We are all doctors now

Type the words “English obsession with ...” into Google and its top suggestions are class, tea, weather and Germany.

At the apex of our class structure is the Queen, and below her the various ranks of those with noble titles. These may be held by right or by courtesy, like those of the select band of Ladies who are the daughters of dukes, marquesses and earls, and the many more who are the wives of peers, baronets and knights.

Coronets: a spotter's guide

Only the former, pedants like me delight in pointing out, may properly use their Christian names in conjunction with their titles, like the fictional Lady Mary Crawley of Downton Abbey.

The principle of the courtesy title is well established in medicine, too, where the vast majority of the people we call “doctor” do not actually hold such a qualification, but are mere Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery.

While those who progress up the career ladder to become consultant surgeons confusingly promote themselves to “Mr”.

I could have been a doctor myself if only I had had the stamina to complete the PhD on World War II I began in 1976. As I might have done if there had not a particularly good pub adjacent to the Public Record Office in Kew.

Flogging back to Cambridge after a hard day wrestling with three pints of Young’s Bitter and a steak pie, I used to compare notes with my flatmate, who was completing the long course to qualify as a veterinary surgeon.

Meeting him again at his eldest son’s wedding on Saturday, I was surprised to find that he has suddenly metamorphosed into a doctor.

As have all UK vets who feel so inclined as of March 6th this year when, following a public consultation, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons ruled that its members could adopt the title if they wished. Bringing them into line with vets in other parts of the EU and elsewhere in the world.

Similar arguments about international equity have apparently allowed British dentists to call themselves doctor since 1995, though they have yet to allay all the concerns of the Advertising Standards Authority.

Mrs Hann was quick off the mark with her congratulations, asserting her long-held belief that vets are far cleverer than doctors since their patients can’t explain what ails them.

That sentence becomes more complex now that it needs to be recast to say that the people calling themselves doctors who treat animals are obviously brighter than the people calling themselves doctors who treat humans.

Vets are enjoined by their Royal College to put a suitable suffix after their names to make it clear that they are, in fact, vets. But I feel we have a lot to learn from this levelling of the playing field.

Heart-warming indeed

Sitting in vets’ waiting rooms over the years, I have long been fascinated by the willingness of people who do not appear conspicuously wealthy to hand over large wedges of cash for the treatment of their pit bull terriers or Persian cats.

These same individuals, I suspect, would be horrified if asked to pay anything at all for a consultation with their GP.

Vets also have the freedom to advise when further treatment seems futile and it would be kinder to bring life to a merciful close. An exit route denied to us mere humans unless we have the wherewithal and the physical strength to get ourselves to Dignitas in Zurich.

In creating more doctors we still have some way to go to catch up with our friends in Dr Merkel’s Germany, where a doctoral title is so de rigueur for anyone aspiring to the top in politics or business that their defence minister famously had to resign in 2011 after being found to have plagiarised his PhD thesis.

In Germany even the pizzas are made by doctors

So I congratulate my old friend on his belated and I am sure well-deserved elevation to the doctoral ranks. I hope to join him, in time, either because it is decided to award the title to senior practitioners of public relations; or because I make it back to university to complete my PhD

Though this time I think my thesis might be about class, tea or the weather rather than the Germans.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Events, dear boy, events

Recent events confirm three lasting truths: the British are obsessed with the weather, politicians cannot be trusted, and you should think long and hard before giving an animal a name.

The disappearance of much of southern England beneath floodwater has generated a media frenzy calculated to move even the most stonehearted. What could possibly make the misery of those affected even worse?

Well, having ministers and quangocrats fighting like ferrets in a sack over just whose fault it is probably does not help much. And if my own home were underwater a personal visit from Dave “Doing Everything We Can” Cameron would be pretty much the last straw.

At this point I was going to insert a hackneyed but hopefully witty reference to politicians’ hopes forever being dashed by “Events, dear boy, events”. But I am deeply disappointed to report that my usual in-depth research has uncovered no evidence that Harold Macmillan ever actually said it.

