bloggggomania. A manic life in Advertising and Marketing.
The
extreme highs and lows of a bipolar life in Advertising. A story of
illicit sex, personal consumption of $500,000's worth of crack cocaine,
half a billion of Media buying, 11 armed policemen, 14 consultant
psychiatrists, two Managing Director ex-wives, and a life than really
has been and still is not in any way like any other you've ever read.
Enjoy.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
bloggggomania declares WAR on Egg, Prudential, Experian, Equifax and
HSBC. It's them or us. MAD? You bet. $Even? Give us 6 months...
bloggggomania declares global guerrilla marketing warfare against Egg, Prudential, Equifax, Experian and HSBC.
Why?
Because
they lied and libelled me for 3 years over a debt that didn't exist,
and they did their very best to ruin my life. If I wasn't such a tough
old Cardiff-born motherphucker, they'd probably have succeeded.
Thanks
to Nationwide and Halifax, both of whom I have been with for a decade,
for their continuing and much appreciated support and understanding and
general kindness when I was too ill to work.
And hell and
eternal damnation to the five companies above who think they can treat
disabled people like shit and get away with it. Think again.
I
intend - I hope with the help of every marketing genius who visits here
and ever got turned down for a credit card or refused an overdraft - to
reduce the share price of each of these companies by at least 20% in 6
months.
A concerted and ruthlessly brutal information campaign
delivered through the web, multi-media PR, daily e-mailings to staff,
shareholders, institutional investors and every financial journalist in
the world. How about helping to organise class action suits in the USA,
complaints to government watchdogs and disability rights organisations,
to the Director of Information and Data Protection supremo, and new
regulations proposed in Parliament?
Huh, that's just the start.
There'll be websites where we can gather information from: *Everyone
who has ever been libelled or mistreated or suffered in any way as a
result of bad credit history (Equifax and Experian)... *Prudential insurance policy holders who claimed but didn't get paid... *Egg
credit card customers who feel they have been unfairly defaulted or,
like me, libelled for years, their financial status destroyed by a
lie... *Disabled or victimised customers of HSBC who have their
business accounts closed, despite half a million pounds profit and no
outstanding debts, just because they are ill in hospital being treated
for physical or mental illness... *Customers of financial
institutions who libel you for years, destroying your credit, business
and your life, and then can't even be bothered to write to you and
apologise (Egg)...
Henceforth simply to be known as The Enemy.
All
viral marketing ideas, corporate-destructive PR plans, US legal advice,
and general support is more than welcome. This is not a hate campaign
by Morgan And Stef alone. It belongs to everyone everywhere who has
been badly treated by a financial institution and has not been able to
find just redress. This campaign is by the highly rated
www.bloggggomania.com blog site and all the 3,116 people who have
visited it in the 66 days since its launch. On 1st April. Well, what
can I say? So I'm a bit of a joker. But that doesn't affect the fact
that every word of this blog is true.
(This I swear on the life
of my beloved mother, 86 last week. She was given a beautiful pure gold
crucifix by a senior member of the Saudi Royal Family. Such a wonderful
and kind man - the future of a great country. My Mum has contacts all
over the world through her family and her global singing career as a
Contralto, but most of all to her "grandchildren", all her young
friends from all over the world who have come to Bath and learned to
speak English just by spending time with her, and every one has adopted
her as a member of their family. And vice versa. At Christmas and on
her birthday, she gets presents, calls and cards from former pupils in
Vietnam, Thailand, France, Italy, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Japan,
Spain and many other countries all over the world. And she's never made
a penny profit from it. Not bad for 86. Huh. In Ireland, it's called
approaching your prime...)
This is ALL OUR fight, to conduct the
ultimate viral marketing experiment. It's a moral crusade, it's a bit
of harmless fun, except for the shareholders and the staff of The
Enemy. In Wales, we have a word for that. Tough.
Here's the Proposition:
How
far, in just 6 months and with a global media budget of just £7,000,
can you drive down the share price of four global multi-national
financial institutions with the sole use of a blog, PR, Direct
Marketing, and a rather good firm of English West Country solicitors?
Sound like a hopeless, manic experiment?
You haven't seen our meticulously conceived plan...
The
£7,000 figure is, of course, significant. It's exactly the same amount
of money that Egg have been silently claiming on their credit agency
link that I have owed them for the past 3 years. The truth? They lied,
and they now ACCEPT they lied. But they haven't apologised or offered a
penny compensation. (Big mistake, Egg. BIG mistake.)
So now I
don't want compensation. I want revenge. And believe me, in Wales we're
completely manic about vengeance. The Sicilians have nothing on us.
It's the kind of ruthlessness you would expect from a country where "a
good Saturday afternoon game" means fighting in a ruck of sixteen
bodies with no necks, jabbing fingers in your opponents' eyes,
squeezing and crushing their testicles, and biting your best friend's
ear off.
And then you all go out and drink 20 pints of Brains
Skull Attack (THE Welsh beer) each, and throw your arms around each
other and sing Cwm Rhondda together till you pass out or drive home
paralytically pissed.
You may call that a horrifyingly violent and amoral gathering of psychopaths.
We call it Rwgbi, and it's our national sport.
My father was so proud of me. I could put a place-kick over the bar from the centre spot, but I got sent off in every single
school game of rugby I ever played, always for short arm tackling. (The
most frequent cause of broken necks in rugby, and completely illegal.)
My father loved it. A real chip off the old block.
And
if that's what we do for fun, imagine how ruthless we can be when we
have half a billion pounds worth of media advertising experience, and
26 years of creating, sustaining and destroying global brands through
copywriting, web content, brand language, Media Advertising, PR and
Direct Marketing programmes. Imagine what we'd be like if we really got
pissed off with someone...
Experian and Equifax passed on
Egg's lie, and now THEY accept they lied. But they deny all
responsibility for libelling me every day for three years. They blame
Egg. And Egg is just being bought back from the poor shareholders who
didn't get out in time by the same Prudential Insurance giant who
created this monster and have been trying (alledgedly) to get rid of it
ever since.
HSBC believed Experian's lie, despite the cancelled
cheque from me drawn on THEIR bank for over £7,000 paying off the full
balance to Egg years ago.
HSBC hate disabled people. A disabled
person who runs his own copywriting business for 9 years, (steadily
increasing his profit EVERY year from £15,500 to £67,000 in
2002/2003, and earned all that money just by writing for 67 nights plus
the odd meeting) is, if he suffers from clinical depression, simply
another poor nut. Even if, when he's well, he can charge a lot more
than his Bank Manager earns.
£1,000 a night. (I work twice as well and quickly at night).
£500 a day.
£1 a word.
The simplest ratecard in history.
Now,
banks and insurance companies and global financial credit agencies
react to nuisance (i.e. victimised and abused customer) lawsuits by
chucking millions of pounds at the very best lawyers, who delay and
prevaricate and wait until the customer and their lawyers run out of
money.
That is not just and it isn't fair. bloggggomania
hereby declares war on The Enemy and that war will continue for 6
months. At that time, the winners in our bloggggomania "Guess how much
the shares of Egg, Prudential, HSBC, Experian and Equifax will be worth
exactly 6 months after D-Day?" competition will be announced.
Prizes
will include cash awards, copies of "wired words - language is the new
identity" from FT.com ("in the e-world,brands need to talk") signed by
the author, Steve Morris, thousands of dollars worth of FREE marketing
consultancy from someone who has worked as a consultant for Cap Gemini
Ernst & Young, IBM Global Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers,
MARCHfirst, the Alhalrami Consortium, and yes, you guessed it, HSBC.
This is where we make the bastards pay.
Please
refrain from closing any accounts or selling any shares in The Enemy
until D-Day itself, (it announcedannouced on this website later this
month). That would skew the results unfairly towards failure. And just
think about it. If this works to even the slightest degree in terms of
lost business or bad publicity for The Enemy, how would that affect the
future of banking?
Perhaps they would start to treat their
customers with more respect if they feared them. If a free blog by a
certified insane Welsh copywriter living in Bath, England could be
proved to have significantly lowered their shareprice or profits, or
severely damaged their multi-billion dollar images, banks would have to
treat every single customer with the respect that most other big
businesses, with their Ethical and Corporate Responsibility Charters,
already do.
I've worked for most of the financial institutions
and I now refuse to have anything to do with them. They are almost all
(except just possibly Nationwide and the Co-operative Bank) lying,
cheating, amoral scum who want me to write their universally and
consciously misleading lies and promises that are broken before they
are even made. I've given up writing lies. So I don't write for ANY financial clients any more.
I
stick to Technology, Communications and Consulting for money, and
Charities and Community Organisations and local businesses for fun.
As
for funds, we do not need anything yet, but thank you so much for the
thought. Our lead solicitors, Withy King, are excellent value given the
depth of their expertise in Copyright and Intellectual Property,
Finance and Corporate Legislation, Disability Legislation, Fraud and
Criminal prosecutions, and their Top Ten UK Mental Health team, headed
by the the awesomely aggressive Richard Ellis. I'm glad he's on our
side.
But once we start building the numbers for class actions
against The Enemy, we are looking at the establishment of a substantial
Customers Against The Enemy (CATE) fund which can act as a resource for
anyone with a winnable case against Egg, Prudential, HSBC, Equifax and
Experian.
To all the 3,116
different people (unique hits), almost all Campaign readers, who've
apparently visited here in the last 66 days...
This
is your blog. Without you, I'd just be talking to myself. And if you're
bipolar, you really don't want to do that, ever. The authorities have a
tendency to section you. (For our Global audience, (according to
Google, we are big in Japan and Canada, and were featured on the USA's
LearnAboutInsurance.com as a salutary lesson on how bad things can get
following a separation. Huh. Tell me about it...) sectioning is where
the English Police lock you up indefinitely in a high-security
psychiatric facility, even though you have not had even the chance to
appear in a Court of Law and have not been charged or found guilty of
any offence whatsoever. Land of the Free. Huh.
Anyway,
put your best viral anti-corporate marketing ideas as comments - with
your name if you want recognition, or anonymously if you're too scared
of pissing off your bank.
Thanks
to all the visitors, especially those who have hit the BlogTopSites
button at the top of the blog and voted for us. Still 5 stars, despite
my second ex-wife and her daughter apparently voting "1", our average
score is over 8 so we are one of the very few 5-star blogs in
BlogTopSites.com's Top 200 Best Literary Blogs in the World.
And
we're the No. 6 most popular Marketing-related Blog in The World,
according to Blogflux, BlogTopSites.com's sister company. And that only
measures our Blogger blog: http://bloggggomania.blogspot.com.
Angelfire, Wikablog and the dozens of other mirror sites or earlier
versions - even www.bloggggomania.com - all go unmeasured. Why? Cause I
can't be arsed to set it up. I'm too busy. So sue me.
Thanks to Richard Ellis, who has freely advised me on the legality of the bloggggomania Anti-Financial Institution Campaign (bAFIC).
bAFIC
is launched on the 6 month anniversary of D-Day (coming later this
month). bAFIC will accept and indeed aggressively hustle for
substantial donations from Egg, Prudential and HSBC's competitors,
whose shareholders would obviously benefit from the demise of three
such big competitors. And according to The Enemy's stated doctrine of
the primacy of shareholder rights over those of mere customers, all
Egg's, Prudential's and HSBC's credit card, insurance corporation and
bank competitors will be fully justified in donating to us as a (by
then proven) tactic to destroy their competitors and win over their
customers.
Neat, huh?
By then, we'll be bored so we'll
hand the whole thing over to a respected and suitably aggressive mental
health charity (like MIND or MDF Bipolar) and let them take it from
there.
Experiment over. Move on. Earn some serious dosh. Buy
houses in Cardiff and Bali. Marry Helen. And enter old age together as
disgracefully as possible.
(As for the two homes, that's
nothing. The world's best-selling author (and the most borrowed author
from United Kingdom libraries) is bipolar and on Lithium, according to
an interview she gave recently in Europe. In the week she received her
first $100,000,000 cheque for Kay Scarpetta books 3 & 4, Patricia
Cornwell allegedly bought five, yes five, homes and the most expensive
Bell helicopter available, customised in Black. And had a
much-publicised lesbian affair. Go girl! You Welsh then?)
Also,
thanks to E3MEDIA in Bristol, web designers for Lloyds TSB and Orange,
who gave me my www.MorganEdwardsConsulting.com and www.WordsPlus.co.uk
websites FOR FREE in gratitude at a night's writing the words for their
own website. Thank you forever for that one. Equivalent earnings,
apparently, £1,000 an hour. Not bad for an old Welsh/Irish nutter from
Cardiff.
And to Bluestone in Plymouth, who designed my Words
Plus logo, letterhead, brochures and transparent business cards for
free. And for whom, for 8 years I not only wrote every word of every
brochure and every website for the agency itself, but also,
unbelievably, for every single one of their clients, including
Wrigleys, General Electric Corporation of America, DML (who make and
refit nuclear subs for the Ministry of Defence, as well as yachts for
millionnaires), Prosper Group, South West Regional Development
Authority, British Telecom (BT), O2, Bassetts Trebor, and so many, many
more. Thanks, Steve, Ian and Symon for everything. Long time no speak.
Sorry. Don't "do" Plymouth any more. Too far from civilisation. But
hope to meet up with you all for a couple of Coronas and Tequila
Slammers at your London office some time soon.
Respect to HSAG
Design of London, for whom I wrote IBM Global Services Direct Marketing
and Sales collateral copy for years until they fired them. No, HSAG
fired IBM. Really. They simply read the latest compulsory and
over-onerous contract from IBM and just said "Sorry, we're too busy
with other clients to serve you, so goodbye." How friggin' cool is THAT?
Morgan thanks Stef. For everything.
And Alison and Graham for having him and making me his Godfather.
Now he's 25, a year older than I was when Stef was born and I was appointed his Godfather.
Like me, he read English & Philosophy at University.
Like me, he has become a copywriter.
Now, he's too busy writing the copy for the Global launch of Nintendo WiFi to spend too much time on bloggggomania.
But
every word he does contribute is a gem. And it is such a pleasure to
work with a friend and collaborator who is such a brilliant writer
already, and a pretty neat underground dj too. (As recently positively
reviewed in The Guardian, London and Manchester, England.)
To our friends, eternal sunshine of the spotless soul and the warm and generous Celtic heart.
And to our enemies, eternal damnation in the fires of falling share prices and appalling publicity. Forever and ever. Amen.
Every
day from D-Day (coming very, very soon - so watch out here for more
news) may every financial journalist in the world receive daily stories
on the infamies that these five companies have inflicted on the British
and Celtic peoples, and, in the case of HSBC, Prudential, Experian and
Equifax, globally to people in every country in the world.
Have
you heard their latest one? Not only can't you speak to a human being
closer than 3,000 miles away when you call your local branch via phone
(some chap from Bombay answers the line - it's what we in the
Advertising business call Efficient but not Effective, like almost
everything HSBC does).
NOW they're getting rid of 3 out of the 4
tills in the Bath branch, replacing them with machines, and BANNING all
customers except the very wealthiest Premier customers from so much as
TALKING to any staff at the only till that's left.
No, really, I'm not making this up. They've got a sign announcing it in branch this week.
From a copywriting perspective, I would define their Marketing Communications Proposition as:
"If
you're not a millionnaire, why don't you just phuck off to a loser's
bank like NatWest, Co-op, Nationwide or Halifax/HBOS where they still
care about customers and treat them as people deserving of respect. We
made £10,000,000,000 profit this year by cutting all our services to
the ordinary customers, making them deal with appallingly badly paid
graduates in India, and calling in all their loans early. Why? Dummy,
because WE CAN. And no one can do anything about it."
Think that's over the top?
Then answer me one simple question.
What is the Customer Benefit of having to talk to someone in India every time I ring my branch half a mile away in Bath?
And what is the Customer Benefit of being banned from talking to a human being at your own bank's only remaining till?
Answers on Comments on the blog or via email please.
Because I'm buggered if I know.
HSBC
Marketing Director - please justify, right here, right now, to all your
shareholders and customers and the poor staff, your new anti-customer
strategy. O, I know, you made the biggest profits in Corporate history
this year. But what about next year when all your customers leave and
go to a bank (or better, a not-for-profit Building Society like
Nationwide), when they don't treat their customers like you do. Like
shit.
And a final note to the Chief Executives and
Marketing Directors of all the Big Five, the scuzzy end of the Global
Financial Services Industry, now always to be known here as The Enemy.
Hello
boys! It's time for all of you to pay up with your personal careers and
your companies' over-inflated share prices. I hope your marketing guys
are good. They'll need to be.
Here's the deal. We'll stop this
crusade when you all kneel before me and apologise for phucking up my
life, and thousands of other lives all over the world, with your lies
and deceit and general bloody mindedness and condescension.
Now,
that isn't going to happen, which means you're stuck with the
bloggggomania campaign, produced by the leading marketers of the world,
with the sole aim of destroying you, or at least hurting you so badly
you'll wake up and smell your customers taking the power and money and
profit and healthy share price away from you and giving it to people
like Nationwide, proud to be owned by poor and rich alike, the property
of its very own customers. That's probably why it treats us so well.
No,
hang on, just kneeling and apologising isn't enough. What could
possibly reimburse me for the pain of my ex-lover's suicide, and for
the (albeit only momentary) loss of my self-respect from being treated
like an unclean thing in your lovely clean bank for millionnaires?
Or
for the humiliation of earning half a million pounds of
steadily-growing profit, all by yourself, and then having your "global"
bank reduce your overdraft facility from ã5,000 to nothing
overnight, and have your business account closed against your wishes by
the Bank Manager even though there's money in it and nothing owed.
Or
for being libelled and lied about every day for three years by Experian
and Equifax, who then say "Sue those incompetant bastards at Egg. We
wuz only following orders". Christ. It's Nuremburg all over again.
O,
hang on a minute, I know. I'll stop this either when I get bored with
it, or when you kneel in front of me and apologise to me with the
cameras of the world's TV stations and international press to witness
the historic event.
And there's this final demand. And I'm afraid it's a dealbreaker.
Suck my dick.
There, now that COULD be what they call manic, bipolar, forced and overstated speech.
Or a Welsh promise. Same difference.
You'll be hearing from me. Forever. In your phucking nightmares.
Visitors to www.bloggggomania.com today have the opportunity to put this vital ...bloggggomania declares global guerrilla marketing warfare against Egg, ... bloggggomania.blogspot.com/ - 259k - 7 Jun 2006 - Cached - Similar pages
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This blog, http://bloggggomania.blogspot.com, is effectively a 5000 word ...
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Bloggggomania is about the ups and downs of a bipolar copywriter in Bath. ...
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Stef Macbeth says... Re. Breaking Eggs, Prudentials, HSBCs, Experians & Equifaxes. Seems like a good idea....
Morgan's
experience is clearly horrendous and unjustifiable. My hunch is that
Egg et al will attempt to dismiss it as a one-off cock-up or "human
error" or whatever and scapegoat one of their junior managers. They
might even try to buy him off to keep his mouth shut.
