagonist survives and sets out to save/ redeem the world. The other common thread, of course is the fact that the disaster is a bit of a surprise to the man on the street. Because if everyone knew it was coming they’d be doing something about it, wouldn’t they?

On Monday afternoon I was in New York, standing in front of a bank of Weber Shandwick TV screens each running images of Mother Nature at work. In the mid-West, tornados had ripped through small towns killing everyone and everything in their wake; in the South East of the country, fires were ravaging family homes; in Burma, millions were homeless, hundreds of thousands dead or injured as the result of a devastating cyclone; in China, a massive earthquake had struck, the impact of which was only just being revealed.

And outside, on the bustling, rich and voluptuous streets of New York City, pedestrians were wrapped up against the bitter cold as temperatures plummeted to 35º below the norm whilst motorists, grid-locked, pawed over the headlines stating gas had just hit $4. Summer had arrived.

It’s as easy to dismiss it all as a meteorological blip, as it is to go gooey at the knees and panic. Right now the panic, the real panic, belongs to the minority. Global warming, climate change – what ever you want to call it – still has one foot in the intellectual camp and that, quite frankly, could be a disaster in its own right if the battle for the upper hand remains there.

Twenty years ago, the intellectualisation of the sustainability movement was a necessity. It is, after all, a scientific argument: X energy use, divided by Y energy consumption, multiplied by Z population % growth, squared, can be a bit of a struggle for some. And that’s why, in those days, the frustrated ones took to the streets and forests and got vocal. The protagonist’s policy of the louder the better.

Things have progressed a bit since then. The science is better, the crowds are more organised and more people are listening. But, still, the most effective way to kill a decent scientific argument is to muffle it in a blanket of new science. This, in turn, is wrapped up in more data rich science until, inevitably, no one knows whom to believe. It’s the equivalent of drowning in algebraic soup and it’s a policy that has been entertained to great effect by some Governments around the world.

None of this discounts the value of good science, because it will always be part of the argument. Nor does it dismiss the vocal minority or, indeed, the many companies that are taking it seriously and doing their bit for the planet. (And if you want to know who they are, you could do worse than spend a bit of time looking through my good friend and colleague, Brendan May’s blog).

But it does appear that our very own action hero, the ostracised protagonist of Hollywood’s knights in shining armour unit, remains bogged down in the intellectual debate. Unless some irrefutable evidence materialises, and does so pretty quick sharp, our leading man could be leaving it a little late in the day. Which is why in this particular disaster movie, it has to be the bit players who’ll save the world. Those in the crowd scenes will be the heroes. Those who advocate change and orchestrate action at a local, national and international level will increase the chance of their children having a decent sunset to watch.

Standing in front of those TV screens, I couldn’t help but think that we’re at the point in the movie where all is calm, birds are singing and children laughing. And the camera is panning out as an orchestral soundtrack grows deep and dark forces gather beyond the horizon.

Last week, or last month, I was in India. Kolkata, to be precise.

I met a lot of people that week. I saw many tens of thousands more. It’s that kind of place of Kolkata. A city that rushes past you, albeit in manic order, with gaunt faces staring as they drift into the crowd. I’ve never been anywhere where I felt more voyeuristic, more disconnected and more irrelevant.

For those I had the chance to talk to about it, it was a mixed reaction. A handful liked it. A lot more didn’t. A little too pungent for their overly sensitive senses, apparently. For the most part though, they were ambivalent.

Quite how you can be ambivalent in a place like Kolkata is beyond me. Its raw and wretched frame sweats centuries of Bengali history. It has an industrial vibrancy that lacks direction making it a muddled and confusing place to be. Like any other city of its size, there’s an energy that emanates from it and yet that same energy is strangely inert in the immediate space that surrounds the handful of magnificent marble structures of decadent imperialism that pepper the landscape. The Empire did a terrific job in sucking the life out of India, whilst putting so much back into it.

One such place is the Victoria Memorial Museum, Kolkata’s answer to the Taj Mahal. It is a timeless expression of imperial grandeur. Looking up at it from the surrounding grounds, the Memorial is an imposing place. Exactly as was intended by its Victorian architects. At its centre sits a large white dome, built in direct parallel to the dome of St Paul’s in London. Which, of course, is the name of the cathedral it sits close to which, in turn, is modelled on Westminster Abbey. It’s as if the whole place is in a time lag, naming rights included.