Another much-loved anecdote spiked, then. Though when I was writing my opera book last year I read time and again that the story of Tosca leaping from the battlements of the Castel Sant’Angelo and immediately bouncing back into view was completely apocryphal.

Until I happened to listen to a podcast of Desert Island Discs in which the legendary British soprano Dame Eva Turner described exactly that happening to her. So perhaps dear old Uncle Harold did say it after all.

Should more money have been spent on sea defences and dredging rivers in the Somerset levels? Common sense says “yes”, but EU directives and budgetary constraints apparently combined to dictate the opposite. While the rights of birds and water voles naturally trumped those of mere human beings.

The resulting disaster provides ammunition for campaigners for the unlikeliest causes, such as reintroducing beavers to the UK. Hang on: don’t beavers block rivers and cause floods?

Yes, but the right sort of floods because they could slow down water that might otherwise gush downstream and inundate all those lovely houses for which some idiot council granted planning permission even though they are standing on a flood plain.

Is the wettest winter since Noah was in the shipbuilding business the result of climate change? Almost certainly.

Is said climate change caused by human activity? Quite possibly.

Will we solve it by covering the countryside with wind turbines? I very much doubt it, though maybe some of the schemes for tidal barrages that so upset campaigners for our feathered friends might serve a useful dual purpose in generating reliable power and keeping the sea at bay.

And maybe the billions we can apparently find to invest in turbine subsidies and high speed rail links, calculated to strengthen London’s grip on the nation’s economic windpipe, might be usefully redeployed to keep the electorate’s feet dry in their own homes.

Meanwhile over the weekend the Twitter-literate were temporarily distracted from the floods to bemoan the terrible fate of Marius the giraffe, shot and fed to the lions in Copenhagen zoo because he made too feeble a contribution to the gene pool.

Surely this line of thinking must have sent a particularly powerful shiver down the spines of those in charge of environmental policy and flood control?

When I was a boy some bright spark decreed that barred cages were out of date and built an elephant enclosure at London Zoo surrounded by a moat instead. One of the beasts promptly toppled into it while reaching for a bun.

The resulting tabloid headline “Death of a children’s friend” reduced me to tears until my Dad put me straight: “It’s only a ****** elephant, son.”

Yes, and it’s only a giraffe, too. But it had a name, like a dog or a horse, and this is always a massive obstacle if you are planning to turn something into food.

I would cheerfully eat the deliciously anonymous chickens raised by my late neighbours but could never bring myself to accept chops from the pigs to which I had been introduced by name.

So pro-beaver campaigners please note. If you want to keep them out of the Chris Smith blame slot when the next floods arise, ensure that they’ve all got cute names, ideally beginning with “B”.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

My prayer for a summer as glorious as the Northumberland scenery

Legend has it that the mandrake plant screams if it is uprooted. I know just how it feels.

I descend from a long line of non-travellers. The only complication in researching my family history is an occasional, regrettable tendency for ancestors to sneak across the Scottish border, so that the relevant records end up in Edinburgh instead of London.

My father only left the country once, in 1944, at the absolute insistence of His Majesty the King. My more adventurous mother waited until widowhood and old age to try her one and only day trip to France, from which she returned with the fascinating discovery that “they eat frozen peas, just like us.”

As a boy, I was desperate to see the world and had a particular passion for old buildings. My father assured me that there were no finer castles than those of Northumberland, and that I had the greatest cathedral in the world just down the road in Durham.

I thought he was making excuses for his own laziness and lack of experience. Sadly he died before I realised that he had been bang right all along.

Now I find myself advancing similar arguments about the delights of Northumberland to my own family. After four years of marriage and workaday residence in Cheshire, “home” for me remains my bachelor house in the North East and I enticed my wife and sons over for the bank holiday weekend on the Met Office’s promise of stunning weather.

Typically, the strongest sunshine beat down upon the car on the way across.