But what
Morgan's case highlights is something more systemic than that. The fact
is that Morgan's experience reveals a significant loop-hole in the
anti-discrimination policies of these companies. This failure to
protect vulnerable people (Morgan may not seem vulnerable but he is, on
occasion, severely mentally disabled with mania and depression) from
unchallengeable and systematic corporate abuse takes us back to dark
days.
The fact that it is has not been picked up and
legislated against reflects a wider failing of our society to protect
and respect the rights of the mentally ill.
The launch of this
campaign is significant. Here is someone who has experienced the
systematic abuse of his rights by faceless corporations putting his own
face and his name and global reputation on the line so that the
millions of other people in similar circumstances will not go through
what he has had to endure.
It is well publicised that 1 in 4 of
us will experience mental health problems at some point in our lives.
Yet Egg et al are refusing to acknowledge that their provisions for
these customers are, at best, inadequate - at worst, cynically and
brutally exploitative.
Visitors to bloggggomania.blogspot.com today have the opportunity to put this vital issue on the national agenda.
One
bipolar copywriter (even with the talents, staying power and
extraordinary energy of Morgan Patrick Edwards) is easily ignored by
these massive corporations.
Yet if we all take action, then we
have a chance of at least starting a public debate and formal
investigation into the practices that the major financial institutions
follow with regards to their mentally disabled customers, and indeed
all those who are not "prime customers" - all the vulnerable and poor
and disadvantaged who the banks hold in such contempt.
Have you or has anyone you know experienced similar problems with any of these companies? Bloggggomania is your forum where you can get your story heard. Just add your comment below.
And for the many people who subscribe to bloggggomania
who currently, or have in the past, worked in the media industry, why
not use your influence and your contacts to raise this issue and make a
very real difference to the lives of vulnerable people.
All
we're asking for is a public debate and a formal investigation. It's
about accountability and surely no companies - however much they pay
their shareholders, and however much they contribute to whatever
political parties - are above answering legitimate questions about
their business practices.
The starting point is to get in touch with bloggggomania by clicking on the link below. It takes two minutes to let us know that we're not alone in this.
The
next step is to get in touch with everyone you know that cares about
equal rights for all, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation,
religion, physical and, yes, mental health. Direct them to the bloggggomania.com forum so they can judge for themselves if there are questions to be answered or whether this kind of practice is acceptable.
After
that we need to launch and sustain a systematic and professionally
managed global guerrilla media campaign against these companies and
press for a proper public inquiry on the issue.
Get in touch if
you think you can help in any way. These corporations cannot be allowed
to continue these exploitative and humiliating practices against their
most vulnerable customers.
But at the moment they have no reason to stop, review and develop more ethical working practices.
Give them a reason.
Be a part of the bloggggomania movement. MAKES them change.
To
celebrate our 5,000th visitor in just 66 days, here is a link to 5
tracks and 21 Mb of mp3 files that you are invited to download, sit
down, chill out and enjoy at our expense.
Simply click here and log in with Username "bloggggomania" and Password "bloggggomaniac". Play or download as you like.
Should
you feel the need to contribute something to the good of mankind in
return, feel free to click on the Google Public Service ad above and
donate some money to the great, proud, black people of New Orleans,
home of so much great music (my personal favourites being The Neville
Brothers - Aaron has the best male voice I have ever heard outside the
Tredegar Welsh Male Voice Choir).
If you don't fancy that,
then please consider giving to Save The Children Fund. They were,
uniquely, clients of mine across two different ad agencies all the way
through from 1982 to 1991. During that time, I was solely responsible
for their entire media advertising budget of several million pounds.
Most ad agencies were happy with break even or even less from national
press ads. Not us. We were ruthless.
Our negotiating stance?
"Give us 75% discount or we will actually lose money on this ad and 200
African babies will die and it will be on your conscience for the rest
of your life." Needless to say, we slashed costs very effectively. So
when I was forced out of Ayer Barker in 1988 and head-hunted the same
day by O&M Direct, I was frankly stunned when Save The Children
fired Ayer Barker a couple of months later and moved their entire
advertising budget, above and below-the-line (i.e. above = media who
pay 15% or 20% commission to agencies, and below, like direct mail, who
pay no commission so they are "below" the media commission line) into a
Direct Marketing agency. Yes, you guessed it, MY agency. Later, Rod
Wright - the guy who hired me for Targeting Director of O&M Direct-
lured Wendy Richard, the famous Head of Fundraising for SCF, to join
him, Drayton and me on the board of O&M Direct: a great client and
then a valued colleague.
By the
way, I might just point out that we have not included ANY commercial
ads or sold anything whatsoever on this blog, or on any of the many
different versions around on Wikablog, Angelfire and Tripod etc. This
is about truth, not money. As Campaign so perfectly quoted me on April
7th 2006...
"Fuck that", Edwards retorted. "It's my life story and I'm just telling it."
For all the rest of Campaign's extraordinary coverage of bloggggomania, see below and links on the right-hand toolbar.
The
five songs are by Bob Dylan (a Jewish American born-again Christian who
renamed himself after the greatest of all WELSH poets - how cool is
THAT? Respect...), Bruce Springsteen, Miami Steve Van Zandt (guitarist
of Springsteen's E Street Band and Little Steven & The Disciples of
Soul and star of the Sopranos where his most famous line was The
Godfather quote "...they pull me back in" - you know, he's the
underboss who runs BadaBing and has black slicked back hair - it was
Miami Steve's first ever acting job and wasn't he brilliant?) And last
but not least, The Neville Brothers, the greatest band that New Orleans
ever produced. Hope Bush dies a painful death and you can reclaim your
beautiful city once more. Hope the link above helps, even just a
little...
As my latest t-shirt says:
SMOKE BUSH NOT AFGHAN
All
vocals, keyboards, and electro-acoustic guitars are by Morgan Patrick
Edwards. AKA me. Electric solo on "Next to me" (Van Zandt) is by Steve
Robinson of Bath band Snow Hill. Acoustic guitar on "All that heaven
will allow" is by the great finger-picking guitarist Graham "Fingers"
Butterfield, Stef's father. That track was recorded live at Eldon
House, The Triangle, Bristol at our July 4th American Independence Day
gig called "Spirit of 76", a marathon 8 hour gig of just Graham and I
and a huge PA playing great American music with not a single repeated
song in EIGHT HOURS. We ended on a rousing and moving version of
American Pie and every single person at Eldon House joined in the
chorus, though Presuming Ed's mobile recording unit was so efficient
you can barely hear the crowd. Perhaps I'll put up American Pie next
week if anyone's interested. No? Whatever...
Not Dark Yet is
from one of Dylan's most recent flashes of genius, the extraordinary
album "Time Out Of Mind". The guitar I used is a 1959 Hofner Senator
(like George Harrison used pre-Beatles) that belonged to my hugely
talented jazz guitarist Uncle John Cagney of Cork, Eire. The first and
only time I used it was to record the four songs from Time Out Of Mind
at the famous "Moles" studio in the main street in Bath.
I did
one take on each song and had them recorded, mixed, mastered and burned
in one afternoon at half price. (I rang at 11 am, asked if they were
free that afternoon and when they answered "Yes", I offered half price
on the basis that no one else was going to turn up now and half was
better than nothing. Being a motherphucker as a buyer stays with you
long after you stop being a media director :)
Moles still very
expensive. Not impressed. But "Not Dark Yet" is such a brilliant song,
I just wanted my version on disc. For the children I will probably
never have. But my Godson LOVES it, so it's been worth it.
All copyrights are acknowledged and rights applied for, but it's really worth buying the original albums if you missed them.
They are: Best of Bob Dylan (2 disc set) Best of Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes (written by and produced by their mate Little Steve Van Zandt) Tunnel of Love - Bruce Springsteen Cagney Blood - Morgan Patrick Edwards & Cagney Blood (Free download) Live & 1/2 Plugged - Morgan Patrick Edwards & Graham "Fingers" Butterfield (Free download)
I
believe these to be some of the best songs ever written. Mine may not
the best or most original interpretations, but what do you expect for
nothing? Anyway, my friend Jonathan Gordon of Bitch Tablet fame and I
are going to remix everything over the next month so this may the last
time anyone will be able to hear the original recordings.
As with everything here, please enjoy.
Thank you so much for visiting.
Coming soon?
bloggggomania declares global guerrilla marketing warfare against Egg, Prudential, Equifax, Experian and HSBC.
Why?
Because
they lied and libelled me for 3 years over a debt that didn't exist,
and they did their very best to ruin my life. If I wasn't such a tough
old Cardiff-born motherphucker, they'd probably have succeeded.
Thanks
to Nationwide and Halifax, both of whom I have been with for a decade,
for their continuing and much appreciated support and understanding and
general kindness when I was too ill to work.
And hell and
eternal damnation to the five companies above who think they can treat
disabled people like shit and get away with it. Think again.
I
intend - I hope with the help of every marketing genius who visits here
and ever got turned down for a credit card or refused an overdraft - to
reduce the share price of each of these companies by at least 20% in 6
months.
A concerted and ruthlessly brutal information campaign
delivered through the web, multi-media PR, daily e-mailings to staff,
shareholders, institutional investors and every financial journalist in
the world. How about helping to organise class action suits in the USA,
complaints to government watchdogs and disability rights organisations,
to the Director of Information and Data Protection supremo, and new
regulations proposed in Parliament?
Huh, that's just the start.
There'll be websites where we can gather information from: *Everyone
who has ever been libelled or mistreated or suffered in any way as a
result of bad credit history (Equifax and Experian)... *Prudential insurance policy holders who claimed but didn't get paid... *Egg
credit card customers who feel they have been unfairly defaulted or,
like me, libelled for years, their financial status destroyed by a
lie... *Disabled or victimised customers of HSBC who have their
business accounts closed, despite half a million pounds profit and no
outstanding debts, just because they are ill in hospital being treated
for physical or mental illness... *Customers of financial
institutions who libel you for years, destroying your credit, business
and your life, and then can't even be bothered to write to you and
apologise (Egg)...
Henceforth simply to be known as The Enemy.
All
viral marketing ideas, corporate-destructive PR plans, legal advice,
and general support is more than welcome. This is not a hate campaign
by Morgan And Stef alone. It belongs to everyone everywhere who has
been badly treated by a financial institution and has not been able to
find just redress. This campaign is by the highly rated www.bloggggomania.com
blog site and all the 3,116 people who have visited it in the 66 days
since its launch. On 1st April. Well, what can I say? So I'm a bit of a
joker. But that doesn't affect the fact that every word of this blog is
true.
(This I swear on the life of my beloved mother, 86 last
week. She was given a beautiful pure gold crucifix by a senior member
of the Saudi Royal Family. Such a wonderful and kind man - the future
of a great country. My Mum has contacts all over the world through her
family and her global singing career as a Contralto, but most of all to
her "grandchildren", all her young friends from all over the world who
have come to Bath and learned to speak English with her, and every one
has adopted her as a member of their family. And vice versa. At
Christmas and on her birthday, she gets presents, calls and cards from
former pupils in Vietnam, Thailand, France, Italy, Switzerland, Saudi
Arabia, Japan and Spain. Not bad for 86. Huh. In Ireland, it's called
approaching your prime...)
This is ALL OUR fight, to conduct the
ultimate viral marketing experiment. It's a moral crusade, it's a bit
of harmless fun, except for the shareholders and the staff of The
Enemy. In Wales, we have a word for that. Tough.
Here's the Proposition: How
far, in just 6 months and with a global media budget of just £7,000,
can you drive down the share price of four global multi-national
financial institutions with the sole use of a blog, PR, Direct
Marketing, and a rather good firm of English West Country solicitors?
Sound like a hopeless, manic experiment?
You haven't seen our meticulously conceived plan...
The
£7,000 figure is, of course, significant. It's exactly the same amount
of money that Egg have been silently claiming on their credit agency
link that I have owed them for the past 3 years. The truth? They lied,
and they now ACCEPT they lied. But they haven't apologised or offered a
penny compensation. (Big mistake, Egg. BIG mistake.)
So now I
don't want compensation. I want revenge. And believe me, in Wales we're
completely manic about vengeance. The Sicilians have nothing on us.
It's the kind of ruthlessness you would expect from a country where "a
good Saturday afternoon game" means fighting in a ruck of sixteen
bodies with no necks, scratching eyes, squeezing and crushing
testicles, and biting your opponents' ears off.
And then you
all go out and drink 20 pints of Brains Skull Attack each, and throw
your arms around each other and sing Cwm Rhondda together till you pass
out or drive home pissed.
You may call that a horrifyingly violent gathering of psychopaths.
We call it Rwgbi, and it's our national sport.
My
father was so proud of me. I could put a place-kick over the bar from
the centre spot, but I got sent off in every single school game of
rugby I ever played, always for short arm tackling. (The most frequent
cause of broken necks in rugby, and completely illegal.) My father
loved it. A real chip off the old block.
And if that's what we
do for fun, imagine how ruthless we can be when we have half a billion
pounds worth of media advertising experience, and 26 years of creating,
sustaining and destroying global brands through copywriting, web
content, brand language, Media Advertising, PR and Direct Marketing
programmes. Imagine what we'd be like if we really got pissed off with
someone...
Experian and Equifax passed on Egg's lie, and now
THEY accept they lied. But they deny all responsibility for libelling
me every day for three years. They blame Egg. And Egg is just being
bought back from the poor shareholders who didn't get out in time by
the same Prudential Insurance giant who created this monster and have
been trying (alledgedly) to get rid of it ever since.
HSBC
believed Experian's lie, despite the cancelled cheque from me drawn on
THEIR bank for over £7,000 paying off the full balance to Egg years
ago.
HSBC hate disabled people. A disabled person who runs his
own copywriting business for 9 years, (steadily increasing his profit
EVERY year from £15,500 to £67,000 in 2002/2003, and earned all that
money just by writing for 67 nights plus the odd meeting) is, if he
suffers from clinical depression, simply another poor nut. Even if,
when he's well, he can charge a lot more than his Bank Manager earns.
£1,000 a night. (I work twice as well and quickly at night).
£500 a day.
£1 a word.
The simplest ratecard in history.
Now,
banks and insurance companies and global financial credit agencies
react to nuisance (i.e. victimised and abused customer) lawsuits by
chucking millions of pounds at the very best lawyers, who delay and
prevaricate and wait until the customer and their lawyers run out of
money.
That is not just and it isn't fair.
bloggggomania hereby declares war on The Enemy and that war will continue for 6 months. At that time, the winners in our bloggggomania
"Guess how much the shares of Egg, Prudential, HSBC, Experian and
Equifax will be worth exactly 6 months after D-Day?" competition will
be announced.
Prizes will include cash awards, copies of
"wired words - language is the new identity" from FT.com ("in the
e-world,brands need to talk") signed by the author, Steve Morris,
thousands of dollars worth of FREE marketing consultancy from someone
who has worked as a consultant for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, IBM Global Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers, MARCHfirst, the Alhalrami Consortium, and yes, you guessed it, HSBC.
This is where we make the bastards pay.
Please
refrain from closing any accounts or selling any shares in The Enemy
until D-Day itself, (it will be annouced on this website later this
month). That would skew the results unfairly towards failure. And just
think about it. If this works to even the slightest degree in terms of
lost business or bad publicity for The Enemy, how would that affect the
future of banking?
Perhaps they would start to treat their
customers with more respect if they feared them. If a free blog by a
certified insane Welsh copywriter living in Bath, England could be
proved to have significantly lowered their shareprice or profits, or
severely damaged their multi-billion dollar images, banks would have to
treat every single customer with the respect that most other big
businesses, with their Ethical and Corporate Responsibility Charters,
already do.
I've worked for most of the financial institutions
and I now refuse to have anything to do with them. They are almost all
(except just possibly Nationwide and the Co-operative Bank) lying,
cheating, amoral scum who want me to write their universally and
consciously misleading lies and promises that are broken before they
are even made.
I've given up writing lies. So I don't write for ANY financial clients any more.
I
stick to Technology, Communications and Consulting for money, and
Charities and Community Organisations and local businesses for fun.
As
for funds, we do not need anything yet, but thank you so much for the
thought. Our lead solicitors, Withy King, are excellent value given the
depth of their expertise in Copyright and Intellectual Property,
Finance and Corporate Legislation, Disability Legislation, Fraud and
Criminal prosecutions, and their Top Ten UK Mental Health team, headed
by the the awesomely aggressive Richard Ellis. I'm glad he's on our
side.
But once we start building the numbers for class actions
against The Enemy, we are looking at the establishment of a substantial
Customers Against The Enemy (CATE) fund which can act as a resource for
anyone with a winnable case against Egg, Prudential, HSBC, Equifax and Experian.
To
all the 3,116 different people (unique hits), almost all Campaign
readers, who've apparently visited here in the last 66 days...
This
is your blog. Without you, I'd just be talking to myself. And if you're
bipolar, you really don't want to do that, ever. The authorities have a
tendency to section you. (For our Global audience, (according to
Google, we are big in Japan and Canada, and were featured on the USA's
LearnAboutInsurance.com as a salutary lesson on how bad things can get
following a separation. Huh. Tell me about it...) sectioning is where
the English Police lock you up indefinitely in a high-security
psychiatric facility, even though you have not had even the chance to
appear in a Court of Law and have not been charged or found guilty of
any offence whatsoever. Land of the Free. Huh.
Anyway, put your
best viral anti-corporate marketing ideas as comments - with your name
if you want recognition, or anonymously if you're too scared of pissing
off your bank.
Thanks to all the visitors, especially those who
have hit the BlogTopSites button at the top of the blog and voted for
us. Still 5 stars, despite my second ex-wife and her daughter
apparently voting "1", our average score is over 8 so we are one of the
very few 5-star blogs in BlogTopSites.com's Top 200 Best Literary Blogs
in the World.
And we're the No. 6 most popular Marketing-related Blog in The World, according to Blogflux, BlogTopSites.com's
sister company. And that only measures our Blogger blog:
http://bloggggomania.blogspot.com. Angelfire, Wikablog and the dozens
of other mirror sites or earlier versions - even www.bloggggomania.com - all go unmeasured. Why? Cause I can't be arsed to set it up. I'm too busy. So sue me.
Thanks to Richard Ellis, who has freely advised me on the legality of the bloggggomania Anti-Financial Institution Campaign (bAFIC).
bAFIC
is launched on the 6 month anniversary of D-Day (coming later this
month). bAFIC will accept and indeed aggressively hustle for
substantial donations from Egg, Prudential and HSBC's competitors,
whose shareholders would obviously benefit from the demise of three
such big competitors. And according to The Enemy's stated doctrine of
the primacy of shareholder rights over those of mere customers, all
Egg's, Prudential's and HSBC credit card, insurance corporations and
banks will be fully justified in donating to us as a by then proven
tactic to destroy their competitors and win their customers. Neat, huh?