These days, it is rare to talk of India without speaking of its economic resurgence. More often than not, it’s the country that’s playing boom-time catch up with China as the rest of the world teeters on the brink of recession; the country that is garnering its1 billion plus population to reinstate its rightful place in the world as an economic superpower. But I’m not quite so sure it has the collective determination needed to get there any time soon. It seems just a little too disorganised to create the commercial velocity required.

At this point in the piece I’ll remind myself that I am of course guilty of a gross generalisation of the very worst kind and may conceivably lack any credible anthropological know-how to make fleeting commentary about India’s economic direction. Judging India on the back of a short trip to Kolkata is akin to dismissing the economic relevance of Europe because of poor sanitary conditions in Naples.

But there is some commonality across all Indian cities that can’t be so easily dismissed. And they account for much of why India is what it is and what it will become.

First and foremost is service. Western companies have not set up call-centres all over the sub-continent because they had a spat with the local authorities in Guilford. They put them there because service is a natural Indian disposition, not a commercial aspiration. Everywhere you go people can’t help themselves but to help you. “Service with a smile” was clearly translated from an ancient Mughal dialect. That’s not the case in Guilford.

Second is dignity. I choose my words carefully having brushed past the horror of Kolkata’s slums. You can’t not be affected by what you see there. But neither can you ignore the spiritualism and human dignity that prevails. Rituals run deep in India, from young couples courting to animal traffic management – from the odd to the bizarre. It is this dignity that will stagger economic growth rather than stagnate it.

And third is technology. The sub-continent produces more technology and engineering graduates than any other country. With English as their language of choice many of the earlier graduates have since matured into global beating business leaders leading equally globally dominant companies. For those fresh out of school, they are the ones who will be giants of the future. Just ask Bill Gates where he thinks the threat to Microsoft lies. It is not the European Union’s anti-trust watchdog.

Quite what this means for the India vs. China battle remains unclear. Both markets are predicted to see an economic slow down in 08 and 09; both countries have unrelenting consumer demand on the back of a burgeoning middle class. But it does seem that India has the cultural wherewithal not to be fazed by economic hiccups however significant elsewhere in the world. From the spice lords of the 12th Century to the Opium kings that fuelled the East India Company of the 19th Century, entrepreneurialism is in the country’s DNA. And that matters.

To be ambivalent about India is to resign your self to being little more than a camera-touting tourist. It has long been one of the world’s most progressive countries, boasting market capitalism long before the West was discovered. In the history books of the 2300 Century, brand India of the 20th Century will be seen as little more than an economic sabbatical. Its return to power is just another trading day away.

One of the great pleasures of life in any major Metropolis is the chance to conduct a thorough paw through the local weekend broadsheet, a tree lover’s nightmare if ever there was one. Be it the Sunday Times or the Weekend Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), each bring their own refreshing perspective to those terribly unimportant things that get lost in the weekday maelstrom of death and destruction and economic despair. All in the neatly packed equivalent of Sherwood Forest.

As a Londoner in Sydney, I’ve never quite adapted to the class fuelled socialism of the Weekend SMH. There’s far too many pages where it seems ill at ease with itself, offering a taste of the goodies in the capitalist cookie jar whilst getting all too snooty about those who appear to have a gob full of lollypops. What other publication would title a section of its real estate pages, “You Wish ….”. It’s the social climbers pornography.

The Sunday Times, on the other hand, is nothing that it doesn’t pretend to be. A bit brash, granted. And certainly not immune to criticism either. But it does seem to have a knack of grabbing an issue by the short and curlies and wringing it for all its worth. Accurate journalism in its rawest state gets my vote every time.

So having spent the last week in India with a client, it was all a bit of a luxury to find myself with a spare 30 minutes at an airport with the latest edition of the Sunday Times in one hand and the You Wish …. section of the Weekend SMH in the other. I went for the Times and was not disappointed. It was gloriously trashy throughout.