I was reminded that two years ago we spent a whole August fortnight here watching the rain tip down, while a two-year-old agitated to go to the beach and build sandcastles.

True, it was reasonably pleasant, if breezy, on Sunday at the Milfield Festival of Heavy Horse, which failed to live up to my cynical expectations by actually featuring several horses.

Though my tractor-mad elder boy was a mite disappointed when the commentator’s magnificent build-up to a parade of vintage machines was followed by the sheepish confession that it would not be taking place after all, because the tractor drivers were in the beer tent.

Where I had no need to join them because we had just been treated to a truly magnificent lunch in the adjacent Red Lion by Fleet Street legend David Banks, author of the unmissable J2 Friday column.

I naturally hoped to meet at least some of the huge cast of fascinating characters with which Banksy populates his column, but sadly they all proved to be otherwise engaged. Even Mrs Banks had suddenly felt an urgent call to go for a long walk in the Cheviots, which would have been more understandable if she had ever met me.

By the time Banksy exclaimed “You’ve just missed the Byreman!” as we took our leave at the horsefest, I was beginning to experience distinct echoes of my father’s favourite James Stewart film, Harvey. With the obvious difference that Harvey the invisible white rabbit actually existed.

My family are on their way back to the North West as I write, while I am going to try and prune a large holly tree, with potentially fatal results. As I do, I shall pray not to fall off the ladder and that once, just once, my family will return to Northumberland on a perfect sunny day when it is not blowing a hooley, and say, “You and your dad were absolutely right, this really is the most wonderful place on Earth.” 

The late Michael Winner told a story of a man who prayed each eek for a big lottery win. Eventually the voice of God boomed: “Help me out here, Hymie. Buy a ticket!”

Lord, I have invested in a lovely house, so please help me out by sending us a summer in England this year. Otherwise I am going to have to succumb to a ghastly fortnight on some foreign shore and sell the home I love because keeping it is economic lunacy that would make even Gordon Brown blush.

Meanwhile, I really must explore the possibility of adopting a second name by deed poll. Mandrake has a ring to it.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Enjoy the Jubilee - and try not to think about what comes next

As one of Britain’s more fanatical monarchists, I am greatly looking forward to celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – one of the very few genuine “once in a lifetime” events.

I have vivid memories of driving to London on an old A-road during the Silver Jubilee celebrations of 1977, passing through village after village hung with bunting that must have been carefully put away after the Coronation, judging by the number of South African and pre-maple leaf Canadian flags on display.

Now that's what I call a street party. Salford, 1977, according to The Guardian.

These may have finally succumbed to moths by the time of the Golden Jubilee in 2002, but the left’s eager predictions that the public would refuse to celebrate half a century of Elizabeth II turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

The Mall in 2002. The Guardian predicted a total lack of public interest.

My hopes are accordingly high for the week ahead, even if the weather forecast sounds dubious and we can no longer afford to turn out the Gold State Coach for a grand procession to St Paul’s.

But will the positive impact on my personal morale be reflected across the nation as a whole? On the one hand, we have Sir Mervyn King warning that the loss of GDP caused by an extra bank holiday may be enough to tip the UK into recession for a further quarter.

On the other, retailers tell us that they are looking forward to an £800 million spending spree that may partially make up for the thoroughly depressing 2012 they have endured so far. True, their other hopes are pinned on the generation of a “feelgood factor” by sustained good weather, a strong showing by England in the Euro 2012 football championships and a series of British triumphs in the Olympics. None of which looks massively more plausible than my decision to base my retirement strategy entirely on a big win in the National Lottery. Though I do at least usually remember to buy a ticket, thus raising my chances by a mathematically insignificant degree.

Above all, I greatly need some happy memories of the Jubilee to banish from my mind the defining image of 2012 in Britain so far: the team of 50 paramedics, firemen and police officers half demolishing a house in South Wales in a £100,000 operation to release a 63 stone teenager from her bedroom.