By then, we'll be bored so we'll hand the whole thing over to a
respected and suitably aggressive mental health charity (like MIND) and
let them take itg from there. Experiment over. Move on. Earn some dosh.
Buy houses in Cardiff and Bali. Marry Helen (?). And enter old age
together as disgracefully as possible.
(As for the two homes,
that's nothing. The world's best-selling author (and the most borrowed
author from United Kingdom libraries) is bipolar and on Lithium,
according to an interview she gave recently in Europe. In the week she
received her first $100,000,000 cheque for Kay Scarpetta books 3 &
4, Patricia Cornwell allegedly bought five, yes five, homes and the
most expensive Bell Helicopter available, customised in Black. And had
a much-publicised lesbian affair. Go girl! You Welsh then?)
Also, thanks to E3MEDIA in Bristol, web designers for Lloyds TSB and Orange, who gave me my www.MorganEdwardsConsulting.com and www.WordsPlus.co.uk
websites FOR FREE in gratitude at a night's writing the words for their
own website. Thank you forever for that one. Equivalent earnings,
apparently, £1,000 an hour. Not bad for an old Welsh/Irish nutter from
Cardiff.
And to Bluestone in Plymouth, who designed my Words
Plus logo, letterhead, brochures and transparent business cards for
free. And for whom, for 8 years I not only wrote every word of every
brochure and every website for the agency itself, but also,
unbelievably, for every single one of their clients, including
Wrigleys, General Electric Corporation of America, DML (who make and
refit nuclear subs for the Ministry of Defence, as well as yachts for
millionnaires), Prosper Group, South West Regional Development
Authority, British Telecom (BT), O2, Bassetts Trebor, and so many, many
more. Thanks, Steve, Ian and Symon for everything. Long time no speak.
Don't "do" Plymouth any more. Too far from civilisation. But hope to
meet up with you all for a couple of Coronas and Tequila Slammers at
your London office some time soon.
Respect to HSAG Design of
London, for whom I wrote IBM Global Services Direct Marketing and Sales
collateral copy for years until they fired them. No, HSAG fired IBM.
Really. They simply read the latest compulsory and over-onerous
contract from IBM and just said "Sorry, we're too busy with other
clients to serve you, so goodbye." How friggin' cool is THAT?
Morgan thanks Stef. For everything. And Alison and Graham for having him and making me his Godfather.
Now he's 25, a year older than I was when Stef was born and I was appointed his Godfather.
Like me, he read English & Philosophy at University. Like me, he has become a copywriter.
Now, he's too busy writing the copy for the Global launch of Nintendo WiFi to spend too much time on bloggggomania.
But
every word he does contribute is a gem. And it is such a pleasure to
work with a friend and collaborator who is such a brilliant writer
already, and a pretty neat underground dj too. (As recently positively
reviewed in The Guardian, London & Manchester, England.)
To our friends, eternal sunshine of the spotless soul and the warm and generous Celtic heart.
And to our enemies, eternal damnation in the fires of falling share prices and appalling publicity. Forever and ever. Amen.
Every
day from D-Day (coming very, very soon - so watch out here for more
news) may every financial journalist in the world receive daily stories
on the infamies that these five companies have inflicted on the British
and Celtic peoples, and, in the case of HSBC, globally to people in
every country in the world.
Have you heard their latest one?
Not only can't you speak to a human being closer than 3,000 miles away
when you call your local branch via phone (some chap from Bombay
answers the line - it's what we in the Advertising business call
Efficient but not Effective, like almost everything HSBC does).
NOW
they're getting rid of 3 out of the 4 tills in the Bath branch,
replacing them with machines, and BANNING all customers except the very
wealthiest Premier customers from so much as TALKING to any staff at
the only till that's left.
No, really, I'm not making this up. They've got a sign announcing it in branch this week.
From a copywriting perspective, I would define their Marketing Communications Proposition as:
"If
you're not a millionnaire, why don't you just phuck off to a loser's
bank like NatWest, Co-op, Nationwide or Halifax/HBOS where they still
care about customers and treat them as people deserving of respect. We
made £10,000,000,000 profit this year by cutting all our services to
the ordinary customers, making them deal with appallingly badly paid
graduates in India, and calling in all their loans early. Why? Dummy,
because WE CAN. And no one can do anything about it."
Think that's over the top?
Then answer me one simple question.
What is the Customer Benefit of having to talk to someone in India every time I ring my branch half a mile away in Bath?
And what is the Customer Benefit of being banned from talking to a human being at your own bank's only remaining till?
Answers on Comments on the blog or via email please.
Because I'm buggered if I know.
HSBC
Marketing Director - please justify, right here, right now, to all your
shareholders and customers and the poor staff, your new anti-customer
strategy. O, I know, you made the biggest profits in Corporate history
this year. But what about next year when all your customers leave and
go to a bank (or better, a not-for-profit Building Society, when they
don't treat their customers like you do. Like shit.
And a final
note to the Chief Executives and Marketing Directors of all the Big
Five, the scuzzy end of the Global Financial Services Industry, now
always to be known here as The Enemy.
Hello boys! It's time for
all of you to pay up with your personal careers and your companies'
over-inflated share prices. I hope your marketing guys are good.
They'll need to be.
Here's the deal. We'll stop this crusade
when you all kneel before me and apologise for phucking up my life, and
thousands of other lives all over the world, with your lies and deceit
and general bloody mindedness and condescension.
Now, that isn't going to happen, which means you're stuck with the bloggggomania
campaign, produced by the leading marketers of the world, with the sole
aim of destroying you, or at least hurting you so badly you'll wake up
and smell your customers taking the power and money and profit and
healthy share price away from you and giving it to people like
Nationwide, proud to be owned by poor and rich alike, the property of
its very own customers. That's probably why it treats us so well.
No,
hang on, just kneeling and apologising isn't enough. What could
possibly reimburse me for the pain of my ex-lover's suicide, and for
the (albeit only momentary) loss of my self-respect from being treated
like an unclean thing in your lovely clean bank for millionnaires?
Or
for the humiliation of earning half a million pounds of
steadily-growing profit, all by yourself, and then having your "global"
bank reduce your overdraft facility from ã5,000 to nothing overnight,
and have your business account closed against your wishes by the Bank
Manager even though there's money in it and nothing owed.
Or for
being libelled and lied about every day for three years by Experian and
Equifax, who then say "Sue those incompetant bastards at Egg. We wuz
only following orders". Christ. It's Nuremburg all over again.
O,
hang on a minute, I know. I'll stop this either when I get bored with
it, or when you kneel in front of me and apologise to me with the
cameras of the world's TV stations and international press to witness
the historic event.
And there's this final demand. And I'm afraid it's a dealbreaker.
Suck my dick.
There, now that COULD be what they call manic, bipolar, forced and overstated speech.
Or a Welsh promise. Same difference.
You'll be hearing from me. Forever. In your phucking nightmares.
Salman Rushdie & Morgan Edwards: Campaign Diary April 2006
Eventally,
we get a copy of Campaign dated 14th April 2006. Campaign is everywhere
in Soho and throughout London, but in Bath, forget it. So we have to
rely on John Tylee, lovely man, and his charming PA who kindly send
through copies.
bloggggomania: sex, drugs & rock'n'roll. An up-and-down career in Advertising.
In
1980, Morgan Edwards joined McCann Erickson, then the largest
advertising agency in the world with clients like Exxon/Esso, Martini,
Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss, and Columbia EMI Warner films.
In 1982
he became Media Controller at Ayer Barker, the oldest advertising
agency in the world (est. 1812) where Salman Rushdie and Trevor Beattie
worked as copywriters. He was responsible for Chanel, Sharp
Electronics, Bahamas Tourist Office, Irish Tourist Board, Bank of
Ireland, M&G Unit Trusts and Allied Breweries. He was promoted to
Deputy Media Director, and spent five weeks in The Priory Roehampton
being treated for depression. Three months later, he was diagnosed as
manic depressive (now known as Bipolar) and was given Lithium. For the
next 16 years. It never worked.
In 1988, he was appointed
Targeting Director of O&M Direct, the world's biggest direct
response advertising agency, with £47 million in billings in London
alone. He was just 31.
In Spring 1990, Morgan launched The Targeting Centre, the largest DM media buying network in Europe and a subsidiary of O&M.
In
January 1991, he was fired for gross misconduct by O&M on the basis
that he had spent £14,000 on his corporate Amex card on escorts and
cocaine on a four day business trip to Amsterdam. He never denied it.
During
two one hour business meetings on the first day in Amsterdam, Edwards
had successfully won all the European Direct Response TV planning and
buying for Fortune magazine and Zoom, the glossy magazine "de l'image".
Edwards
sued for his contractual 6 months notice. O&M offered £3,000 at the
beginning of the industrial tribunal. Two hours later, after a painful
cross examination of their Finance Director by Morgan's newly qualified
barrister, O&M offered £35,000. He took it.
In 1994, Morgan launched Bath-based copywriting, web content and brand language consultants Words Plus.
More
recently, Morgan has provided words, ideas and copywriting for IBM,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, BAE Systems, Ministry of Defence, Rolls-Royce,
Airbus Industrie, Nokia, Motorola, BT, Vodafone, Orange, O2, Cisco,
Unilever, The Alhalrami Consortium, Sadafco, HSBC, General Motors,
Daimler Chrysler, Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Wrigleys, Clerical
Medical, Adobe, Natural Resources Institute, Ordnance Survey, Ordnance
Survey International, DML, DCDI, Philips Design Eindhoven, Philips
Corporate Amsterdam, and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young on a global
basis. And more than 100 others...
Morgan
has known me as long as my parents have known me. I was 9 when the
"first big one" happened - but, to me, Morgan was always the Big One.
Morgan wasn't (and still isn't) like other people. His world was one
that existed on a knife-edge: noisy, irresponsible, excessive - and i
knew this long before I knew what bi-polar was.
I suppose what
made me different was that I kinda "got" it. From as early as I can
remember I have always found Morgan's approach to life wildly
appealing. Not the things themselves (I'm not interested in hookers,
crack-cocaine and gangbangs) - but that's not the point. And that stuff
doesn't really shock me.
Amongst the ex-hippie smugness that had
infected most of my parents' friends, Morgan was a breath of fresh air.
Energetic, honest and warm-hearted, Morgan was my god-less Godfather
who everyone disapproved of... But I'd look at the people who wagged
fingers and disapproved and then I looked at Morgan and I knew which
one I'd rather have in my life - and which life i'd rather choose.
Like
when he drove down to Devon (unannounced, of course) and decided to
take us all out for a cream tea at one of Devon's oldest pubs in the
middle of Dartmoor National Park. There were quite a few of us so we
took two cars. My parents went in their little fiat. No way was I going
to do that. I wanted to ride with my godfather in his convertible
sports car.
I don't know what happened but morgan got kinda
manic and we ended up driving up over this desolate, barren landscape,
with panoramic views all around, the sun disappearing behind the hill -
bombing it along at 120 mph, pinned back in my seat with the wind
rushing through my hair. I even remember the soundtrack: Take My Breath
Away, off that advert. This was the 80s, morgan style. It wasn't subtle
but it felt alive.
Everyone went nuts at morgan of course. but
they couldn't have missed the fact that I was grinning from ear to ear.
My first taste of excess.
I suppose what morgan taught me was
that you have to follow whatever it is that makes you feel alive - and
if other people object - well, that's kinda tough.
But he also
taught me that this kind of freedom has a price. If you insist on
making your own mistakes then you can't whinge about it when you make
mistakes and it all goes tits up. It's a price I'm willing to pay.
I'm
now a copywriter at one of the UK's leading integrated marketing
agencies working on the Nintendo Europe account, plus Samsung, Carphone
Warehouse and N-Power. Before that I ran raves. I try to put the same
things into my work now as I did my raves - integrity, emotion and
excessive playfulness. The line between being truly alive and being
utterly excesssive is a thin one, and one that I can't help but dance
on.
Yes, Morgan has been a big influence on my life. I thank you
enormously. But this, we both know, is just the start. Where will it
lead? Probably the gutter in the end but we'll have some fun along the
way...
He's so cool! I love him to bits. Always have, always will.
Just
look at him. Cute, huh? He keeps picking up gorgeous women on the bus
from London to Glasgow. Probably shagging them in the toilet... www.StefMacbeth.com
And you MUST read his "why I write" piece on his website. The best
description of what it means to be a copywriter I have ever read. Ever.
And he's only 25. Smug little shit. (Nah, only kidding. He's my Godson
and he's such a good friend and so cool with it.)
((((((((((((Stef)))))))))))
OTHER COMMENTS
Here's
a quote from a well-known and respected journalist who went to school
with me at Downside Abbey (£25,000 a year, and my dad had 6 kids!) and
also now lives in Bath. He edits Britblog Roundup, now into its 60
issue.
Yes,
here it is, the sesquidecadal (sexidecadal? sesquidecal? Never was much
good at posh language) version of the Britblog Roundup. Your selection
of the posts that caught your eye, the ones you think that we should
all take note of. You can make your entries by emailing the URL to
britblog AT gmail DOT com.
First up is Cicero’s Songs. I’m not
all that sure about his comments on the PM not being able to be a
Catholic (the Lord Chancellor and marrying into the Royal Family, yes,
but not sure about the PM) but as an overview of the Blair years it’s
tough to beat.
Stephen Tall posts a letter from New York. Why the huge divide in political matters between the US and Europe?
A Very British Dude has some (very good) questions for David Cameron. In short, grow a pair.
The DK also has a message for Cameron (obscenity alert!). Should be required reading for the Moonies at HQ.
Blognor Regis is reporting great success in training cats.
For
something completely and totally different in blogging try
Bloggggomania. You’ll need to scroll around a bit to get the full
flavour. Same school as me, same City, very different life.
Prayers for the Repose of the Soul of Nyasha Smith, my friend and last lover, who died by her own hand at the age of 34 at Christmas 2005.
With thanks to Matt, her great friend, who tracked me down through my mobile number on an old SIM card, and who phoned me with the terrible news. Thanks, Matt.
Respect and love to an unforgettable woman, black and beautiful, bright and feisty, one who will be fondly remembered by all who ever met her.
We talked of marriage. Lots of beautiful, black, and manic depressive babies. That was the plan.
Today I had a Mass said for you, at St. John The Evangelist in central Bath
It was a priviledge to have known you. With all my love.
Morgan Edwards and Salman Rushdie: another Adman from the same agencies (Charles Barker and O&M) turns writer
Campaign
BrandRepublic.com
Diary: On the QT ... Campaign 14 Apr 2006 00:00
Last
week, Diary informed you all of a blog written by the former Ogilvy
& Mather ad executive Morgan Edwards about his life of debauchery
in adland. His thoughts have now been voted number 69 in
blogtopsites.com's Best Literary Blog in the World Ever list ...
In
a recent interview in The Times, Salman Rushdie admitted that working
at O&M as a creative helped him write his book Midnight's Children.
"It taught me discipline, forcing me to learn how to get on with
whatever task needed doing," he said. He also added that it helped with
"refusing myself all the luxuries of an artistic temperament". He
obviously never made it into the upper echelons of agency management,
then ...
HOW TO ACCESS To access this article and the
rest of the news and news archive on Brand Republic you need to be a
paid subscriber to Brand Republic (online only) or Campaign, Marketing
or PRWeek UK magazines.
Dear Campaign,
Many
thanks for the Diary piece. Someone told me you'd done another one but
unfortunately no one stocks you down here in Somerset. Any spare copies
would be appreciated. I haven't even seen the piece you did on me last
week yet.
The only bit that worries me about the first piece is
the line about me putting my life back together again and starting up a
communications consultancy in Bath. Now, we all know that "consultant"
in our business is a synonym for "unemployed". It also makes it sound
as if it took years. In fact, the launch of Towy Communications Ltd.
was announced on the whole of the back cover of Precision Marketing
less than a week from the date of my leaving O&M. (They do call me
The Comeback Kid.)
Since then, I've been pretty busy...
"During
11 years in London advertising agencies, Morgan controlled the media
planning and buying on over half a billion dollars worth of advertising
for a wide range of major accounts, including American Express, Sharp
Corporation, General Motors, Ford, Xerox, BT, Microsoft, Levi Strauss,
Time Warner and Chanel.
After working as a media strategist
for McCann Erickson and Ayer Barker (NW Ayer and Charles Barker Group),
Morgan joined Ogilvy & Mather Direct as a board director. In 1990,
he launched O&M subsidiary The Targeting Centre, the largest
Pan-European direct marketing media buying network.
He has
written extensively for the marketing press, including Precision
Marketing, Media Week, Campaign, Direct Marketing World and Direct
Marketing International. He has been quoted on media issues by the
Financial Times, The Observer and The Independent on Sunday.
He
entered the Media Week Awards just twice and won both times: for Best
Consumer Press Campaign (Bank of Ireland, Ayer Barker) and for Best
Business Press Campaign (Xerox, Ogilvy & Mather Direct).
He
was a member of the Media Research Group, wrote direct response
questions for Target Group Index, and was elected as a Member of the
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in 1988.
He left
O&M Direct in 1991. Between 1991 and 1993, he worked as Managing
Director of Towy Communications Ltd., Business Development Director at
Chapter One Direct, and copywriter at The Business, Bath, owned by Paul
Burns who worked as an Art Director with Morgan at Ayer Barker.
Morgan started Words Plus in 1994.
Since
then, he has written all-staff and all-customer letters for Carly
Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard; speeches and presentations
for the Chairman of Airbus Industrie; he's written an all-staff, ten
year, 32 page Vision Book for the Managing Director of Orange. And he
contributed a line to Independent British Cinema when he wrote the tag
line for the Robert Carlyle-Ray Winston gangster movie, "Face":
"It was the blag to die for. Only one of them meant it for real".
More
recently, Morgan has done communication consulting and copywriting for
IBM, Oracle, Sitel, BT, Nokia, O2, Motorola, Autel,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Marchfirst, The
Alhamrami Consortium, General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, Philips Design
Eindhoven, Philips Corporate Amsterdam, Clerical Medical, HSBC,
National Westminster, General Electric, Bluestone, Onbrand, Kerve, HSAG
Design, E3 MEDIA, Attik, Microsoft, American Express, MBNA, Unite PLC,
Stone King, Withy King, Bond Pearce, Bath & North East Somerset
Council, Yorkshire Forward, Mendip Development, Devon & Cornwall
Development International, North West Development Agency, South East
Regional Investment Ltd, Ventura, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Ericsson,
Deutsche Bank, Nortel, Wrigleys, Unilever, Eastern Electricity, SWEB,
Green Electron, Royal Mail, British Standards Institute, Procter &
Gamble, Ministry of Defence, Ordnance Survey International, Infobank,
Mason Zimbler, Avaya, Comparex, Aduranet, Publitek, Red Strategic
Design, Corus, Target, Thirteen, Studio 36, and W H Smith." www.WordsPlus.co.uk
At
O&M, I got £40,000 a year in 1988. Since then, I've earned almost
half a million working three days a week at a standard rate of £1 per
word or £500 a day. Not too shabby, I think, particularly for someone
who..., well let's leave the last word to Drayton Bird, the best
copywriter in the world and my former colleague on the O&M board,
as well as my inspiration to become a writer at the age of 36.
