It's Not How Good You Are

Should I have read this book? Is this book aimed at me? Did I get anything out of reading it? Do I need to read it again? Should I keep reading it, until I get it? Would that be brainwashing?

This book is written by someone who used to work for Saatchi and Saatchi; in fact he worked for Saatchi and Saatchi while they were doing Thatcher’s ads for the 1979 election. There’s no indication in his bio he worked on that particular evil project, but it’s hard not to tarnish him with it anyway. Perhaps that is the source of my ambivalence towards this book.

The Amazon book description says that this is “a handbook of how to succeed in the world - a pocket 'bible' for the talented and timid to make the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible possible.” Well I like the “make the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible possible” bit, that seems subject to detournment – repurposed, as they say, to more radical aims than selling people Toyotas. Be reasonable, demand the impossible.

Any skills and methods we can steal from the agents of capitalism to use for the purposes of revolution should be stolen. But I don’t know what to steal, apparently this book is good for people working in “creative industry” (is it just me, or do you think of Nathan Barley type wankers whenever you hear a term like that?), is it just a load of crap tarted up to appear meaningful? Perhaps I should read it again; I don’t want to let the revolution down.