Image from The Sun

It is hard to imagine the sheer dedication to gluttony that must have been required to achieve a weight gain on this scale. Indeed, the only positive spin I have been able to put on it is seeing some encouraging parallels with the Eurozone, where Greece similarly finds itself trapped in an impossible position as the result of years of overindulgence.

It clearly won’t be easy to extricate it from its dilemma, but given the will and the resources perhaps it may yet be done. If not, who can tell what may await the Greeks and all the rest of us just around the corner?

When Britain last celebrated a Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the country was at the apogee of its imperial power and could look back on 80 years of global pre-eminence, rising if unevenly distributed prosperity, and relative peace.

Note how closely the soldiers stood together in those days ...

You don’t have to be a big Downton Abbey fan to know what happened 17 years later.

Today we may be sadly diminished as a power, but can similarly look back on more than 60 years of increasing wealth and the avoidance of large scale conflict. For the sake of our collective sanity, I suggest that we do not dwell too much on what may happen next, but simply reflect on our good fortune in having a head of state who has undoubtedly given us a much higher international standing than any politician would have managed.

And while enjoying the cakes and ale, remember also the personal moderation for which Her Majesty has always been renowned, lest more of us ironically end up requiring a bulldozer to release us from our homes when this “great summer of sport” finally comes to an end.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Hann Perspective: The Inconvenient Truth

How are public companies meant to explain their performances when they are mocked for telling the truth?

So I reflected as I read the gibes directed at local hero Greggs in some quarters of the media for daring to mention, before and after the event, that their recent interim profits would have been £2 million higher if there had not been two more bank holidays in the first half of 2011 than in the equivalent period last year.

How could two days out of 365 possibly have such a disproportionate effect, the cynics enquired? And aren’t bank holidays – like the weather – regular events that good managements should be able to take in their stride?

In fact, Greggs has always been a model of honest and transparent reporting. For them, bank holidays mean reduced sales because some shops are closed, and higher costs as those that are open pay premium holiday wage rates. It is a simple fact of life.

The difficulty that some commentators have in grasping this is no doubt increased by the fact that there are no other quoted companies with a similar business model.

Ironically, in many ways, the best point of comparison for a retailer of sandwiches, savouries and drinks is a newspaper publisher. Because if, say, the weather is so appalling that regular readers do not make it to the newsagent to buy their daily paper, they do not compensate by buying two copies next day. The sale is lost forever. The same applies to lunch.

Every retail business I have ever encountered has been sensitive to the weather, yet the media and investor mantra that “only bad retailers blame the weather” has become so pervasive that most will bend over backwards to avoid mentioning it at all.

And it is pleasant, no doubt, for a pub company that has benefited from a long, hot summer and a successful England World Cup run (a pretty unlikely eventuality, I will grant you), to put the surge in sales down to their incisive strategy and brilliant management. But it is also less than honest. And it creates something of a problem in explaining the entirely predictable slump in the face of tough comparatives next year. Though if fortune is smiling the management will simply have collected their long term incentives and cleared off to sip pina coladas on the beach, leaving that little difficulty for someone else.

It does not take a genius to spot that customers may not be rushing to garden centres in their usual numbers in an August when it chucks it down pretty much every day. Though on the flip side, more people than usual will no doubt be seeking shelter by browsing sofas and other large ticket purchases in nice, dry, out-of-town retail sheds.

Wet summers are bad for vendors of ice cream, but good for those selling umbrellas. When I started work in the City, the traditional business school response was to recommend diversification, to ensure a smoother profit progression. But then conglomerates became a dirty word and had to be broken up in the name of the new mania for “focus”.

Which leaves us with the problem of how to explain variations in performance that are genuinely outside management’s control. In less news-packed Augusts than this, at least one national newspaper usually runs a filler column mocking the most ludicrous excuses put forward by companies in their results announcements, from frozen cockle beds in the Zuider Zee to a shortage of furniture buyers on the weekends of Princess Diana’s death and funeral.