First up, Max Mosley: President of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) Formula One Grand Prix since 1993; failed politician; and son of Nazi -sympathizer Sir Oswald Mosley. With a CV like that, becoming embroiled in just another sex scandal would have been rather pedestrian for Mr Mosley. Just as well his four-hour romp with 5 prostitutes, hurling instructions in German and surrounded by what any self-respecting High Court Judge may euphemistically call a wealth of sexual “paraphernalia”, was captured on film then.

But if having your bare backside, albeit tastefully obscured by a computerised chequered flag, plastered all over the tabloids is not bad enough, Mr Mosley has done himself no favours in the subsequent management of the situation. Having been accused of re-creating a Nazi-like prison environment for his sexual gratification, he might have done well to stick with the right to privacy position rather than point an accusatory finger at two of his fiercest critics, the Mercedes and BMW F1 teams. In what has to go down as the PR gaff of the month/ year/ history Mr M choose to publicly remind both teams of their own relationship with the Third Reich in the 1930s.

Interesting strategy this, Max. If not wrong (and it was), it was certainly not the way to ingratiate those F1 governing body members who are baying for your blood whilst waving at their ballot boxes. And certainly not the best means to remain gainfully employed in Northern Europe for sometime, either.

For all the criticism about New York Governor, Elliot Spitzer, earlier this year, at least he saw the writing on the wall and stood down within 48 hours of his scandal breaking. With his wife nervously looking on, he looked down the barrel of the camera lens, apologised to everyone he’d let down, himself included, and resigned. Mr Spitzer may not be running for political office anytime soon, nor will he be getting the vote of the religious right if and when he does, but he did not allow his ego to get the better of him when he knew he could not last the course. Mr Mosley seems to have passed the point of caring. A year from now, he may be wishing he’d dealt with it differently.

Not (according to the Sunday Times) the case for another Mr M, this time of the McCartney variety. As every one on the planet knows, including may of those I met in India, Sir Paul has been dragged through the courts by the bleating Heather Mills (ex-wife is far too kind), a woman who had no shame in proffering gushing insincerity to a media for their endless support, all on the tail end of a recalcitrant rant that lasted a good 18 months.

The day after the judge awarded her a fraction of the financial compensation she’d demanded, the press had a field day. She was vilified. Who cares if she’s £24 million richer? Ms Mills may be wealthy enough to dine at The Ivy for the rest of her life, but if the chef’s spitting on her quails eggs every time, what’s the point? To this day, she remains Britain’s most hated woman.

To the contrary, Sir Paul’s reputation is now hovering just a little closer to beatification. Not only did he risk the temptation to rise to his ex wife’s bait, he quietly allowed her to self-destruct in a public arena of her own making. He spoke briefly and fleetingly, rarely had a bad word to say about anyone and looked the victim throughout. It was a performance of humble perseverance rarely seen from those who have courted such public adoration for so long. If ever there was an example of silence being such a compelling and empowering language, this was it.

It’s not the deed that destroys reputations, it’s the way people deal with them immediately after the event that seals their fate. Sir Paul’s reaction to his predicament has secured him public adoration ad infinitum. Mr Mosley’s has destroyed a reputation in which his significant contribution to motor sport will always be tainted by a rather sordid little matter that would otherwise have been quickly forgotten. Instead, he’s faced with a lifetime of giggles and sniggers and Achtung Baby taunts.

As for Ms Mills, she’ll probably have to leave the country. Not that anyone will care. In the words of the Weekend SMH, you wish ….

If you had ever wondered what, apart from jet lag, keeps the intercontinental traveller awake at night, you need go no further than the Terminal Two book store at Singapore’s Changi airport. There, on a stand that screams Proud as Punch, sits the Top Ten books of the month. Each and every one of them a testament to the paralysing uncertainty that shadows the captains and heirs of industry as they nobly go about their worldly business.