From: Drayton Bird To: Morgan Patrick Edwards Cc: Marta Caricato Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 7:28 AM Subject:
RE: Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of working for you.
Extraordinary reception for my new advertising blog. Rated as one of
the 8 best literary blogs in the world just 4 days after publication...
All the best, Morgan
Morgan, you maniac - good title.
Now reset the whole thing in white on black and you will double your readership (as research showed years ago).
You are the only person I know who makes me feel restrained, reasonable and sensible.
Diary: Adman's tale reveals the dark side of decadence Campaign 7 Apr 2006 00:00
After
the decadence of the 80s, there is a belief outside the industry that
adland is a hotbed of debauchery and excessive living.
And
anyone logging on to a remarkable blog posted by the former agency man
Morgan Edwards will find it hard to believe that things have changed at
all. A one-time Ogilvy & Mather media director, Edwards writes the
story of his life. And what a harrowing and cautionary saga it has
proved to be. His is the classic story of somebody who had it all and
saw it disappear in a storm of financial and sexual excess. During that
time, he lost three homes, two wives, two step-children, a successful
business, thousands of pounds and his sanity, ending up being treated
for clinical depression. Thankfully, over the past few years, Edwards
has managed to put his life back together and now runs his own
communications consultancy in Bath.
What's more, his blog has
attracted enormous interest from outside adland. Not least from two
national newspapers who are keen to retell his story. Indeed, Edwards
says he's now tempted to flesh out the 12,500 words already written
into an autobiography.
So, is this blog his personal catharsis or maybe a cautionary tale to advertising's young and foolish?
"Fuck that," he retorts. "It's my life story and I'm just telling it."
You can read it on http://bloggggomania.blogspot.com or just Google "bloggggomania" and go for any of the 70 results.
Bloggggomania
is about the ups and downs of a bipolar copywriter in Bath. My story
starts nearly 20 years ago when, after a family Christmas with my
parents in Cardiff with my five half-siblings, my eldest brother, a
highly successful financial investment analyst at County Bank in the
City of London, returned to London, took a massive overdose, then
hanged himself with electrical flex by jumping off his penthouse
balcony in Mill Hill. Six months later, I was in The Priory Roehampton
being treated for clinical depression. Five weeks after being admitted,
I jumped back into work with such energy that they changed my diagnosis
to manic depression, otherwise known as Bipolar Affective Disorder. So,
I'm BAD. (Just ask my ex-wives . Arf, arf...)
The first Big
One, the completely unexpected four month binge of sex and drugs and
the destruction of a happy and successful life, came in 1990. I'd been
made a director of a $90 million London ad agency and I had a wife who
was also a Media Director and we had it all. Fast cars, drinking like a
fish lunchtime and evening (most media business was in those days done
over a long, expensive and highly alcoholic lunch around Fleet Street).
Ah, that was the end of the Thatcherite 80's, a time when conspicuous
consumption of champagne and cocaine was the social life of the City
and the Media and the Advertising industry. Media companies would fete
busy, powerful media buyers with £30 million each in advertising
budgets to be spent virtually at your whim, depending on how convincing
you were. There were all these great events where business was barely
mentioned. The Observer invited us down each year to Brands Hatch where
we could drive and be driven by Jackie Stewart and other stars around
the track in performance saloons, and then go round in single seater
Formula Fords. A regional magazine, Plus, flew us all out to Istanbul
for the day, including a fabulous dinner in a palace.
I met my
first wife in Turin, touring the print works where Family Circle was
published. We talked on the flight over and she mentioned she was
moving the next weekend from Bayswater to Brockwell Park. I had a
Peugeot estate so I offered to help. At the flat, she introduced me to
her friend and lover, also a very sexy lady. (She later came to our
wedding dressed in men's morning suit as one of the ushers... My
youngest brother and her got off together at the wedding.) I was going
out with someone at the time, but Fiona was relentless. At a party at
our house in Mill Hill, she dragged me into the loo and peed in front
of me while French kissing me for ages while my girlfriend of the time
knocked on the door calling out "Morgan, are you OK?"!
Fiona
and I married at St Clement Danes (Oranges and lemons say the bells of
St Clements) in the Strand, end of Fleet St. All the bigwigs from the
media world were there. London Transport Advertising provided two red
London buses emblazoned with my Sharp bus side posters for microwaves
(with Jimmy Tarbuck) audio (with Bucks Fizz) and copiers (with Bobby
Charlton). The wedding dress was one step back from Lady Di's. The
reception was at the Royal Air Force Officers Club in Piccadilly so we
made the journey in a horse drawn carriage that went round by
Buckingham Palace so all the tourists could wave and cheer. So cool.
Then to Hong Kong, Guangzhou China, and Bali for three weeks. It was
only four years later that the Big One hit with unimaginable
devastation. First, there were two miscarriages, the emergency removal
of a cyst the size of a grapefruit from my wife's womb, and my father's
death.
The change was like the mood change in a movie, from
lighthearted to dark. First, I started picking up working girls and
going for a smoke with them, no sex. That was how I was introduced to
Crack. Since then, I've spent $500,000 on it, lost three homes, two
wives, two step-children, a successful career, a successful business,
occasionally my sanity, many friends and some family, many women, and
sometimes even some of my self respect. But up till now I've shown an
extraordinary ability to bounce back. Maybe I will this time. Yes, I
think I will...
1990 wasn't the beginning of my affair with
narcotics. I first smoked hash at 17 in Paris; acid, cocaine,
amphetamine sulphate, mushrooms, heroin, Artane, and many others
appeared in Paris in 1976 when I was 19, a street and restaurant
musician; and 14 years later, Crack in 1990 when I was a Board Director
of a $90 ad agency. Hash I smoked on a virtually daily basis from 1975
to 1993 when I joined Narcotics Anonymous and again, though only when
manic, from 1996 until last year. It's been diagnosed by consultant
psychiatrists as neither social drug use nor any form of addiction.
It's simply unsupportable cravings for cannabis and cocaine when manic,
yet no desire to use any drugs (except of course my mood stabilisers,
atypical anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and benzodiazapines) when
normal or depressed. The meds try to damp down the huge surge of
Serotonin, Dopamine, Adrenaline and Noradrenaline you get when you're
manic. Exactly the same effect as cocaine. The drugs are just another
way of increasing the power and elation of the mania that little bit
further - at a price...
The first Big One came on quickly in
1990. One day I was doing well at work and enjoying married life with
Fiona, the next I was spending all night in crack houses near Bayswater
and I was spending money wildly. I was invited to a business awards
ceremony in Amsterdam so I made arrangements to see some business
contacts over there.
I met up with the marketing director of
Fortune and persuaded him to let me do his Pan-European TV buying by
showing how much I could save him. After the preliminary greetings, I
asked how much it cost to put on a 4 page section. Very little, he
said. I asked him if he would give me all the pan-European DRTV we
didn't already have if, and only if, I could get him a 6 week 90 second
campaign on CNN Europe and maybe even globally, for not a single penny.
He laughed. "All rright, let's hear it, Morgan," he said with a broad
grin. "Are we agreed that if I pull it off, we get everything,
Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the lot?" I tried to close the deal.
"Sure," he said. "I want to hear this." I had been his DRTV consultant
since the first day of the launch of The Targeting Centre in the spring
of 1990. This was November.
I took out my brick-sized Psion
and dialled a number in Atlanta, the same number I'd dialled the day
before. I had a short conversation with CNN's global sales director
who'd I'd run into at some conference or other. The deal was done. 5
colour facing matter pages in Fortune in return for a 6 week DRTV
campaign using an existing tried and tested 90 second commercial, with
the unique ability for them to see and share the results so they would
know what worked and what didn't. I had great hopes for the really
boring bits, the hotel listings and the world weather (Yawn...).
I
figured people would welcome the ad, based on an Eicoff original (our
other launch client) and would take the time to phone in for the
half-priced subscriptions then, rather than miss an important news
event. We also offered CNN a free day's consultancy providing advice on
how to grow the classy end of the DRTV market. In other words The
Targeting Centre clients like Ford, Microsoft, Xerox, BT, FT, American
Express, Readers Digest, Royal Mint, Save the Children, Help the Aged,
and so on. We put the call on speakerphone and I did the introductions
despite the fact that they both worked for Time Warner.
I
wasn't really allowed to do a deal direct with Atlanta - as a
London-based media independent/ad agency, we should have only dealt
with CNN London who had no contact with the CNN advertising budget,
production budget or the ability to influence or tamper with either.
I
made my case simple. I was representing A Eicoff & Co., the world's
largest DRTV advertising agency, and they were based in Chicago, and we
co-ordinated all their global business across Western and Eastern
Europe through The Targeting Centre based at Ogilvy & Mather Direct
in Soho Square, London. Since we were acting as Pan-European agents,
for Eicoff of Chicago, we should rightly be served by CNN Atlanta
rather than CNN London (who would never have gone for the deal in the
first place. No chance.)
It was one of those moments when you
were real glad you read Philosophy (along with English Literature) when
at Exeter University with Rod Wright. Philosophy is sometimes about the
BIG questions in life, but most of the time it's about constructing
logical arguments and being able to tell the difference between a truly
logical argument and a clever but false one. For the rest of your life,
you are blessed with the ability to construct false arguments which
appear completely sound and rational to anyone who hasn't logic at
degree level. And they bought it every time.
As I answered
Stuart Butterfield (later launch Sales Director of Channel 4) and Peter
White, then joint Media Directors of McCann Erickson, when I'd got down
to the last 4 out of 2,000 graduate applicants, "English teaches you
how to express yourself and philosophy, logic and how to argue". Good
skills for someone who's got to negotiate like a City trader with an
immediate personal client list of $30,000,000 from clients like
Exxon/Esso, Levi Strauss, Coke, Martini, Rothmans, Columbia EMI Warner
films and Tampax.
Tampax was a sort of game. It was normally
given to men. (Both my immediate boss, patient and excellent teacher
and great friend, Lynda Graham, and the CEO of McCann Erickson London,
Anne Burdas, showed that there was no glass ceiling for women in
advertising.) You had to get as many media clichés and buzz words into
your media presentation but they all had have an obvious double
entendre related to that time of the month.
If you front-load
your Pre-Christmas campaign with, say, a few weekly magazines to get
high coverage of your target audience fast, that's called "starting
with a heavy burst in November".
Continuing just in your core monthlies was known as "a drip campaign through the summer".
When
your image in your continues right into the perfect binding, it's
technically known as "bleeding into the gutter". No, really.
And
these are the very phrases that you would habitually use in any other
client's media proposals presentations. Except Tampax.
A two
page colour page ad where the image continues all the way to the edge
of the paper, it is, of course, called a "DPS full colour bleed".
I
simply strung them all into one sentence. And kept a straight face,
which was more than first one then two clients, and finally the whole
room was shaking and everyone was trying to wipe away the tears. I
smiled and said "I thought I'd get the necessary unpleasantness over
and then we can go on to look at how this campaign's offer will capture
named information amongst the ultra-high user category." And so it all
got green-lighted.
But whatever happened to the Fortune deal?
Who did Fortune, the publisher of The Fortune 500, the globally
accepted ultimate list of the largest companies and corporations in the
world, choose as solus DRTV planner buyer for all European countries?
Well, since a six week campaign on CNN had materialised from nowhere,
to be funded by the ads that would accompany CNN's on the extra 4 page
section, the client was, in truth, very, very happy. For many stations,
we'd reduced his media costs by 50%, taking every channel who refused
off the schedule indefinitely. Or definitely - except at half price.
This would be accompanied by a genuinish apology that the client had
dictated all future spots must be self-financing, and that at the
previous rates, we had been losing large sums of money.
How
can anyone justify losing money on Direct Response TV? It makes
negotiation a piece of piss. I know the results. You don't. Therefore I
can hint darkly about a certain timeslot that you may be prepared to
discount heavily yet which makes me an absolute fortune. You don't know
the figures. I just hint. No way to get found out. And if the client
plays with a straight face and berates them for bothering him, tips us
the wink and we "punish" them for their temerity by removing all
advertising from them for a week. Or launch a burst with their direct
competitors without telling them in advance. People were fired for
less. Can you imagine yourself as the Mirror sales executive having to
explain away five pages in the News of the World that we had
"forgotten" to tell him about? God, buying is so much more fun than
selling. Just about everything is when you're the one with the money...
Anyway,
so there I was with my founding media-only client, six months since
he'd appointed me as his Subscriptions DRTV consultant. Then he'd given
us the Pan-European stations. Then a country a month for half the year
and I haven't seen him once. We crossed in London at the DM Conference
where I was giving a media seminar right next to Drayton, my
co-director and Executive Creative Worldwide, who had been the first to
speak in favour of The Targeting Centre, a concept that horrified
O&M Advertising who was trying to centralise all the buying across
all WPP Group. Dumb idea.
If O&M knew we bought national
newspapers at about average half the price they did, they'd freak. But
you can't go giving away 80% discounts regularly to big agencies, only
to bottom-feeders like DM agencies who simply say they'd lose money at
a penny more, though you never get to see the results so they could be
lying through their teeth. And, of course, they are. But you can't
prove it.
Suddenly The Targeting Centre had billings of its own
in Amsterdam, but without a single account executive to service him. I
had two of the best press buyers in London, Beverley Price (ex-TMD) and
Richard Ashton (ex-CIA), but they were busy with their own £25 million
and I was on my own when it came to TV. So I had to pack enough client
love into one day that it would last at least six months until I could
wangle another Amsterdam trip. So I asked him if he fancied the most
expensive dinner in Amsterdam or what.
He chose "or what" and
took me to Yab Yum, a club where you drink with friends and meet the
girls and then go into the party room with Jacuzzi and kingsize
waterbed and there you can do what you like as long as your American
Express holds out. Mine held out for four days and $20,000 on women and
cocaine. My new client left after a day and I stayed on. And on. And
on. The company found out a month later when the American Express bill
came in and the Tory fudge-packer who'd taken over from from the
promoted Rod Wright promptly fired me for gross misconduct, just three
hours before the end of the working year. I was escorted from the
building under guard. Nice Christmas present. Thanks, Miles. Real
stylish exit.
I sued in an industrial tribunal and got $55,000
for breach of contract. Firing people for being ill is not, apparently,
the done thing in legal circles.
When I had to go see my
former old mate the Finance Director, also Head of Personnel, after
Christmas, the sulphate ran out around Reading and I woke up just after
I ripped the side off my huge, beautiful black Citoen XM by bouncing
along the barrier at 70 mph. Totalled it. Just the same as on my last
day at Ayer Barker, when I totalled my Mazda sports by running into a
parked classic MG. I carried on to the interview where I got the job at
O&M.
Returning, I found a group of rather
distressed-looking people surrounding the sad remains of the
lovingly-restored MG. Once I had introduced myself and told them about
my insurance and also being "laid off" that day, everyone was almost
joyous with relief and extraordinarily kind. We went inside the main
guy's house in Maida Vale, just south of my home in West Hampstead, had
a few drinks (at 10 in the morning) and a couple of spliffs. The main
guy turned out to be a major hero of mine, the great lyricist for
everyone from King Crimson to Celine Dion - Pete Sinfield - whose own
album "Still" I had bought and replaced every time it got scratched.
And there I was, drinking his Tequila and spliffing it up in his
drawing room. Sometimes my life is so weird, you couldn't make it up.
Back
to 1991, where my wife, horrified at my out-of-control use of drugs and
women, took solace in the arms of her biggest client, the JVC marketing
manager, a former Baptist minister who left his wife and family for
her. I think the moment it ended was when my wife asked me if I'd slept
with anyone else during the months of the high, which neither of us had
ever experienced before. I asked her if she really wanted to know. She
said "Yes". So did I. She asked "How many?" I was manic as a kite. I
simply said "Twenty-six."
After that, she slept with Bill from
JVC and I slept with Monia, my Palestinian escort lover (I paid the
first time, but after that we went out together for over a year. She
loved to come down and visit me in Wales where I lived in a large house
in Brecon National Park.)
Then I fell in love with Wendy, my
secretary. She and her son were lovely people, Welsh from tip to toe.
We were so excited when she got pregnant, distraught when the seemingly
inevitable miscarriage happened.
I moved back to Bath, became a
copywriter, got married again and lived between my flat in Bath and our
six bedroomed house with three driveways in Redland, Bristol. Once
again, everything was just perfect. One year, between us we earned
$400,000. We lived the life and once every two years I would go high
again. Regular as clockwork.
The women, the crack, the
fearlessness, the depravity, the sheer elation of it all would send me
into a different world where I was a bit of a gangsta and was capable
of anything...
And my wife put up with it because when I was
well we had a great marriage. It was only in the highs that things
became impossible. And eventually, this marriage too would end because
of another Big One, the strongest to date...
It was on the
30th January 2003 that 11 armed police broke down my front door and
restrained me naked on the ground while a consultant psychiatrist, a GP
and a social worker sectioned me for an indefinite period and had me
taken in a police van to London, to a high security psychiatric
hospital called Abbeydale. That was the end of one nightmare and the
beginning of another...
The private high security hospital was
in Walthamstow. The walls were painted with non-climb paint and the
tops of the walls were covered in razor wire. The staff were huge, all
black or Asian, very kind but tough as nails: and there was a ratio of
one-to-one.
Every night the staff member who was in charge of
you sat in a chair at the door of your bedroom all night with the door
open. You had to sign for a razor and get it back within 10 minutes.
After a few almost-fights where people kicked off but I resisted the
temptation to retaliate, they moved me to the low-security wing after
two weeks. There, we had our own computers, our own guitars, and
intensive psychiatric support. After 6 weeks, they moved me back to
Bath at a couple of hours notice to invalidate my appeal (you have to
start all over again with new lawyers and everything).
By then
I was coming down fast and when I crashed, I was virtually catatonic
and stayed that way for more than a year after I went back "home", that
is, to my wife's house: my flat had to be sold to pay the crack and
other overspending debts of $200,000. It was an unhappy time for my
wife who was strained beyond belief, my step-kids who couldn't work out
why their lovely step-father had changed from this kind, gentle bear
into a manic Grizzly. There was worse to come...
In June 2004,
my wife had finally had enough. Liz told me she wanted a separation,
with me staying in a flat alone for at least 6 months. Within 2 days,
the 6 months had turned into a year. I was devastated. I had been
catatonically depressed since my crash in March 2003. I'd lost my
business that made me more than $100,000 a year working three days a
week. The relationship with my wife was broken, crushed by all the hurt
and anger that my crazy behaviour had inevitably caused her. The kids,
whom I had step-fathered since they were ten and eight, were confused
and hurt. I was on massive doses of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics
and mood stabilisers. But at this crucial moment, I was going high
again. The signs were there. I started playing my guitar and singing a
lot. I started getting interesting business ideas. My copy became more
left-field and daring.