The strange thing is that, however laughable they may sound, on closer inspection these claims all turn out to be true. If you are in the cockle fishing business (and there is certainly room for debate on the wisdom of that) you won’t sell a lot of them if freak weather means that you are unable to harvest any for weeks.

So what is the answer? Make up stories that aren’t actually true, but will have a more pleasing ring to uninformed commentators? Or simply “never apologise, never explain” and take the undeserved brickbats when your weather-sensitive business underperforms one year, hoping that you can bask in equally unmerited praise when the pendulum swings back? (A high risk strategy, given the way that the British weather has been going of late.)

Sadly, there is another answer. Take your business private so that you can run it for the long term, never again needing to bother about how the teenage scribblers will react to a temporary profit blip. Management rewards will receive much less scrutiny, too. But that deprives the rest of us of the opportunity to invest in good companies that will reward us well. So perhaps what we need is a touch less cynicism and rather more understanding that some managements actually tell the truth.

Keith Hann is a PR consultant who believes in telling it like it is – www.keithhann.com

Originally published in nebusiness magazine, The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The elephant lost in a snowdrift

I began the first working day of 2010 feeling uncharacteristically optimistic, until I had a searing flash of conscience about the stuffed elephant. How on earth could I have forgotten about that, yet again?

I should explain right away that it is not a real stuffed elephant, though given the long-running logistical difficulties in arranging its handover it might as well be. But I am assured that this one is merely a cuddly toy bearing a passing resemblance to the trunked and tusked creature that it is apparently no longer correct to call a pachyderm (did you know that they had fads like that in Nature Study, too?)

A kind friend bought it as a gift for my newborn son and, at the current rate of progress, he is going to end up presenting it to a sneering teenager rather than a gratefully gurgling infant.

And it’s all my fault, as usual. I told him that we would definitely be at home on Sunday if he felt like dropping by. Please God don’t let his remains be discovered in a snowdrift, like Ötzi the Austrian iceman, with an elephant clutched in his fist. (“Archaeologists speculated that the primitive inhabitants of Durham worshipped the animal, long extinct in their region, as a reminder of the times of plenty when its dung was prized as the magic ingredient in their legendary giant leek trenches.”)

We were supposed to be back at home by New Year’s Eve, but I contracted a stinking cold just in time for Christmas, then passed it on to Mrs Hann as an unwanted gift. Having spent a week coughing at each other in Cheshire, we were all geared up for an early start for Northumberland on Saturday morning when I happened to flick onto the ancient Ceefax system during a particularly dull TV programme on Friday, and caught a passing mention of severe weather in the North East.

We duly switched on the main BBC evening news to get the full story, but there was nothing. Not a word. This suggested one of three possibilities.

First, those setting the news agenda have finally appreciated that it gets cold as a matter of course between December and February, so it is not really “hold the front page” material. This was certainly true in my childhood, but has not really been so of late. I have only been seriously snowed in to my present house once, and that was for a couple of days in November 1988, shortly after I had moved in.

So we move on to the second and more sinister possibility for the news blackout: that the freezing conditions appear at variance with the endless bleating about “manmade global warming”, and must therefore go unreported in case us thickoes start thinking “Hang on …”

This also seems an unlikely explanation, as I feel confident that teams of scientists are already working on the case for the Big Freeze being precisely one of those “extreme weather events” we were warned about as a consequence of the underlying warming trend.

Which leaves us with the third explanation: that no-one at the BBC gives a monkey’s how bad the weather is in the North East, though if more than a couple of flakes fall in central London it is invariably the lead item on every bulletin for days.

Yes, that seems most likely on the whole. I am glad we had friends in the North to consult about the advisability of travelling (which they provided free of charge, not in return for a compulsory £142.50 annual licence fee). It is a shame to have missed the opportunity to capture some classic Northumberland snow scenes on camera, though. And it is a real pity about that elephant. I wonder whether we might have had better luck with a woolly mammoth?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.