Reaching the top spenders
In my old-fashioned way, I still refer to the more upmarket daily newspapers as “the broadsheets” – even though two of them (The Times and the Independent) are both only available in tabloid shape. But the phrase “the broadsheets” does include these two titles, plus the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times.
The phrase is loved by the advertising fraternity, who know that – if they buy space in all of these newspapers – the chances are they will reach, not only most of the top spenders in the population, but also those who are the most highly educated.
It is that latter characteristic which has brought about the downfall of one of the most ubiquitous upmarket advertisers. Over the last twelve months, no reader of such newspapers can have failed to have noticed big display advertisements for the Quooker. This is a kitchen tap that promises boiling water at 100C at all times. For the modest price of just £830, including VAT.
Each ad states categorically that having boiling water ready and waiting is more “eco-friendly” than plugging a kettle into the wall, and then boiling the water. The Quooker’s electricity use, each ad promises, “ is 55% less than a kettle.”
The problem with making such claims in posh newspapers is that there are likely to be readers who actually do know a thing or two about electricity. It would appear that several got in touch with the Advertising Standards Authority, each suggesting that the claim being made is complete nonsense.
The ASA took one look at the information provided. And agreed that there is absolutely no electricity saved by using a Quooker rather than a conventional kettle. Nor was it more “eco-friendly” than a bog standard kettle.The ads have been withdrawn. And sadly something fast becoming so familiar is to disappear from our reading material.
Faintly endearing
There was something faintly endearing about the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry, David Phillips,’ appearance on Radio 4‘s Today programme. Asked why people remained deeply suspicious about nuclear power, he responded the people most to blame were the makers of the 1962 James Bond spy movie “Dr No”.
It was they, Mr Philips claimed, who had created the “negative image”, by making the arch-villain Goldfinger into an evil mastermind who wishes to control the world via exploiting nuclear power. It made nuclear power seem like a “barely controllable force of evil.”
The saddest aspect of this bizarre accusation is it immediately showed just how out of touch such grand chemists are with popular culture. This year will mark no less than the fiftieth anniversary of the release of this movie. With the best will in the world, it is unlikely most of those born since have ever seen this film, let alone had their attitudes towards nuclear power altered as a result.
In practice, it is perfectly clear to me which is the representative of popular culture, who for the past twenty years has caused the most damage to the image of nuclear power. Step forward Mr Burns, of the cartoon series The Simpsons. As the owner of the local nuclear power station in Springfield, he is regularly reviled by the wonderfully dysfunctional Simpson family, most noticeably Homer his erstwhile employee.
First rule of public advocacy, Mr Philips. Recognise who your true enemy is. Or as Mr Burns would doubtless order his gopher Smithers: “Excellent. Release the hounds.”
The very least I could do
In my last diary, I carried a groveling apology to Simon Virley, a director-general for energy at the Department for Energy & Climate Change. Thinking he was the only man in the ministry with such a grand title, I had excoriated him for the cock-up which led to long delays in the introduction of the Renewable Heat Incentive.
Friends of the gregarious Mr Virley pointed out to me the Department actually runs to a second director-general. A man called Philip Wynn Owen. He it was, rather than Mr Virley, who had failed to consider the need to gain approval from the competition authorities in Brussels for such an overt market distortion.
Having called initially for Mr. Virley’s resignation, the very least I could do was make the same call regarding Mr Owen. Especially as it seems since then other reasons have emerged to breathe fire and thunder about this obscure Welshman.
For instance, guess who was responsible for the decision to seek to alter the solar power Feed In Tariffs scheme, some eleven days before the official statutory consultation considering this matter had even concluded?
And guess who it was who sought to return to the Treasury the extra £205m which they had generously ‘donated’ to his department to launch the Green Deal scheme this autumn, on the basis that as accounting officer he couldn’t be certain his department would spend the money wisely? This was particularly foolish as it was his own secretary of state, Chris Huhne, who had undertaken – and won – the negotiation.
It strikes me having two separate director-generals in one relatively small department is an embarrasse de richesse. Especially if one is quite so accident-prone. I believe the polite request is for him to ‘reconsider his position.
Facebook farm
Had you heard about Facebook’s plans to build a giant “server farm” covering 30,000 sq metres at Lulea, 60 miles from the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden.? The racks of servers in data centres are the infrastructure upon which Facebook depends to store and transmit the reams of data used by its 800 million users. Apparently the one certainty of choosing such a remote location is that there is no likelihood of anybody visiting the place to try to fix friends.