On my mother's 84th birthday, May 30th
2004, for no obvious reason, I found myself taking a left into St.
Pauls in Bristol and driving up to the Front Line. I parked up in the
side road between Grosvenor and City Road and waited. There were a few
youngsters around but I caught the eye of a middle-aged Rasta. He
wandered over and we talked. I bought a £10 rock of crack. In the local
petrol station, I bought some Rizlas and back in the car, I crumbled
the rock onto tobacco. This would be the first crack I had smoked since
January 2003, nearly 18 months before. I finished the spliff and headed
home. I parked in one of our three driveways and went into the house.
Tom and Luci were there and I'd got loads of deli stuff like ham,
smoked salmon, pastrami, salad and strawberries and cream. It was a
perfect day, the sun shone as we sat in the huge garden under a massive
parasol and relaxed to the sound of me singing on the CD I'd recorded
in Bath at Moles and London Road Studios. Everyone had a great time. My
wife was down in Devon staying in a camper van.
The next day,
I drove down and picked her up and we stayed down there in a nice
hotel. Liz claimed to notice a change in my mood and accused me of
taking drugs again. I denied everything.
She was still really
pissed at me because, just a few weeks earlier, we had gone out for the
evening to play cards at a friend's house. We drank a lot of wine and
then the spliffs came out. I smoked one. I'd completely forgotten that
I'd promised my wife that I would not take drugs, part of her agreement
to let me come back and live with her in Bristol after I was released
from the psychiatric hospital. My memory was almost non-existant
between the depression and the meds. But as I smoked the spliff, I
leaned over to her and said "So, are you going to divorce me now?" Not
my cleverest moment.
A few weeks later came the separation
ultimatum. My wife went off to stay with her sister for a couple of
days. I made an appointment to see a solicitor in Bath to check out
where I stood legally and financially, what with the two parallel
businesses, same website design, shared clients and equal charge out
rates. A nightmare. I booked a cab to take me to the railway station
for the Bath train. I got talking to the driver in typically manic
mode. Within 3 minutes, I'd told him my life history, why I was going
to Bath, how I was craving weed and crack. Unbelievably, the driver
suggested that he could get me some weed if that might help me avoid
getting into the crack again. I accepted his kind offer and we took a
detour via Easton. He scored me £100 worth of skunk and took me finally
to the train station.
By the time I arrived at the solicitors,
I was well stoned. I asked them what my rights were if my wife wanted
to kick me out. They said that if I wanted a divorce, I should go for a
clean break settlement of $200,000, half of the equity from the house
and the savings. Leave the pensions for my wife and the kids. Once back
at the house in Bristol, I smoked a few more spliffs and pondered my
situation My wife was dumping me. I was incapable of working. The idea
of living all alone in a flat in Bristol for a year, waiting for my
wife to decide whether she would take me back, was not an attractive
proposition. I was suddenly high again and I thought "Sod it".
I
went to Bath and hired a car. Next thing, I picked up a working girl
with a nice smile off Stapleton Road. I offered her a share of £100's
worth of crack and payment for her time, no sex, and a chilled evening
provided she could take me to a nice, relaxed flat with no more than
two other friends and no constant stream of visitors. She accepted with
alacrity and we went to her boyfriend's place. This immediately put me
in a more comfortable position. I was no longer a punter but a crack
smoking "mate" who was into spending money to find a nice place and
good company for a major smoke. I provided the cash, they provided the
place, the company and good quality smoke.
Later, when we were
well high, there were two more visitors. One was a stunning black
Zimbabwean athlete, a former Olympic gymnast with a lovely white smile
and a great personality. Her companion was a whining junkie without any
money. She was buying but was running low. The chemistry was
instantaneous and obvious to everyone. Her boyfriend started to get a
bit paranoid. Nyasha, on hearing of my predicament, offered to let me
stay at her place in Hartcliffe. I graciously accepted and after a few
more smokes, we bought some to take home and left. Her boyfriend was
well put out, hardly surprisingly.
I drove Nyasha home.
Hartcliffe is a dump but Nyasha's tower block had an excellent
caretaker who kept the place looking and smelling great. I was
introduced to him. Suddenly I had a new address. Upstairs, we drank
some wine (she loved cold Lambrusco, so cheap but fun), smoked some
weed and crack and made love for hours. She was amazing. Her body was
so tight you could bounce coins off it. I was manic and therefore
insatiable. The next day, we went back to our mutual friends' flat and
she regaled them all with tales of my prowess in the bedroom. She went
on and on about her amazement at how this nearly fifty year old guy
suddenly becomes this tornado between the sheets, and several other
places. It was the greatest, coolest feeling. After all the shit of the
past 18 months, I was suddenly in mutual lust with a black goddess
almost young enough to be my daughter and she's singing my praises to
all comers as a lover. I hadn't felt so good in a long, long time.
In
my mania, the here and now means so much more than the past. Ten years
of marriage seemed little in comparison to these new and exciting
opportunities that were opening up. I talked openly to my brother and
sister-in-law about how Nyasha and I could have kids. (They were
horrified.) I found a nice unfurnished flat in the centre of Bath at
$1,000 a month. I took it. I didn't even have a bed, but thanks to the
wonder of credit cards, I soon had a nice place to live. Next step,
it's time for the crash. Mid-July and it's suicidal depression time. I
stayed in bed, hugging the duvet and spending whole nights on the line
to the Samaritans.
As soon as I saw my new Psychiatrist, he
gave me a Community Psychiatric Nurse, a Crisis Support team, a Home
Support worker and a Psychologist. In a week, I would never go more
than 2 days without seeing someone. Hospitalisation was proposed but I
told them they'd have to section me again so they concentrated the
maximum possible out-patient support on me instead. That was just over
a year ago. In the last year, I have had another two highs, each of
around one month’s duration and each costing around $18,000 in crack
and cannabis expenditure. The manic phases were getting more frequent
in 2004 and early 2005. They were, on the basis of 2002/2003, getting
more powerful and less controllable. But today? I'm on new wonder drugs
called Seroquel and Citalopram and for the first time ever, it's
actually working. I've not had a manic episode for 9 months and I'm
feeling like there is a future. I've made some good new friends, I've
taken off two and a half stone, work opportunities are exciting and
tomorrow is another day...
In August it's hot and life is
good. Bath is such an amazing place to live in. It's like living on a
film set. I just bought a Sony DVD Handycam and it's too easy in Bath.
Point the camera at almost anything and it looks good. The Weir,
Pulteney Bridge, the River Avon, the canal, the Roman Baths, Royal
Victoria Park, the Royal Crescent, the Circus - it's no wonder they
made the whole city a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I first saw
Bath at the age of seven as I was being sent off to prep school. That
meant being taken away from your family and sent 70 miles away for
thirty weeks a year in this weird Catholic environment where there were
NO GIRLS. At thirteen, I went to Downside, the "Catholic Eton", just 12
miles away from Bath where you were beaten with a cane by monks in
cassocks for minor infractions such as going to the pub. My favourite
was The Railway Inn where they had a special room for us with a juke
box. When the police were doing their occasional checks on underage
drinking, one of the officers would ring ahead so we had time to walk
across the road and sit in a field until they'd come and gone. Even
there, NO GIRLS. Until I was 18, I barely talked to a girl other than
my sister. It was so strange - half the human race was cut off from
you, to be seen but with no interaction, no communication.
Raging
hormones told you that you had to get it on but there was no one to get
it on with, except other boys, monks or masters. All these options were
chosen by a certain number of boys and this was looked at as pretty
normal. The punishment system reflected the standards of the day. Two
boys were found in bed together. They received a long talking to.
Another boy was seen kissing a local girl. He was immediately expelled.
The word paedophile had none of the power it has today. A
friend of mine, aged 14, had an affair with our English teacher, aged
50. Some boys were jealous. Others simply accepted it. It was looked
upon as an inevitable part of school life.
There was one monk
who would sit in the same place every day after breakfast when all the
550 boys at the school would have to pass him in the Great Hall as they
walked from the dining room to their classes. Each day he would select
a boy and call him over to invite him for coffee and biscuits that
evening. The subject of conversation was well known to everybody. The
killer question that hung in the air until he pounced was, "Tell me, ,
do you masturbate?"
What followed was a long enquiry into the
detailed specifics of when, how and with whom you had performed this
evil act. The same evil act that the monk was obviously doing
throughout the conversation with his hands hidden beneath his cassock.
Downside
was much healthier than my prep school, All Hallows. All the teachers
there were lay, though a Downside monk would come over to say Mass
several times a week. A French teacher had a novel way of marking
people's work. He would have us up one by one and he would run through
the work, his hand on our buttocks with the fingers foraging away
around our testicles. For each howler of a mistake, he would give a
hard pinch on the buttocks. All people worried about was the pinch -
the wandering fingers, slipping inside the short trousers and tickling
your testicles in front of a whole class, were just looked upon as
eccentricity. Several of the others had a real love of painful physical
abuse of 7 to 13 year old boys.
The headmaster was pretty
brutal. He could draw blood with a bamboo cane and once beat a friend
of mine, the son of the then Chairman of HSBC in Hong Kong, every day
for a whole term. He was on report card which meant a stroke for each
bad mark. The Founder and former Headmaster carried on teaching Ancient
Greek into his eighties and had his own unique method of punishment -
with a slipper on the naked bottom while lying across his lap. Even we
found this a little odd for seven year old boys. But no one really
questioned it. I lost my virginity in 1967 when a very large 12 year
old boy thrust his dick in my arse. I was 10 at the time. It hurt like
hell.
Sex and drugs and rock and roll.
And money,
without which the rest is not going to happen. That's the story of my
life. My virginity, the flower of my bottom, may have been taken early
but I did not lose my virginity with a woman until I was 19 years old.
What wasted years those were... sigh.
Still, I've been making
up for it ever since. my first was with me at the University of Exeter.
She was pretty, blond and with a lovely smile. I think she must have
done most of the pulling because, in those days, I was terrible at
reading signals and completely incompetent when it came to making a
move. The sex was unadventurous but scored well on enthusiasm and
longevity. It's rather embarassing to admit but I have no idea of what
her name was. I don't have a memory, I have a BlackBerry.
The
summers of 1976 and 1977 were spent in Paris, living in a
semi-permanent tent with a 1 foot thick foam rubber kingsize mattress
inside. In the beautiful garden of the Chatenay-Malabry youth hostel,
(the only one in France to be owned by the local community and not by
the Youth Hostel Association) we would while away the days, smoking
weed, chillums of hash, lines of white pharmaceutical heroin, cocaine,
and loads of prescription drugs.
Two guys who used to hang
around the hostel kind of adopted me. They loved my voice and the songs
I played, they loved my innocence and enthusiasm for drugs and sex.
They were both called Patrick, which is also my second name, and they
made a good living from breaking into pharmaceutical wholesalers and
selling it all back on the street. They carried around the newspaper
clippings "Armed drug gang caught" and they laughed about it.
These
are the kind of guys who would get on with everybody in prison. They
did their stretch and carried on. So there are these two armed
hoodlums, around 28 years old, who adopt me, a gawky 19 year old Public
Schoolboy from a privileged background who had no experience of street
life but who LOVED his drugs. They wouldn't take my money when I asked
if I could buy some grass, or heroin, or hash. They just gave it to me.
So I started buying off other people and they got quite narked about
it. They were immensely generous, (albeit that everything was the
result of stolen drugs) and they took me to all kinds of cool
underworld spots. The hostel was run by Philip, another former English
Public Schoolboy (he went to Marlborough - we used to play them at
rugger).
The first night I arrived in the hostel, I had been
working for nine months as a bank clerk. My father had made it clear
that if I did a year in a "safe" job like banking, accountancy or
insurance, then he would ensure I lacked for nothing in my three years
at University. He was true to his word, as always.
I did the
bank job (soooooo boring... snooze) until May and then I grabbed my
backpack and guitar and went to live in Paris. My first night there, I
arrived at the Chatenay-Malabry hostel and was welcomed by Philip. As
soon as he saw that I had a guitar, he invited me into his private den.
You could barely see how many people were there because of the pall of
hash and heroin smoke emanating from various bongs, chillums, pipes,
spliffs, off foil and breathed out in clouds. There were a number of
six and twelve string guitars around, as well as some bongos. We made
music till dawn.
When I woke up later that morning, my guitar
had been stolen. Philip very kindly lent me his Epiphone 12 string so I
could busk for a few days to test the water. Would I go down well in
the Metro? I was aware from other people at the hostel that there was a
big differential between top earners and bottom feeders. One German guy
who really had the worst voice I've ever heard - he couldn't hit a
note, forget carrying a tune - would sometimes stop singing and simply
tune and retune his guitar for a couple of hours. His takings went
up...
I spent some time looking for a good pitch. Finally, I
found it. 30 metres from the Metro, beyond the ticket gates for the RER
suburban railway. So the Metro cops, who could be a real pain if they
were in a bad mood, couldn't get you. No jurisdiction. And I hardly
ever saw an RER cop. Business was brisk. $150 in 3 hours, and that was
in 1976 when it was worth a lot. I found I could do even better if I
employed a hatter, in particular a very attractive Swede model who
glowed with a healthy tan and had a smile women could just die for.
Know your market. The biggest givers were middle-aged women. With Sven
there, they couldn't wait to flirt and impress him with their
generosity. Once when I was playing solo, a rather short and fat woman
in her 30's stopped and listened to a few songs and then invited me
back to her place for sex. We christened every piece of furniture in
her flat. Then I left before her husband came home...
I
hitched down to Laredo on the north coast of Spain to see a friend and
I bought a new guitar and hard case in San Sebastian. Then back to
Paris where I spent the hottest summer on record, the Summer of '76,
lazing away the hours playing petanque, smoking hash, and snorting the
pharmaceutical heroin - but only two weeks on the heroin followed by
two weeks off. That's how we avoided getting a habit. The sun blazed
down on the nearly naked, nubile, female bodies soaking up a tan, shiny
from the sun cream and glowing with health. There was a endless supply
of new girls arriving every day at the hostel. Singing definitely
helped you pull. As did the privacy of a large tent, especially one
with a custom cut, exceptionally deep foam block the size of a kingsize
bed. Randy California and Ed Cassidy's Spirit: Spirit of '76 boomed out
of the boombox. Still my favourite album. Imagine being Hendrix's
guitarist when you're 15. No wonder he's the best. It was heaven, we
were young and all was right with the world. There was no AIDS and sex
was bareback. Life at the hostel was one long party. Some of the best
days of my life...
Today is good. My Godson Stef has become a
star urban copywriter and we're going to work together a lot in future
which is going to be so cool. That makes me The Godfather, my favourite
suite of movies.
Just had a lovely email from Fiona, my first
love and wife, 14 years after we last spoke. She's terribly successful
with a huge house in Dorchester-on-Thames. In the late 80s, we used to
go to this very expensive hotel there and rent a motor cruiser on the
river. Ice-packed Champagne and a large mirror for the coke and we used
to have such a laugh with Caroline, Henry and the gang. We've mostly
survived. Charlie (Earl of) Craven used to shoot in the rifle club with
me at school, but he didn't make it - overdose, after several years of
depressing drug shock horror revelations in the News of the World. But
most of us have survived, a little the worse for wear but still heading
on...
So now I'm going back again I've got to get to her somehow All the people we used to know, They're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, Some are carpenter's wives Don't how it all got started, Don't know what they do with their lives. But me, I'm still on the road Heading for another joint. We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point Of view. Tangled up in blue
It
was so good for 10 years. Now it's turned to shit, at least half of it
has. My step-daughter used to say, in front of her mother and others,
that she loved me more than her father. Whatever. Now? My ex-wife, my
stepdaughter (should that be ex-stepdaughter) and my stepson all have
very diffirent views. They are now adults. They were 9 (tom) and 7
(luci) when I met their mum and 11 and 9 when I married her in The Bath Pump Rooms in 1996.
The
fact remains that you can't write a truthful autobiography without
featuring a 10 year relationship, including a 9 year marriage. It is
just not possible, nor would be it the least bit honest. Start a blog
on http://morgansucks.blogspot.com if you want to tell the story from
your point of view. Everybody's recollection differs, particularly when
BP1 and coke are concerned.
I can't see much more in my blog
about you, Tom and Mum than me stating my love for you in the past,
prayers for your future, and my regrets for my manic behaviour. And I'd
love to give you a big hug and a kiss, but I'd probably arrested for
molestation. You and Tom are adults now just as much as Mum and have to
make your own decisions. May they always be the right ones.
With all my love,
Your ex-stepfather, (which I suppose means, after 10 years together, precisely nothing).
Morgan
Luckily, it isn't always like that:
From: Tom To: Morgan Edwards Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 18:58:44 AM Subject:
Hi,
how're you? Hope both you and Eileen are doing well. I'm just back home
for couple of weeks of easter, mixing uni work + some sainsburys. It's
going well. Thank you very much for the dvd - haven't seen it since my
1st yr when housemate had the video. Again- hope you're both well and
thanks, Tom x
But sometimes it's like a corkscrew in the guts:
----- Original Message ----- From: Anonymous To: morganpedwards@hotmail.com Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 8:49 PM Subject: New comment on Thank you so much.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Thank you so much.":
To
all who have left comments: a lot of what is written is lies (not all
but most) and what truth there is twisted. The only truth on the site
is the pain and suffering Morgan’s "exciting" life has left behind for
all those who loved him, and that clearly isn’t stressed enough How
is it refreshing to read about the life of this “extraordinary” man,
when that life involves destroying families, drugs, prostitutes and
generally causing pain to all around him? I cant quite believe any
would believe he is not high, as he quite clearly high now hence the
lies, Exaggeration and the fact Morgan felt the need to send the blogg
2 past clients. If you feel the need to believe all this and think of
this man as an Inspiration then god helps u as you clearly need it As
for a "must read" it doesn’t stress enough the pain he has gone through
as a result of his actions and makes this illness sound appealing which
it is not. I truly feel for people with the illness, those who don’t
exploit it as get out of jail 3 card sadly this is not the case for
Morgan Edwards
----- Original Message ----- From: Anonymous To: morganpedwards@hotmail.com Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 8:49 PM Subject: New comment on Thank you so much.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Thank you so much.":
Anonymous.
Well, there's brave. I could be wrong, in which case the following will
be of no interest and make little sense, but I'll take a wild guess
that there aren't two people in this world who blame all the mentally
ill for the actions they take when psychotic. So for the sake of it,
let's assume I'm right. This someone who calls me a liar, blames for my
own inherited illness, and wants to do it all in public, a sure way to
push me finally into suicide. Hang on, this is just like being married
again. You won, and you still want a war. Well, it's your court costs.
