It's easy with hindsignt to imagine what career path you might have taken, if say, the course of events had led you down a different course. I quite like the idea of marketing spirits and liquers, especially if (through some sort of occult timewarp) I had been whisked back in time to the 1970's. But then my father used to be the account director on the Booth's Gin account, and I seem to remember tales of long liquid lunches at their panelled offices in Park Lane. Full Circle.
Another amusing fantasy career would to have been some sort of slick exec for the Franklin Mint. Hours of entertainment thinking up new ideas to flog to the unsuspecting readers of The Sunday Express: "I'm loving your King Henry and His Six Wives Chess Set, Luke" (dig in the ribs) "Real Class, Kiddo"..."Tooled in 24 karat gold and lined in lovingly crafted kidron?"..."Sure"..."But we're gonna up the limited edition size"... "Saya Ten Thousand?"
The Courvoisier account would have been fun too. Brilliant advertising. A fairly ordinary, supermarket shelf brandy was transformed into a sophisticated cognac enjoyed- no savoured- by connoisseurs, aristos and no one less than the Emperor himself. Buying a bottle of Courvoisier gave you that certain 'je ne sais quoi'- or that at least, is what the advertisers hoped for: the whiff of a leather-bound library, an ancient chateau in the countryside outside Paris, the discreet chime of an antique clock, the crunch of a gravel drive, sophisticated after dinner chat, the hint of an aristocratic pedigree. We're in the same territory as After Eight Mints.
Imperial Leather soap- by Cussons- was another one. Pretty ordinary stuff to be honest. But then the Imperial Leather family used it, didn't they? They liked to share a bath. All of them together. Didn't their butler bring them one of those old fashioned telephones to use? As they played backgammon whilst reading the Financial Times? These days that sort of thing would be banned. I can hear the tut-tutting now as I type, drifiting up over the leafy environs of Tunbridge Wells.
