The Irish Tales

Second Life. (3)


As the old cliché goes, every adman has a book in his bottom drawer. Some of them actually go on to read it. And some of them, like Fay Weldon, Dorothy Sayers, Peter Mayle or the fatwah fella, actually go on to write it and get it published. (I wonder how many of you can, without Googling, name the ads or products they were associated with ?)
I can proudly say that the only book in my bottom drawer was on the annual agency snooker tournament, (all proceeds to the RSPCC) which I shamelessly fixed in order to maximise the money donated, to the extent that I blackmailed our top player, (unfaithful) and bribed our second best player (with a cheap lunch at a greek restaurant if you must know) to lose at good odds.
All this changed when I became, well, whatever one becomes when one becomes a full-time luncher, piano-player and writer manque.
(Isn’t manque a great word ? It sounds like what it means, don’t you think ?)

Anyway, Sayers wrote some of the great Guiness ads, including

“If he can say as you can , Guinness is good for you
How grand to be a Toucan. Just think what Toucan do.”

Weldon conjured up “Go to work on an egg”, a line which has now been banned on Health and Safety Lines.

Peter Mayle was prominent figure in late 60’s and early seventies London ad circles, though curiously few examples of his work remains.

He quit the business in 1975 to write educational books, including a series on sex education for children and young people. His 1989 book A Year in Provence became an international bestseller.

Curiously, the book was mainly about how tricky it was for a wealthy Englishman to buy a cottage in France and live happily ever after, whilst enjoying excellent 5 hour lunches in the process.
Inevitablt, more of the same followed.

The fatwa guy, Salman Rushdie,achieved notability with his second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize in 1981.

His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the center of The Satanic Verses controversy, with protests from Muslims in several countries. Some of the protests were violent, with Rushdie facing death threats and a fatwā issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in February 1989.

Apart from all this, he wrote some Aero chocolate bar ads, which I loved as much as I loved his novels. (I’m diabetic, by the way.)


I am, therefore, still not writing a book. Not openly, anyway.Not till someone threatens to kill me in the name of Allah. Or even Dan Browne.

It would be a waste, right ?