To all who have left comments: a lot of what is written is lies (not all but most)...
Please
detail all the lies you claim. The text has been analysed and cleared
by people who have known me all my life, and professionals who have
seen me on a daily basis for the last 22 months. During this time, I
have had virtually no contact with you. Apparently, it's your much
vaunted omniscient ESP again. The idea of the blog came from my Doctor
of Psychology who urged me to write my life story in a blog format so
it could be refined and added to until it was a publishable
autobiography. She thought this was both important for my recovery from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a positive new project that could
help get me out of the crippling depression I have been suffering from
for 32 of the last 36 months, as evidenced officially on paper by
regular Care Assessments.
Exactly
what part of the website does this refer to? All the coding and images
and original copy and Projects and Examples are my Copyright property,
bought from E3MEDIA and Bluestone and valued by them at a market price
of more than £15,000. Both companies have confirmed that, to the best
of their knowledge, you have no rights to any of the HTML code or
images or structure or words or Examples or Projects that were and are
and have always been in fact the sole property of Morgan Edwards, Words
Plus and MEC. Despite some unauthorised tinkering with some of the
copy, the majority of the words (even, bizarrely your own CV is my
Copyright because I wrote it - why don't you write your own just for
once?), the images, and almost all the content is not and has never
been yours to use. Want a website? Design it or pay for it. I did. I
note that the Copyright Words Plus/MEC strapline, "Copywriting, Web
Content, Brand Language", appears on every single page of your illicit
and misleading website. Most of the copy on most of the pages is still
predominantly stolen from the Words Plus website which you had shut
down when I was suffering from clinical depression and changed the
password so I could not even update my address and contact details for
two years. Most of the Projects were never in fact Copywriting Centre
projects, yet you successfully sell your business on the illegally
stolen code and the majority of the clients you claim in Projects and
Examples have never even met you. IBM, Nortel Opelectronics, MTV -
these were your clients, right? Please provide the proof. Your Writers
page is still called "Words Plus Writers". Your Examples page, almost
all actually mine, is called "Words Plus Examples". This is clear and
illegal misrepresentation and breach of Copyright. To avoid being sued
for this breach of law as well as Mowbray Woodward's massive costs, it
is suggested that the entire www.copywritingcentre.co.uk website be
removed completely by the end of this week. We will in turn remove the
very few references to The Copywriting Centre, Ms Burnell and their
work and clients on the legally owned and copyrighted
www.WordsPlus.co.uk and www.MorganEdwardsConsulting.com . Perhaps there
should be some negotiations over damages and a percentage of every job
you have won since our separation and my illness through the use of an
illegal, stolen and misleading website. Perhaps all your clients should
be informed of the actual legal situation and the fact that they have
been conned for years by a business that pretends to have much more
experience and a vastly different Client and Project and Example list
that is in fact the truth. If "your", i.e. MY website for
www.copywritingcentre.co.uk is not removed completely down to every
line of web code by next Monday, we shall have to consider to seek
legal redress and damages.
My lawyers are also looking into
what they have always seen as a grossly unfair divorce settlement. They
always advised against going for less than £120,000 and were of the
strong opinion that, in view of the medical situation and my future
mental health, I would never have received a penny less than £60,000 in
a court-designated settlement. Dr Bhatt's confirmation that I was not
manic psychotic at the time may no longer be moot. He could stop me
signing away my legal share of the joint assets, plus alimony and an
immediate cash payment, if I were psychotically manic, but not if I
were just clinically depressed. I have further been diagnosed more
recently as having now and having had then Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder, which further puts into question the legality of any
agreements made under duress. My solicitor is also aware that I at the
time believed figures you had given me on the phone when I was highly
mentally vulnerable. She is clear that those figures were radically
different from the ones you legally provided, but which unfortunately I
was too ill to read or understand. I was forced to sign a waiver that I
was going against the written advice of my lawyers to accept anything
less than £60,000. Under the changed mental health diagnosis, there is
a clear case for going to court to finally get what the court would
have given me in a fair and unforced settlement.
and what truth there is twisted. How, where and by whom? Please try and be rational and analytical.
The only truth on the site is the pain and suffering Morgan’s
"exciting" life has left behind for all those who loved him, and that
clearly isn’t stressed enough...
I
have told my own story, not anybody else's. I can't claim to know how
"hurt" someone is by my actions, especially when I was psychotic, and
particularly when it is someone who treats me with hatred and disdain.
No birthday card from anyone in that family this year? Nobody bothered?
Not thanking my mum for her cheques, not even cashing them. How petty
and cruel. Some people who I thought loved me have treated me with
contempt and disgust, cutting me out of the lives of almost everyone I
knew for 10 years, locking me out of my own business website for two
years, slandering me to ex and potential clients, blaming me for having
a genetic disease with a 20% suicide rate (more than 1,900% greater
than the norm). So I suppose David hanged himself to get out of jail
free? John gassed himself into a coma because he just thought he'd do
it to inconvenience you? I am amazed at how some people can live with
their overwhelming bitterness and self-deceit. My Psychologist read the
text of an email to America, sent in early February 2003. Her comment
was, "Well, I'm sorry to say, but she sounds like a complete bitch.
Look on the bright side, you're probably better off without someone
like that in your life, someone who so clearly hates you and wishes you
serious harm. Nothing in this note is about love. It is about
bitterness and anger and hatred directed against you and your illness.
Even then, your marriage was over. It's time to accept yourself, your
illness and the psychotic and apparently untreatable actions that are
known and accepted results and symptoms of mania."
I happen
to think the stress is about right. So do others. Please point out
where I am supposed to have accurately imagined someone else's feelings
when they are not even talking, phoning or emailing anyone who I know.
Others who have a different perspective and have known me all my life
have confirmed that the text is true and fair and consistent with the
facts as they saw and understood them. Feel free to point out exactly
where this lack of stress is and I will certainly consider revising it,
as I have reworked every passage that has been questioned by those who
were around me at the time. All my Mental Health Team is aware and
supportive of the blog and many catch up on the latest instalments as
they are published.
How is it refreshing to read about
the life of this “extraordinary” man, when that life involves
destroying families, drugs, prostitutes and generally causing pain to
all around him?
I have no
view. They were not my words. Post to their comments. It takes more
than one person to destroy a family. Any use of drugs and prostitutes
is less extreme than the average in the movie and music industries.
Robert Downey Jnr, another BP1, has spent a lot more money on working
girls and coke that I ever will. It didn't stop him winning the Oscar
for Chaplin. And every single instance of this psychotic manic
behaviour has been confirmed by the No 1 expert in the region on BP1 as
directly resultant from a psychotic bipolar BP1 manic high. Let's blame
and make fun of people with cancer too, shall we? Perhaps you are the
kind of person that is so self-centred and self-obsessed that you can
only see someone's misfortune with an often deadly illness as an
affront to you personally. Maybe you'd blame you own mother for
inconveniencing you by dying of cancer. Apparently, I am cut no slack
for having a serious mental illness, (just like Peter Gabriel, Downey
Jnr, Hemingway, Van Gogh, Patricia Cornwell, Spike Milligan, Vivien
Leigh...) Look on www.pendulum.org for the list of famous manic
depressives who achieved much with the help of a supportive partner. I
apparently had no chance on that score.
I cant quite believe any would believe he is not high...
Your
lack of knowledge or imagination is your own affair, not mine. I see
these people every day. They rate my mood level in official medical
reviews and legal documents. But of course you know everything about
BP1 better than a consultant psychiatrist, the Manager of the 24 hour
Intensive Home Treatment Team, 3 different members of that team, a
Doctor of Psychology, and a Community Psychiatric Nurse. You know my
mood better, why exactly? Because you see so much of me? Because you
make such a supreme effort to involve yourself with my mental
healthcare? Make your case by all means but from the perspective of
anyone in Bath, you sound ignorant, claiming a confidence you have no
right to feel. The Mental Health team are delighted with my progress.
The blog, which is now over 10,000 words and a dozen pictures, is an
autobiography in the writing.
, as he quite clearly high now hence the lies, Exaggeration and the fact Morgan felt the need to send the blogg 2 past clients.
My
Mental Health Team advise that if I am to lead any kind of useful and
happy future, I have to accept my illness and all its resultant
behaviours as externally created events, and that I should accept their
unanimous view that no BP1 can be meaningfully blamed or held
accountable for any behaviour that is the direct result of BP1 genetic
disorder or inherited chemical imbalance. If I am to start a new career
as a published author, I may as well fess up to the embarrassing stuff,
safe in the knowledge that my Mental Health Team are unanimous in their
view that affixing any blame on myself for manic psychotic actions
performed as a direct result of the genetically inherited illness would
not only be unfair but frankly ridiculous to any knowledgeable and
informed expert. As for old clients, what have I got to lose? Today,
I'm a blogger and an author. Personally, I rather liked Drayton's
comment.
From: Drayton Bird To: Morgan Patrick Edwards Cc: Marta Caricato Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 7:28 AM Subject:
RE: Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of working for you.
Extraordinary reception for my new advertising blog. Rated as one of
the 8 best literary blogs in the world just 4 days after publication...
All the best, Morgan
Morgan, you maniac - good title.
Now reset the whole thing in white on black and you will double your readership (as research showed years ago).
You are the only person I know who makes me feel restrained, reasonable and sensible.
Best
Drayton
If you feel the need to believe all this and think of this man as an Inspiration then god helps u as you clearly need it
Talk
to the posters. Their view is their own. I cannot take responsibility
for someone else's reaction to my story. Again, post to their Comments.
As for a "must read" it doesn’t stress enough the pain he has gone through as a result of his actions...
And
you know more about my pain than I do, do you? Who's sounding
omniscient and rather manic now? Your extensive experience and success
in writing health-related autobiographies puts you in the perfect
position to criticise my work. Strange how everyone else seems to enjoy
it.
and makes this illness sound appealing which it is not.
How
do you know how appealling it is to those who experience it in the real
world? In repeated studies, the majority of BP1's, when asked if they
would prefer to be "normal", answer that they feel the BP1 is a major
aspect of their personalities and essence and they would prefer to
remain what they were born: BP1, for all the good and ill. In any case,
it is not EVER curable so the point is irrelevant. Or have I got it
wrong? I do apologise. I didn't know you were BP1 as well. I had no
idea that you understood BP1 better than the medical experts or people
who actually suffer from it.
I truly feel for people with the illness,
Your sympathy oozes from every word. Or is it just the old irrational hatred and bitterness for my being seriously ill?
those who don’t exploit it as get out of jail 3 card
Ah,
so mentally ill people are sectioned, shut up in padded rooms, made to
wear restraints and locked up indefinitely despite never having been
taken to court and charged or found guilty of any crime whatsoever, at
any time in their life. Just like me. And you think it's all to avoid a
jail sentence that is impossible since there is no crime or guilty
verdict. 7% of the population have class A drug addiction or
alcoholism. In BP1's, it is 75% - more than ten times as likely as the
norm. You cannot under English law find someone guilty of a crime they
only committed because they were suffering from a psychotic affective
disorder. Apparently, you feel strongly I should have gone to jail for
something I was not legally responsible for. Thanks for the sympathy
again, but you view is without rational or legal basis.
sadly this is not the case for Morgan Edwards
Thanks
for the vote of confidence. So you've been studying my psychology via
ESP again, eh? I'll have my experts and you'll have to do your best to
find someone who will agree with your bizarre, bitter and uniquely
cruel views. Shame all my legal work is automatically on legal aid.
Still, with your Whiteladies Road business address, you should have no
problem affording the fees. Shame the kids have had to lose out so much
to fuel your ego. My mother insisted on paying out a lot of money to
change her will yet again to disinherit them from receiving the capital
from the policies she has been paying for years to give them a few
thousand to start them off in life. I have 2 life policies that I was
going to split between you and them. With my inheritance, if I survive
(my latest Risk Assessment starts "Morgan is is constant risk of
suicide." Yeah, real manic...), that could have been life changing for
the kids. Do they know how much you have cost them? You've always
blamed me 100% for everything that went wrong. You were perfect. The
kids were perfect. So why have you had two disastrous failures? Dave
BP1 too is he? Maybe he just got sick of trying to be turned on by a
fat old woman with ugly feet who blames everybody, shouts at everybody
and takes no responsibility for anything. I am demonstrably mentally
ill. What's your excuse?
You've done a real job on Luci. She
always used to say she loved me more than her father. I've got the
letter she wrote me in The Priory all about me being the special one in
her life, and how she would love me for ever. About as worthless as
your wedding vows. Another bad joke from the Burnells. I can't make out
Tom. Does this sound like he hated me last month?
Hi, how're
you? Hope both you and Eileen are doing well. I'm just back home for
couple of weeks of easter, mixing uni work + some sainsburys. It's
going well. Thank you very much for the dvd - haven't seen it since my
1st yr when housemate had the video. Again- hope you're both well and
thanks, Tom x
I might leave my £60,000 policies (that are valid
for suicide), or I might leave the whole £260,000. Whatever, John,
Stefan and Anthony are more honest, deserving and loyal than those fair
weather friends who claim eternal love and spit on you when you're
wounded. Who leaves anything to children who are so cruel as to
purposely hurt relations like my 85 year old mum and their poor,
mentally ill former step-father? No cards or presents at Christmas and
birthdays. Two and more can play at that game. You even had to mark my
blog poorly just to ruin its former 10 out of 10 score by everyone who
visited it. Before this pathetic note, I had no particular anger or
hatred towards you. I remained strangely loving and ashamed towards
you. Just what is so untrue about this?
"Loss. So much gone
forever. Snuggling on the settee watching The Sopranos. Weekends away
in Wales. Coming home from work in Bath to a house noisy with kids.
Being a good stepfather. Driving my three litre sports car along the
country lanes. Cuddling together like spoons under the duvet on a cold
winter's night. Going over to work in Eindhoven for Philips. Having
friends round to sit in the garden and watch the sunset. Winning the
Pub Quiz in Montpellier. Visiting friends and godchildren in Exeter.
Homes. Jobs. Businesses. Friends. It's a lot to take in. The sheer
devastation is mindboggling. How can such a well-founded life disappear
in the puff of a crack pipe? Just four months and it was all over. The
love, the family, the relationship, all blown apart. From now on, it'll
never be the same, ever again.
Liz and I were an unlikely pair
but we fitted together perfectly outside of the manic periods. She had
come out of a 19 year marriage to a rather dour, controlling man and
wanted freedom and independence. I was looking for a second chance at a
loving marriage. We lived half the time together in Bristol and I spent
half the time working away in my Bath flat. It sounded like a recipe
for disaster but it actually worked very well. The time apart was
necessary given the fact that our business was the same and without the
two places we would have been in each other's faces all the time.
The
kids were great. Right at the start of Liz's and my relationship,
before the kids knew we were going out, Tom asked me if I fancied his
mother. I answered "Who wouldn't?". Then he suggested I go out with
her. Two years later, Luci asked me if I'd like to marry her mum. I
asked Liz to marry me later that week. So the kids felt they had a hand
in our relationship and we never really had a cross word in the 10
years I knew them. Through the divorce, it's been difficult to keep up
with them but Tom texts me now and then. I think Luci feels it would be
disloyal to her mum to contact me, which is sad. I wish break-ups were
easier. I feel terrible about how I treated Liz. It's not enough to
trot out the old excuse "I was manic", even when it's true. It doesn't
make the hurt and the pain any easier to bear. I wish I could just give
all three of them a big hug and a kiss and make it all go away. But I
can't. Sigh."
It is at last clear just how much you hate and
blame me for everything that the professionals say was in no way my
fault. You want to go a few more painful rounds? You think you know
what I'm capable of. Don't underestimate how much you have just angered
me. It's your funeral. Don't make it any harder on the kids than you
already have.
I was finally moving on. The blog was a big part
of that. It's time you stopped blaming your inability to form a decent
married relationship on my illness alone. You are a bully. But you're
more vulnerable than me, because I have absolutely nothing to lose. You
saw to that.
Posted by Anonymous to bloggggomania at 4/05/2006 08:49:40 PM ----- Original Message ----- From: Liz Burnell [Copywriting Centre] To: Morgan Edwards Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 10:28 AM Subject: Re: Re: New comment on Thank you so much.
morgan, that
comment left was not by mum is was by me luci so you can stop ranting
about money, legal terns and all the other nonsense you felt the need
to talk about below. I wrote that comment not because im bitter and
twisted but because I wanted to tell you how much pain u have caused
me, but until now i didn't have the strength to do it. mum hasn't
turned me against you, and she hasn't stopped me contacting you, which
is why tom is still able to and does. I haven't done it b4 because it
is to pain full and I find it easier to pretend it all isn't happening.
Ignoring you may not help YOUR recovery but it helps mine. I am 19 and
when you left I was only 17 so im sorry I don't have the maturity to
deal with all these emotions you left, but I think iv done quiet well
considering. the reason I don't contact your mum is because when I have
in the past it caused us both to much pain, we argued about you, and I
found her naturally telling me about you and what u were up to in ur
new life with out me and at the time I wasn't ready to hear it, so I
chose not to. I am not being horrible by saying that you have
lied, you have, the whole section about taking crack on ur mums 84th
birthday really a mix of events that didn't happen quite as you put it,
and happened on different days. you smoked the spliff at marys when we
still lived at cranbrook road, not any where near your mums 84th
birthday, and I remember that because I had to pick up the pieces of a
devastated mum in the dinning room at cranbrook the next day. that
weekend you are talking about with mum away I am in no question that u
took drugs before picking ur mum up because at the time I remember
thinking either Morgan is on drugs or getting better, in which case I
don't like the person Morgan is when not depressed because you were
annoying, rude and arrogant. how do u think it may me feel when u left?
I was beating my self up for weeks thinking I was a horrible person
because I didn't like ur personality when u were getting "better". I
thought, was Morgan always this annoying? did he used to be this rude
before he got ill? is this what he is always going to be like now he is
getting better? I thought I was a bad person for not wishing you to get
better as u were turning into a horrible person. So yeah, when I found
this wasn't the real u coming back, but that you were actually taking
crack I was very upset. I was angry with you and angry with my self for
punishing my self for thinking these horrible thoughts about u when u
were actually smoking crack. oh don't worry my step dads not that bad
normally, he just on the heroin again, never mind. yeah that's a great
thought to have.
you also talk about having a lovely evening
in the garden with the deli food. we did have deli food yes but it was
far from a lovely evening. u were annoying, me and tom thought you were
probably on drugs and ur mum most have noticed to because she made u
take her home, when she was ment to be staying at yours. you then made
me late the baby sitting because u just didn't seem to care what was
going on around u. I don't know weather u intended to lie about this
or that weather u were too fucked on crack to remember, either way I
find it insulting to have all these low points in my lie turned into a
lovely summer story about what a wonderful time it was for us all.