A speed read through the jacket notes of the travelling man’s literary choice and I begin to see new meaning in the expression terminal too. It is a Top Ten ranking that teeters on the edge of profound and sits nervously close to depressing. Here’s the list:

1. The Top Ten Threats that Will Reshape the World in the Next 20 Years. Presumably one of them is being swamped in a sea of Top Ten lists. Mildly ironic that top of the Top Ten books is a book about Top Ten Threats. But it does say something about the appeal of lists. Provides further rationale to the popularity of the Ten Commandments too

2. The 10-Day MBA. Here we go again. What is it about the power of ten? Someone’s worked out that if you put the number 10 in the title you’ve got a good chance of shifting some merchandise, regardless of content. This sits up there with wiring bank account details to Nigerian Finance Ministers and eBay Armani in the authenticity stakes. Try putting a 10-Day MBA on your CV and see what happens

3. A New Earth: Awakening Your Life’s Purpose. Accepting the fact that most intercontinental travellers are approaching the home straight of their three score years and ten, this could be construed as being a little late in the day. Still better to have known what you missed than not to have known at all

4. The Rules of Life. Not a hint of uncertainty here. Direct and to the point. Not particularly appealing to the anarchist though. More something for those whose moral code will not allow them to steal the Gideon’s New Testament from their hotel room’s bedside draw. Note the absence of 10. Note the table ranking too

5. The Secret. No mincing about here either. Well marketed too. Whilst missing the magic number it wins hands down in the packaging stakes, titillatingly presented in own shrink-wrap cover. Something for those who consider Your Life’s Purpose and The Rules of Life a little ambiguous

6. The Black Swan – the Impact of the Highly Probable. Remarkable that this has sold a single copy at an airport. It doesn’t strike me as being particularly conducive to air travel

7. Economics for a Crowded Planet. This is where the accountants finally get a look in. Lots of numbers gives it mass appeal. Good for impressing accountants of the opposite sex too. But I’m guessing you could count the number of people who actually got past Chapter Three – Micro-Financing and the Real Complexity of Third World Debt – on one hand. Rock stars and UN officials accepted, of course

8. Yakuza Moon – Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter. At last. Something truly uplifting. And a damning reflection of human nature if ever there was one. Having solved the meaning of life, got your MBA and worked out that you have as much chance of choking to death on a bowl of Cheerios as you have of winning the lottery, you finally see the world for what it is and indulge in a spot of sex, death and gun fire

9. The Rules of Parenting. A more specific version of all of the above. Including Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter

10. The Logic of Life. Nice to see that book lists can come full circle too. Although you’d have to work hard to convince me that Life and Logic really belong in the same sentence

So there you have it. Having doffed the peak of our anthropologist cap as a gesture to their literary spending power, we see that the tireless business traveller hopes to solve a lot more than the contents of an Excel spread-sheet when circum-navigating the planet.

Instead they’re wondering where they’ve come from, where they’re going and what they can look forward to when they get there.

Little wonder the global economy is up the spout.

If you ever woke up and thought last night’s spat with the neighbour about the nocturnal antics of their fastidiously manicured Terrier was probably a little over the top, don’t worry about it. The fact is most of the planet’s mammals have spent much of their time bickering about something irrelevant. Humans are just particularly good at it.

A quick poke around the toy box labelled History, would suggest we’re wired to do battle with each other. Consider it natural selection foreplay if you like, the tantalising adrenaline rush that sets you on some untamed adventure. Or view it as the melting pot of everyday existence spilling over and scarring the hob of life. Or don’t bother thinking about it all. It really doesn’t matter how you coin it. War, in one shape or the other, is in the blood.

Our bitterness and resentfulness is legendary. First it was the food, battling like the Neanderthals we were for the nibbling rights to a rotting Rhino carcass. Then came the land, doing everything necessary to secure a decent view of the olive groves without the mud huts of some heathen tribe of axe wielding assassins to spoil the vista.

Religion, it is said, is the source of all wars and for the best part of human history it has played a pretty important part in making a mess of things. But ideologies have done some damage too, with the general position of “our approach to life is better than yours”, upsetting the locals and generally causing havoc in the playground.

So if you were to get on your futurology soapbox and start prophesising the rationale for the next global barney, where would it be? And what could possibly add more fuel to the firestorm that already burns so bright?

Well, oil is a possibility. But that’s a bit old school, really. And, give it 25 years or so, there wouldn’t be much to fight for anyway. By 2035 we’ll all be running our utility trucks on wind power, snatches of sunlight and a splash of super-grade water to lubricate the pistons. That’s if there’s any water to buy, of course. Chances are it will be being traded, as a precious commodity by then, at prices that would make gold look distinctly drab. By the time my youngest graduates, Evian could be the latest bling accessory.