Im
not going to comment all the other points I made as I don't feel u will
listen to my comments and I do not want to start fighting with you
about this. I recently wrote u a letter, detailing why I haven't
been in contact and why u hurt me so much, as I felt it would be good
for both of us to face you to what really happened and how that
affected the people around us. but I never sent it. the one and only
reason I never sent it was because I knew that one of two things could
happen. If you were depressed it may have caused u to feel bad and suicidal, which is not some thing I want. Or
if you were taking drugs or you were manic, and even if the letter
didn't scratch the surface of your emotions because the crack had got
there first, I know you would have felt the need to contact me and tell
me that you were suicidal even if this was not the case, you would have
done it just to get back at me.
you may not remember the
details of call you made to me when u were on the crack the first time
around, telling me that, not only were you going to kill your self
later that day, but it was all mine, mums and toms fault. Telling a
16 year old girl you are going to kill ur self because she is a
horrible person and was always horrible to you, when up until that
moment she had nothing but try to protect you and love you, doing that
Morgan, telling her all that and actually detailing spefic advents and
time when shed said these "horrible" things in the past, having said
them as a child, things that were apparently the reason you were going
to kill you self, That Moraga seems to have a lasting effect on people.
I cant imagine why.
so I didn't want to contact you and get
envloved with these mind games you play when high any more, I have no
idea of you current state of mind month to month and I couldn't risk
contacting you incase u were off on one. I do not want to cause
you harm or upset, I know you have caused your self enough and I
regularly think, I hope its all going ok for Morgan and has happy and
moved on. I don't not want to be the cause of you suicide, or ever
have any doubt in my mind that some thing I said may have cause it. and
the only way I can do that is to not say any thing at all, that way
that conversation we had 2 years ago will never have to be repeated.
but seeing you blog online , with ours lives together, in detail,
including the lies ( don't even think of fighting with me over that
one, as given al the crack you were taking im surprised u even remember
where you lived let alone details of events , unlike me who was not
taking crack at the time) seeing all that on the internet, with ours
names, mums picture, that has made me angry. whatever, go ahead and
write you book about it all if it makes feel better but putting my
name, mums photo, and saying how iv hurt you by not responding and all
that crap, with my name and mums photo Morgan?!?! I very much doubt
that was needed, names and photos were not needed, as it was not needed
to be sent to the people u used to know and who we still know. That is
what made me angry, do what you like with ur story, but please don't
envolve me or my family. And you insulted my dad, he may not be the
life and sole of the party compared to u at ur crack taking parties but
he is a damm good dad, and you have no right to insult him or even
mention him. yeah right you swooped in and saved my mum from this awful
marriage. in the story books I had as a child, I don't remember the
knights in shinning aroamor smoking crack with prostitutes, or maybe
they just left that be out of the books I bought.
oh and
also, u said u think I don't contact you out of loyalty to my mum, that
was not the case before, but certainly is now. reading about ur
mistress in Ireland, reading the details of what when on and watching
you boast on the internet about how you cheated on my mum, fooled us
all into feeling sorry for you because u were stuck in hospital, me
calling you all the time to check you were ok, when really you had some
stupid tart waiting for you back at the hotel. you wrote all about
that, you boasted about it, saying how wonderful it all was when your
family was at home worrying like hell that u were going to be ok. yes
Morgan u really didn't mean to hurt any one with ur blog. I think
that right now that could possibly the most important reason I don't
want to hear from you, because I tell you now, nobody, no matter what
their state of mind hurts my mum like that and gets my forgiveness, I
wouldn't even want to forgive my self for causing her that much pain
with a single act so I am certainly not going to forgive you, for with
you there isn't just single act, and now you are gone the pain seems
never ending. so I hope you blogg is worth if because I have now
stopped feeling sorry for you, and though I still wish you well and
hope you move on with ur life and are happy in the paths you choose, I
now know that what ever we had a relationship is now really gone. when
you to got together mum told you kids were part of the package and that
you could only have her love as long and you respected this and didn't
harm me and tom or come between us all, which I must say u did very
well, until the crack. how ever Morgan encase u never realised kids
come with there own packages to, you hurt my mum, you know you did and
then you detailed it all on a website with her picture. that's so wrong
I can not think of a way to describe it
any way I do wish
you all the best, and im sorry you caused your self so much pain but we
cant change whets happened so we just have to live with it and be
grateful for the happy memberise we did have together for that's all we
can do take care luci x
I'm going to take a few
days off to recuperate (I've slept 7 hours in three days and have
written over 5,000 words in that time). Time to lick my wounnds. That
one really hurt. Morgan bloggggomania
25 years of advertising in pictures - the early 80s onwards
Fiona & I madly in love in Yugoslavia, now Croatia, 1989.
It
was just before the disintegration and civil war and it was one of the
cheapest and most magical holidays ever. I had worked as a courier for
Intasun and Carousel Holidays in Menorca in 1977 and 1978, so we
immediately got on well with our rep. He had few clients, was a PhD,
spoke perfect English, and lived with his Croatian family in a
beautiful house near Pula. He sort of adopted us and though we had a
comfortable suite in a small hotel, we ate often during the evenings
with our courier and his extended family. During the day, we'd fly
around the countryside in a unique Hertz-decalled Trabant converted
into a Mehari-style open Jeep. It was ace. The technique was to keep
the accelerator pressed to the floor at all times and to brake into the
corners, just like with a Superkart. He told us then, "It's coming.
There will be a war and many people will be killed. Who knows how it
will end? But the geoethnic map of this country is totally Balkanised:
after all, we invented the word. It will be bloody, and in the end,
half the people will live away from where they were brought up."
It
seemed so tranquil and picturesque, yet I suppose it's been an ethnic
pressure cooker for hundreds of years. It was Princep in Sarajevo
caused the Great War, where my Grandfather, Doctor Patrick Cagney, whom
I am second-named after, won the Military Cross and was mentioned twice
in despatches with Winston Churchill's signature. All the dozens of
Irish grandchildren wanted those. Now we can just scan them and
everybody gets their momento of a wonderful Grandfather who spoke
fluent Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as Irish and French. He scored
99% in his Medical Finals in Cambridge. It was not equalled for years.
He was a passionate bee-keeper who never got stung, ever, but of course
all of us did when we played in the orchard in the back garden.
He
was such a gentle man, in his eighties as much in love as ever with
Molly Duggan, his wife of over 50 years with whom he had Michael, a
doctor who was a Lieutenant in Franco's army at just 17; Dan, my
Godfather, a kind and gentle man who started the Tayto Potato Crisp
Company; Patrick, the sharp and funny American businessman; Barry, the
Irish Air Corps pilot who helped train Mussolini's Air Force; and John
the professional guitarist, keyboardist, rig-worker and brilliant
engineer and tinkerer - I bought his 1958 Hofner semi-acoustic with the
violin front and six-string high action (like George Harrison's) when
he passed away. Their two daughters were my mother, Ellen Mary, known
as Eileen, and Mary, her younger sister and my Godmother. They toured
America in the 40s and 50s, singing at concerts, in opera and at
events. They sang the national anthem at the opening of the New York
Heliport.
I used my Uncle John's Hofner to record four Dylan
songs (off "Time out of Mind") with the Hofner in Moles Studio, George
Street, Bath, a few years ago. But it was a bitch to play. I fell in
love with a new Yamaha six-string electro-acoustic with onboard volume,
equaliser and mute, and my old Jumbo Tanglewood acoustic that's been
retro-fitted with a Mimesis pick-up across the hole and drilled for a
lead. I got that from a well-known Irish recording artist via the music
shop in Kenmare in the South West of Ireland.
I was there in
2002 just for a couple of solo gigs. I got all my 200 lyric sheets
emailed to my web mail and I printed them out on A4 at the Kenmare
library. I checked out the Thomson 6-string acoustics for €120 but they
had the Tanglewood SG-WG on a stand in the practice room with a big
sign offering it secondhand for €450.
I got the shop to phone
the owner and negotiated over the phone. I got it for €350, about £200,
with its very light pitted fretboard and brand new frets. I used it for
two 4 hour gigs on the same day, from 5 pm to 9 pm at a slick new club
there, and at 9 pm to the famous, tiny one-roomed pub in the High
Street where they've had Van Morrison, The Pogues, the Neville
Brothers, and anyone else who passed through for the major music
festivals. At 1 am when I left the pub, there were 7 untouched bottles
of Becks Low Alcohol for me on the bar. They were a great audience.
I
had a rented BMW 7 Series and had to drive all the way back to Cork
that night to get back to my mistress Claire who I'd left in a suite in
a 4 star Hotel in Cork Centre recovering from heroin withdrawal. I'd
first left her in my old Grandparents' house, Redclyffe, where I played
as a child, but now a big Bed & Breakfast on the Western Road. For
the first four days, she threw up everywhere. We'd been doing an awful
lot of Crack together, by that stage about $150,000's worth in three
months. But though we'd often slept in the same bed, we had never
actually made love. Too wrecked with the Crack and heroin we used to
smoke afterwards.
That night I arrived back after 2 am and
slipped into the kingsize bed as she slept in the smaller one in the
suite. She was definitely over the worst of it. I heard a rustling of
bedclothes and she slipped in beside me and we snuggled like spoons.
After a couple of minutes, she whispered "Just stick it in me", which
strangely had a romance all of its own.
We made love all night
and a couple of days later, we flew back to Bristol. She hadn't talked
to her mother for a while and was banned from the house because she
used to steal to support her habit. We'd talked to her mum from Cork
and when we got back, I drove her to her mum's house. There was a lot
of crying and hugging, we had a few drinks together and I left her
there with her mum and her step-father to try and keep clean. I have
never seen her again. I like to hope she kicked it for good. She was
just 26 then in 2002. She was a great smoking companion and good fun.
I'm
going to do some recording over the next few weeks. I like my 3/4 size
Yamaha but some songs just sound better on the Tanglewood SG-WG. We're
thinking of trying a gig as a duo, perhaps at The King William near
where I live on London Road in Bath. It got well reviewed in The Times
recently as a place for London readers to pop down to on the train for
lunch. Huh. My local. Bloody cheek. It's too small as it is.
My
last full electric recordings from London Road Studios got nicked as
both copies were in multi-disk players when my flat got ransacked while
I was in hospital in London in 2003. It's horrible to lose everything.
Especially when it's irreplaceable.
Old
Trafford 1984: The Sharp End players' bar. Martin Edwards, long-time
owner of Manchester United is on the left. I'm the tall one in the
middle at the back with the graduated tint frames - very 80s. There's
goalkeeper Gary Bailey, who we featured in a Sharp Audio campaign on
national TV. Peter Maltby, Marketing Director of Sharp Electronics UK
Ltd., a truly perfect $10,000,000 a year media advertising client, is
the main Manchester United global sponsor in what was then the largest
ever UK football sponsorship deal. There are some senior Japanese Sharp
Corporation of Osaka directors, plus a number of Manchester United
executives and other players.
I'm their media planner buyer
and Deputy Media Director of their agency Ayer Barker, the advertising
agency where Salman Rushdie, horror novelist James Herbert; Trevor
Beattie, the inventor of the Hello Boys bra ad and, even more
impressive, the transformation of French Connection into FCUK, a global
triumph; Terry Howard, who wrote TV series and discovered Lorraine
Chase for the Campari "Luton Airport" commercial: all these people were
copywriters at Ayer Barker. We had the sharpest press buying operation
in Fleet St (well, 150 yards away in Farringdon St.) We were the 25th
biggest agency in the UK, and a top ten press agency with Chanel,
Sharp, M&G, Bahamas Tourist Office, Irish Tourist Board,
Rolls-Royce, GEC, Marconi, Allied Breweries, Dows Port, and a dozen
other classy clients. Old Trafford every fortnight, and Peter and I
would wander on the top TV gantries for the first half and then move
into the players' bar, alone, throughout the second half. Neither of us
had any interest in Football. I'm Welsh/Irish - give me rugby any day.
Ironic, huh?
Claudine, my girlfriend in the early 80s before
Fiona, was a mad Tottenham Hotspur supporter. I took her to Old
Trafford, but the only time we ever went to Spurs together, she went to
her seat while I joined the board of The Financial Times in their
dining room with a glass wall onto the pitch. Large gin and tonics
followed by a bottle of white each with the smoked salmon and a red
each with the Chateaubriand. Port and brandies for the last hour of the
game which we would occasionally glance at while concentrating on a
wonderful series of very funny stories that went round the table in a
supremely relaxed and enjoyable get-together. Occasionally, I'd wander
over to the glass wall and wave at my fiancee as she froze happily on
the terraces. Now, that's how to enjoy a football game - with a final
Cuban cigar. The FT always had such impeccable class.
Supercart
Racing at Thruxton with Peter Maltby, as guests of a media owner who
received over £500,000 a year in Sharp advertising press expenditure.
Peter was a superb driver who had a new Porsche as well as a vintage
one that he was restoring to new. Peter and I went to all the motor
racing days, including driving and being driven by Jackie Stewart and
that year's Rally Champion, in Ford Capri 3.0 Turbos. Really,
absolutely terrifying.
On a day when serious professional
racing drivers came to learn and practice in Formula Ford one-seaters
at Thruxton, Peter came first and I came last, not so much for speed as
for style. I picked terrible lines but had great fun controlling the
skids and near-spins, and Peter was always line perfect. He used to
take his Porsche out on the track at Brands Hatch. An excellent day's
work for us both. A nice rest from the 14 hour days at the office. And
the client has to win, every time. In our case, it was never an issue
as he was semi-professional standard and I wasn't close.
On
the left, my American first cousin Mal Cagney, whose father my Uncle
Patrick was badly injured in the first World Trade Towers bombing, when
his own business's offices were badly smoke-damaged. On the right, my
first long-term live-in girlfriend, journalist Julie Shrimpton, who I
lived with in Exeter at University, then in Clapham North in London.
In
the middle, my eldest brother David, a very successful merchant banker,
stockbroker and investment analyst with County Bank in the City.
Successful, popular, a very kind brother, a former serious Liberal
Party parliamentary candidate in Hendon, hanged himself off his
penthouse flat's balcony in January 1986, without any warning of any
kind, leaving no note whatsoever. None of us would ever be the same
again.
We've just had the 20th anniversary of his suicide.
Always remembered, always loved, forever. All he left us was a lot of
money and some great memories. He was my half-brother, ten years older,
and he used to come down from London to Somerset to take me out of
Downside Abbey School every few weeks. We used to have a great time,
lots of good food and drink and me only 13, smoking and knocking back
Single Malts in The Crown Hotel in Wells. Afterwards, a film and a walk
around Wells or we'd motor over to Bath. I am proud to have had him as
a brother for 29 years. He was a really lovely guy.
Well, I was hoping for at least some response. But nothing quite like this...
Thanks
for your comments. I am a little overwhelmed. Cheers, Anonymous,
whoever and wherever you are - good move not giving your name... ; ) he
he. Thanks for your kind words.
You may be interested to know
that bloggggomania has been voted by www.blogtopsites.com. as one of
the Top 100 literary blogs in the world, and, as of today, is one of
only 8 out of the Top 100 that are Top Rated with a perfect 5 stars out
of 5. I don't suppose it will last, but it's nice to know someone's
enjoying it.
Many thanks to all the thousands of people I've
been lucky enough to work with in the last 25 years in the Advertising
Industry. It's been a real pleasure learning from you. Especially Peter
Aldcroft, Rene Cane, Rod Wright, Steve White, Lynda Graham, Stuart
Butterfield, Liz Burnell, Fiona Penman, and above all, Drayton Bird.
David Ogilvy once called him "the greatest direct response copywriter
in the world". A master of understatement. And my inspiration to become
a copywriter at the age of 37, and an autobiographer at the age of 49.
It's been a wild ride.
Wednesday Update
From: Drayton Bird To: Morgan Patrick Edwards Cc: Marta Caricato Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 7:28 AM Subject:
RE: Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of working for you.
Extraordinary reception for my new advertising blog. Rated as one of
the 8 best literary blogs in the world just 4 days after publication...
All the best, Morgan
Morgan, you maniac - good title.
Now reset the whole thing in white on black and you will double your readership (as research showed years ago).
You are the only person I know who makes me feel restrained, reasonable and sensible.
Best
Drayton
Comments on the blog web include:
Miss Marcano said...
Wow!
What an amazing life story! Its so refreshing to read a biography that
is actual fact and not some made up bull for the sake of a good story.
Morgan,
you've led an incredible life. You've been through some dark times what
most of us could never contemplate ever happening to us but you've come
out of it and are rebuilding your life which is an inspiration to us
all.
I look forward to reading some more chapters on your very intriguing life!.. I may actually learn something from this
1:13 PM
stef macbeth said...
yikes!
what a story. the depravity is intoxicating. has anyone brought the
film rights yet? this is THE rock'n'roll tale of our times...
----- Original Message ----- From: Anonymous To: bloggggomania.blogspot.com Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 2:33 PM Subject: [bloggggomania] 4/04/2006 02:33:33 PM
I
think your blog captures the unbearable fragility of success - that it
all can all slip away in an instant, or indeed a weekend in Amsterdam.
What
i love about it most, though, is the way excess is an end in itself -
the hunger for more, even when you know the consequences will be
painful. and not just painful, excessively painful.
But what
really shines through in the end is the toughness of the human spirit -
well, this particular human spirit. A larger than life man, a man who
cheats impending ruin with a swagger and integrity that is so
infectious and ultimately very moving.
This blog should be
required reading for everyone working in the media fishtank - a
warning, an inspiration, a reminder of why we were attracted to this
business in the first place.
When's the next instalment? -- Posted by Anonymous to bloggggomania at 4/04/2006 02:33:33 PM
From: Morgan P Edwards To: John Tylee
Dear John
You
asked me why on earth I would want to write this story in all its
grisly truth. Still wondering? I may occasionally be a bit crazy but no
one's ever called me stupid...
For old time's sake and your
kindness when you called me out of the blue last week, you have the
exclusive rights on everything until Thursday. Then it's going
international.
Let the fun begin...
All my words on the
blog are Copyright Morgan Edwards Consulting (MEC). You have full and
free rights to quote from anything you wish and use any of the photos,
which apart from my scan of myself in Campaign all belong to me anyhow.
Read the "Obituary at 33" from Precision Marketing. It's a true
original by Neil Denny and very funny. "The Taffia", ha!. Brilliantly,
it's all true. If you want to send an early draft to check facts, fine,
but you've got 5,500 words of sworn copyright testimony and full and
free rights so feel free to have fun.
If you need to talk to
me, email me or text me, you can get me through my Vodafone BlackBerry
(a gift from a grateful client) 24 hours a day and it would be a
pleasure to speak to you any time. Have as much fun with it as you
like. I know I have and continue to do.
Isn't Advertising
great? Media Director, copywriter or marketing and media consultant,
it's a constant delight. Always learning about great new businesses and
facing a new creative challenge every day.
You know we have a
thriving scene down here in Bath, from Kerve (for whom I write their
brochures, mailers and website) with their Jack Daniels website,
LastMinute.com 48 sheet posters and the Time Out winner for new uses
for the Dome (Sex and drugs freeport) to Stratton Craig, the oldest
copywriting agency in the UK, where I started in 1994. Come down for
lunch and I'll show you round.