For my money, the 21^st Century battleground will be about something that all of us have, but none of us own. Something that fuels our imagination but so often drains our souls.  What is it? It’s our language. The words we speak. The things we say. And the way we say them. By 2050 I’m proffering that we’ll be fighting it out in the proverbial trenches, lobbing alphabetic hand grenades at the opposition whilst the front line troops engage in tongue-to-tongue combat with the dialectically abusive. All in the name of the Queen’s, or King’s or President’s English – or Mandarin. Or whatever.

If you think this is a little radical for your morning cuppa, then listen to the people who know, UNESCO. According to its most recent report, 96% of the 6,000 languages used in the world are spoken by only 4% of the population. That’s pretty startling if you think about it. And their prospects don’t look too good either: little more than 20% of these languages are used in any form of education or interactive communication. And just to rub salt into the wounds, less than 100 of the languages available to Mankind are to be found in any format online. Thank your blessings Mr Gates is a Westerner.

In a bid to stave off this linguistic genocide, UNESCO has decided to act. As you may, or may not, be aware, 2008 is the International Year of Languages – not be confused with the Year of International Languages, although I couldn’t really distinguish between the two. To ensure the small, pitiful cluster of world citizens that missed the news don’t feel left out, Thursday 21 February has also been named International Mother Language Day. (I kid you not).

Whilst, I have to admit, I’m grappling with this rather ambiguously titled day, it does seem we’re in for a veritable treat. Headlining the event will be a group of lofty philosophers and scribes navigating their way around such light-hearted topics as “Multilingualism in Romance Language Countries”; “The Challenges of Bridge Building: from Mother Tongue to Multilingual Education” and “European Vocabulary of Philosophies: Dictionary of the Untranslatable” – a fitting end to an exhausting 24 hours I suspect.

Whilst I fear UNESCO’s efforts will be limited in their impact, they are nonetheless commendable. It is, after all, in the interests of human diversity (if nothing else) that languages are not lost in a sea of uniformity and unwanted blah. But I do struggle with the concept of trying to freeze-frame history; trying to pour formaldehyde on the past in the hope that it will be preserved for future generations.

And that’s because, unlike that which hangs in any of the world’s best museums, language is not a relic of the past. It is a living, breathing and constantly evolving source of communication that dips and turns like gulls on an ocean breeze. For language, to stop moving is to drop silently into the abyss below.

Literature is as close to linguistic preservation as we’re ever going to get. That and a few recordings of distant dialects spoken with character yet lost in translation. But literature is different to the language of communication. It is a record of language and its creative zeal. It is not a roadblock to linguistic development. If UNESCO’s preservation order had been put in place in 13^th Century England we’d all be chuntering away like the Wife of Bath and Geoffrey Chaucer would just have been another medieval man in a silly hat.

The linguistic parameters for the spoken word may eventually shrink to those primary tongues that represent the chattering masses. But variation in dialect and accent will remain as steadfast as ever – perhaps getting more complex as time moves on. That’s because language defines people and groups of people. It’s their code. Their way of keeping those people out that they don’t want in. And they will fight for the right to say not only what they want, but how they want to say it.

Trying to keep languages alive is as flawed as discrediting human mortality. Languages will perish. They have to. It is through the death of language that new tongues are born and with them, a fresh means of communication.

I don’t envy Mark Penn. As the architect of the Hilary Clinton’s formidable Democratic nomination campaign, he’s had a tough couple of weeks. Only last month he would have been looking at the polls and been pretty happy with the way things were going. Happy enough to bring out Bill the Rottweiler and suggest he might like to have a little public nibble at the ankles of one Mr Obama, perhaps. Smart move and, potentially, the knockout punch Hilary must have been wishing for.

But there’s a problem, see. Bill can’t nibble anything nowadays. Things don’t get done in the world if you only nibble. Go for the jugular instead and don’t let go until the thing stops moving. It is, by all accounts, the only way to affect real change. And when you’re trying to eradicate disease or empower the victims of the world or beat climate change, pussyfooting around ain’t going to get too much done. So nibbling is not really on the cards, is it?

Fortunately for Mrs Clinton, Mr Penn was able to bring Bill to heel before his chomping got the better of him and his wife’s aspirations. But it couldn’t have been an easy job.

“Er, Mr President, can I have a word?”

“Sure, Mark. But what’s this Mr President thing? Com’on Mark. Relax. Why the gloomy face? Com’on. Cooom’on. Hey Hey Hey ….”

“Well Mr …. err … Bill. It’s like this. We …”

“Aw Mark. You’re not going all gooey on me are you? What? What is it? A few press clippings giving you the wobblies. …… “

“Bill. We need to put you on the bench. You’re off the frontline. No more public attacks. Just waving. And smiling. And pointing out people in the crowd who you’re just too pleased to see. You’re great at that stunned but enthralled mullet thing, Bill. You’re the mullet-master. Bill? Bill? Er, Mr President?”

Nasty.

Bill Clinton is probably one of the most charismatic Presidents the US has known. He is also one of the most accomplished media managers in the public eye. Knowledgeable, authoritative and oozing self-confidence, Mr Clinton makes people sit up and listen. But he has one flaw, hidden beneath his highly polished public face. And it’s a killer. He is human.

And no matter how well prepared the likes of Bill is or how many systems are put in place to ensure his types never stumble, people make mistakes. Even Bill makes mistakes. The problem is he has the world’s media (and the entire Republican Party to boot) on standby waiting for the moment when he gets just a little bit too antsy.

Whether Mr Clinton’s comments could really be construed as racially motivated is a mute point. The fact is they were ill judged and ill placed and nothing in the über-orchestrated Clinton camp could stop him from speaking his mind. The system failed and Mr Penn’s team was reaching for its collective crisis management hat before you could say, “Bill Cosby for President”.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a rather more complex people management system was failing. Or at least that’s what Société Générale’s Chairman, Daniel Bouton, thought was failing. In fact it turned out to be a rather less sophisticated management tool that was in place and, give or take a few €100 million, it has lost his bank €6.3 billion. Oh.

The latest reports from Paris suggest that Jérôme Kerveil, a junior equity derivatives trader, was determined to prove himself able to out-perform the highly paid, elite traders elsewhere on the floor. He started making unauthorised, but successful, trading bets in 2005 and by the end of 2007 was sitting on a profit in excess of €1.4 billion. That’s a sum equivalent to nearly half the revenues of Société Générale’s entire equities division. The problem was, he didn’t know where to hide it so he declared about 2% of it as profit and kept trading the rest. It was a €30 billion trade on Germany’s DAX that set the alarm bells ringing. Yes. €30 billion. Pity they didn’t pick it up before, really.

Of course, everyone’s spending power is relative. €30 will get you a pretty decent main course and a couple of glasses of Burgundy in most of Paris’ arrondissements. Enough to make you feel content certainly and, perhaps, a little light on your feet too. But add 9 zeros to that and you’re going to feel a little more than intoxicated. Not surprisingly, the board of Société Générale have been dealing with what must seem like the mother of all hangovers since the news broke 3 weeks ago.

It’s easy to loose perspective of what happened at one of France’s most respected banks. But if this was a James Bond film, Jerome Kerveil has just pulled off the equivalent of walking into Fort Knox with little more than a false name and his best friends driving licence. He’s then coolly pocketed 25% of the United States bullion depository, had a pint and a Ploughmans at the Hand and Sceptre on the way home and then popped down to the local betting agency where he placed the lot on the 3-1 favourite at Sandown – which pulled up lame as they were under starters orders.

Nasty, too.

As my Grandmother used to remind me when I was a wee lamb, “There’s nothing more strange than folk”. Apart from contributing to my intense dislike of large crowds in small places (which is probably why I eventually left the UK), it’s an adage that has stuck with me through thick and thin.

The fact is, people do the strangest things at the oddest times and for the silliest of reasons. There’s nothing going to change that, be they has-been Presidents or wannabe Euro heros.  And, in all honesty, we wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s what makes them interesting. It’s what makes them human. It’s what makes them compelling enough to want to sit up and take note. It’s also what makes Mark Penn’s job (and anyone else involved in the communications industry) one of the most intensely nerve-racking and exciting roles of all.