Could you please get someone to
get me the contact details of John Thater, Mark Edwards and Neil Denny?
It would be very kind and it would be such a treat to catch up with
some old journalist friends. If you decide to do the story, have fun.
And save me a few copies. We don't see Campaign much around Somerset!
Mirror Group Newspapers accused of unfair and exploitative treatment of bloggers
This
blog, http://bloggggomania.blogspot.com, is effectively a 5,000 word
mini-autobiography of a Media Director turned copywriter. It's the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - sex, drugs, millions
and mania. It was published for the first time on blogspot.com last
Monday.
Four hours later The Mirror newsdesk rang wanting to do
a story. Since then, The Mirror had it slated for a sex and drugs
spread last week. Then they passed on it to their sister Sunday, The
People. The People sent down a photographer who spent half a day taking
120 shots, and Ann Gripper of The People did several hours of phone
interviews up to Friday.
They said they were writing the story
anyway, no matter what I did or how I or my ex-wives and family felt.
All the sex and drug stuff was in. I pointed out that the blog was
Copyright but said I had no problems as long as they told the truth.
Not a penny was ever discussed, requested, offered or paid.
A
meeting was arranged in Bath last week with the Mirror. Then it was
cancelled at ten minutes notice and the journalist said that they had
decided to not publish.
The Mirror loved the $500,000 worth of
cocaine and crack that this well-known Media Director had consumed;
they were delighted at the stories of high class escorts and
limousines. But said a Mirror journalist, "It's a great story, half a
million dollars worth of crack, he was married to two wealthy Managing
Directors, he was a Board Director of a $90 million advertising agency,
but he was manic depressive. People don't want to read about mental
patients."
The People then got hold of the story and decided to
run it in spite of the "disadvantage" of the bipolar issue. There were
several hours of telephone conversations with Ann Gripper, Senior
Reporter at Mirror Group Newspapers'lavish Headquarters at Canary
Wharf, Britain's most expensive office block.
The next day, they
sent a photographer all the way to Bath. She spent two and a half hours
taking 120 digital shots and they borrowed another 20 photos. Then,
there was another hour long conversation with Ann.
Would she be
able to send through an early script to enable mistakes to be pointed
out? "No" said Ann, "that's not the way we do business here."
Further
talks on story detail through Friday. They demanded extra wedding
photos of the horse and carriage procession from St. Clement Danes, The
Strand, to Piccadilly, the Royal Air Force Officers' Club. I sent
through what they had asked for:
----- Original Message ----- From: Morgan Edwards To: ann.gripper@mirror.co.uk Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:39 AM Subject: Morgan Edwards http//:bloggggomania.blogspot.com
Hi Anne
I guess it's all in your hands now. Here is the latest one piece version with photos: http://bloggggomania.blogspotcom/ You can use all of it. My copywriting and consulting partner is my 25 year old and highly successful godson, an English & Philosophy graduate like his godfather, and a copywriter and creator of youth and Club identities, web words, and street brands all over the country. He's also written regularly for The Times. I have been quoted everywhere from The Financial Times, The Observer, The Independent, Campaign, to Precision Marketing, Media World and Media Week to all of which I was a regular contributor. But never The People.
I so enjoyed our chat, and with your colleague from The Mirror. Since being fired as a Media Director in 1991, I've been that ubiquitous copywriter who's been writing those corporate web words you read from IBM, Microsoft, Ministry of Defence, all Police forces, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Nokia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, marchFIRST, The Alhalrami Consortium, Vodafone, BT, Adobe, Cellnet, O2, Ordnance Survey, Cisco and over a hundred others... www.WordsPlus.co.uk
Let me know if you want to talk further. Call me 24 hours on my mobile, or text or email me - they all come through to my BlackBerry Vodafone.
Good luck,
Be gentle.
Morgan
----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 6:06 PM
> > Ann Gripper > > Reporter > The People > One Canada Square > Canary Wharf > London > E14 5AP > Tel: +44 (0)20 7293 3213 > Mob: +44 (0)7869 286 341 > > > > > > ******************** > IMPORTANT NOTICE This email (including any attachments) is meant only for > the intended recipient. It may also contain confidential and privileged > information. If you are not the intended recipient, any reliance on, use, > disclosure, distribution or copying of this email or attachments is > strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately by email if you > have received this message by mistake and delete the email and all > attachments. > ********************
There was no further contact from The People or Mirror Group Newspapers until...
Come Sunday, the article never appeared.
Finally, today, they apologised for the delay but say they will run it in their own good time.
Are you expecting to find your blog in front of 7 million people at Sunday breakfast? Because, believe me, it can happen.The question is, what can we do about it?
I
sent my stepson Tom a 2 DVD set for True Romance, one of my Top Five
movies. I knew he'd love it. Had a lovely long text from him and he's
well and happy and sounding great. Maybe things have a way of sorting
themselves out. bloggggomania
But just when you think that you've lost everything, You find you've got a little more to lose. Bob Dylan
Loss.
So much gone forever. Snuggling on the settee watching The Sopranos.
Weekends away in Wales. Coming home from work in Bath to a house noisy
with kids. Being a good stepfather. Driving my three litre sports car
along the country lanes. Cuddling together like spoons under the duvet
on a cold winter's night. Going over to work in Eindhoven for Philips.
Having friends round to sit in the garden and watch the sunset. Winning
the Pub Quiz in Montpellier. Visiting friends and godchildren in
Exeter. Homes. Jobs. Businesses. Friends. It's a lot to take in. The
sheer devastation is mindboggling. How can such a well-founded life
disappear in the puff of a crack pipe? Just four months and it was all
over. The love, the family, the relationship, all blown apart. From now
on, it'll never be the same, ever again.
Liz and I were an
unlikely pair but we fitted together perfectly outside of the manic
periods. She had come out of a 19 year marriage to a rather dour,
controlling man and wanted freedom and independence. I was looking for
a second chance at a loving marriage. We lived half the time together
in Bristol and I spent half the time working away in my Bath flat. It
sounded like a recipe for disaster but it actually worked very well.
The time apart was necessary given the fact that our business was the
same and without the two places we would have been in each other's
faces all the time.
The kids were great. Right at the start of
Liz's and my relationship, before the kids knew we were going out, Tom
asked me if I fancied his mother. I answered "Who wouldn't?". Then he
suggested I go out with her. Two years later, Luci asked me if I'd like
to marry her mum. I asked Liz to marry me later that week. So the kids
felt they had a hand in our relationship and we never really had a
cross word in the 10 years I knew them. Through the divorce, it's been
difficult to keep up with them but Tom texts me now and then. I think
Luci feels it would be disloyal to her mum to contact me, which is sad.
I wish break-ups were easier. I feel terrible about how I treated Liz.
It's not enough to trot out the old excuse "I was manic", even when
it's true. It doesn't make the hurt and the pain any easier to bear. I
wish I could just give all three of them a big hug and a kiss and make
it all go away. But I can't. Sigh.
Bloggggomania
is about the ups and downs of a bipolar copywriter in Bath. My story
starts nearly 20 years ago when, after a family Christmas with my
parents in Cardiff with my five half-siblings, my eldest brother, a
highly successful financial investment analyst at County Bank in the
City of London, returned to London, took a massive overdose, then
hanged himself with electrical flex by jumping off his penthouse
balcony in Mill Hill. Six months later, I was in The Priory Roehampton
being treated for clinical depression. Five weeks after being admitted,
I jumped back into work with such energy that they changed my diagnosis
to manic depression, otherwise known as Bipolar Affective Disorder. So,
I'm BAD. (Just ask my ex-wives . Arf, arf...)
The first Big
One, the completely unexpected four month binge of sex and drugs and
the destruction of a happy and successful life, came in 1990. I'd been
made a director of a $90 million London ad agency and I had a wife who
was also a Media Director and we had it all. Fast cars, drinking like a
fish lunchtime and evening (most media business was in those days done
over a long, expensive and highly alcoholic lunch around Fleet Street).
Ah, that was the end of the Thatcherite 80's, a time when conspicuous
consumption of champagne and cocaine was the social life of the City
and the Media and the Advertising industry. Media companies would fete
busy, powerful media buyers with £30 million each in advertising
budgets to be spent virtually at your whim, depending on how convincing
you were. There were all these great events where business was barely
mentioned. The Observer invited us down each year to Brands Hatch where
we could drive and be driven by Jackie Stewart and other stars around
the track in performance saloons, and then go round in single seater
Formula Fords. A regional magazine, Plus, flew us all out to Istanbul
for the day, including a fabulous dinner in a palace.
I met my
first wife in Turin, touring the print works where Family Circle was
published. We talked on the flight over and she mentioned she was
moving the next weekend from Bayswater to Brockwell Park. I had a
Peugeot estate so I offered to help. At the flat, she introduced me to
her friend and lover, also a very sexy lady. (She later came to our
wedding dressed in men's morning suit as one of the ushers... My
youngest brother and her got off together at the wedding.) I was going
out with someone at the time, but Fiona was relentless. At a party at
our house in Mill Hill, she dragged me into the loo and peed in front
of me while French kissing me for ages while my girlfriend of the time
knocked on the door calling out "Morgan, are you OK?"!
Fiona
and I married at St Clement Danes (Oranges and lemons say the bells of
St Clements) in the Strand, end of Fleet St. All the bigwigs from the
media world were there. London Transport Advertising provided two red
London buses emblazoned with my Sharp bus side posters for microwaves
(with Jimmy Tarbuck) audio (with Bucks Fizz) and copiers (with Bobby
Charlton). The wedding dress was one step back from Lady Di's. The
reception was at the Royal Air Force Officers Club in Piccadilly so we
made the journey in a horse drawn carriage that went round by
Buckingham Palace so all the tourists could wave and cheer. So cool.
Then to Hong Kong, Guangzhou China, and Bali for three weeks. It was
only four years later that the Big One hit with unimaginable
devastation. First, there were two miscarriages, the emergency removal
of a cyst the size of a grapefruit from my wife's womb, and my father's
death.
The change was like the mood change in a movie, from
lighthearted to dark. First, I started picking up working girls and
going for a smoke with them, no sex. That was how I was introduced to
Crack. Since then, I've spent $500,000 on it, lost three homes, two
wives, two step-children, a successful career, a successful business,
occasionally my sanity, many friends and some family, many women, and
sometimes even some of my self respect. But up till now I've shown an
extraordinary ability to bounce back. Maybe I will this time. Yes, I
think I will...
1990 wasn't the beginning of my affair with
narcotics. I first smoked hash at 17 in Paris; acid, cocaine,
amphetamine sulphate, mushrooms, heroin, Artane, and many others
appeared in Paris in 1976 when I was 19, a street and restaurant
musician; and 14 years later, Crack in 1990 when I was a Board Director
of a $90 ad agency. Hash I smoked on a virtually daily basis from 1975
to 1993 when I joined Narcotics Anonymous and again, though only when
manic, from 1996 until last year. It's been diagnosed by consultant
psychiatrists as neither social drug use nor any form of addiction.
It's simply unsupportable cravings for cannabis and cocaine when manic,
yet no desire to use any drugs (except of course my mood stabilisers,
atypical anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and benzodiazapines) when
normal or depressed. The meds try to damp down the huge surge of
Serotonin, Dopamine, Adrenaline and Noradrenaline you get when you're
manic. Exactly the same effect as cocaine. The drugs are just another
way of increasing the power and elation of the mania that little bit
further - at a price...
The first Big One came on quickly in
1990. One day I was doing well at work and enjoying married life with
Fiona, the next I was spending all night in crack houses near Bayswater
and I was spending money wildly. I was invited to a business awards
ceremony in Amsterdam so I made arrangements to see some business
contacts over there. I met up with the marketing director of Fortune,
persuaded him to let me do his Pan-European TV buying by showing how
much I could save him, then asked him if he fancied an expensive dinner
or what. He chose "or what" and took me to Yab Yum, a club where you
drink with friends and meet the girls and then go into the party room
with Jacuzzi and kingsize waterbed and there you can do what you like
as long as your American Express holds out. Mine held out for four days
and $20,000 on women and cocaine. The company found out a month later
and fired me for gross misconduct. I sued in an industrial tribunal and
got $55,000 for breach of contract. Firing people for being ill is not,
apparently, the done thing.
My wife, horrified at my
out-of-control use of drugs and prostitutes took solace in the arms of
her biggest client, the JVC marketing manager, a former Baptist
minister who left his wife and family for her. I moved on to Bath,
started a consultancy in Swansea, got engaged and was to be a father
again, another miscarriage, then moved back to Bath, became a
copywriter, got married again and lived between my flat in Bath and our
six bedroomed house in Bristol. Once again, everything was just
perfect. One year, between us we earned $400,000. We lived the life and
once every two years I would go high again. Regular as clockwork. The
women, the crack, the fearlessness, the depravity, the sheer elation of
it all would send me into a different world where I was a bit of a
gangsta and was capable of anything... And my wife put up with it
because when I was well we had a great marriage. It was only in the
highs that things became impossible. And eventually, this marriage too
would end because of another Big One, the strongest to date...
It
was on the 30th January 2003 that 11 armed police broke down my front
door and restrained me naked on the ground while a consultant
psychiatrist, a GP and a social worker sectioned me for an indefinite
period and had me taken in a police van to London, to a high security
psychiatric hospital called Abbeydale. That was the end of one
nightmare and the beginning of another... The private high security
hospital was in Walthamstow. The walls were painted with non-climb
paint and the tops of the walls were covered in razor wire. The staff
were huge, all black or Asian, very kind but tough as nails: and there
was a ratio of one-to-one.
Every night the staff member who
was in charge of you sat in a chair at the door of your bedroom all
night with the door open. You had to sign for a razor and get it back
within 10 minutes. After a few almost-fights where people kicked off
but I resisted the temptation to retaliate, they moved me to the
low-security wing after two weeks. There, we had our own computers, our
own guitars, and intensive psychiatric support. After 6 weeks, they
moved me back to Bath at a couple of hours notice to invalidate my
appeal (you have to start all over again with new lawyers and
everything).
By then I was coming down fast and when I
crashed, I was virtually catatonic and stayed that way for more than a
year after I went back "home", that is, to my wife's house: my flat had
to be sold to pay the crack and other overspending debts of $200,000.
It was an unhappy time for my wife who was strained beyond belief, my
step-kids who couldn't work out why their lovely step-father had
changed from this kind, gentle bear into a manic Grizzly. There was
worse to come...
In June 2004, my wife had finally had enough.
Liz told me she wanted a separation, with me staying in a flat alone
for at least 6 months. Within 2 days, the 6 months had turned into a
year. I was devastated. I had been catatonically depressed since my
crash in March 2003. I'd lost my business that made me more than
$100,000 a year working three days a week. The relationship with my
wife was broken, crushed by all the hurt and anger that my crazy
behaviour had inevitably caused her. The kids, whom I had step-fathered
since they were ten and eight, were confused and hurt. I was on massive
doses of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and mood stabilisers. But at
this crucial moment, I was going high again. The signs were there. I
started playing my guitar and singing a lot. I started getting
interesting business ideas. My copy became more left-field and daring.
On
my mother's 84th birthday, May 30th 2004, for no obvious reason, I
found myself taking a left into St. Pauls in Bristol and driving up to
the Front Line. I parked up in the side road between Grosvenor and City
Road and waited. There were a few youngsters around but I caught the
eye of a middle-aged Rasta. He wandered over and we talked. I bought a
£10 rock of crack. In the local petrol station, I bought some Rizlas
and back in the car, I crumbled the rock onto tobacco. This would be
the first crack I had smoked since January 2003, nearly 18 months
before. I finished the spliff and headed home. I parked in one of our
three driveways and went into the house. Tom and Luci were there and
I'd got loads of deli stuff like ham, smoked salmon, pastrami, salad
and strawberries and cream. It was a perfect day, the sun shone as we
sat in the huge garden under a massive parasol and relaxed to the sound
of me singing on the CD I'd recorded in Bath at Moles and London Road
Studios. Everyone had a great time. My wife was down in Devon staying
in a camper van.
The next day, I drove down and picked her up
and we stayed down there in a nice hotel. Liz claimed to notice a
change in my mood and accused me of taking drugs again. I denied
everything.
She was still really pissed at me because, just a
few weeks earlier, we had gone out for the evening to play cards at a
friend's house. We drank a lot of wine and then the spliffs came out. I
smoked one. I'd completely forgotten that I'd promised my wife that I
would not take drugs, part of her agreement to let me come back and
live with her in Bristol after I was released from the psychiatric
hospital. My memory was almost non-existant between the depression and
the meds. But as I smoked the spliff, I leaned over to her and said
"So, are you going to divorce me now?" Not my cleverest moment.
A
few weeks later came the separation ultimatum. My wife went off to stay
with her sister for a couple of days. I made an appointment to see a
solicitor in Bath to check out where I stood legally and financially,
what with the two parallel businesses, same website design, shared
clients and equal charge out rates. A nightmare. I booked a cab to take
me to the railway station for the Bath train. I got talking to the
driver in typically manic mode. Within 3 minutes, I'd told him my life
history, why I was going to Bath, how I was craving weed and crack.
Unbelievably, the driver suggested that he could get me some weed if
that might help me avoid getting into the crack again. I accepted his
kind offer and we took a detour via Easton. He scored me £100 worth of
skunk and took me finally to the train station.
By the time I
arrived at the solicitors, I was well stoned. I asked them what my
rights were if my wife wanted to kick me out. They said that if I
wanted a divorce, I should go for a clean break settlement of $200,000,
half of the equity from the house and the savings. Leave the pensions
for my wife and the kids. Once back at the house in Bristol, I smoked a
few more spliffs and pondered my situation My wife was dumping me. I
was incapable of working. The idea of living all alone in a flat in
Bristol for a year, waiting for my wife to decide whether she would
take me back, was not an attractive proposition. I was suddenly high
again and I thought "Sod it".
I went to Bath and hired a car.
Next thing, I picked up a working girl with a nice smile off Stapleton
Road. I offered her a share of £100's worth of crack and payment for
her time, no sex, and a chilled evening provided she could take me to a
nice, relaxed flat with no more than two other friends and no constant
stream of visitors. She accepted with alacrity and we went to her
boyfriend's place. This immediately put me in a more comfortable
position. I was no longer a punter but a crack smoking "mate" who was
into spending money to find a nice place and good company for a major
smoke. I provided the cash, they provided the place, the company and
good quality smoke.
Later, when we were well high, there were
two more visitors. One was a stunning black Zimbabwean athlete, a
former Olympic gymnast with a lovely white smile and a great
personality. Her companion was a whining junkie without any money. She
was buying but was running low. The chemistry was instantaneous and
obvious to everyone. Her boyfriend started to get a bit paranoid.
Nyasha, on hearing of my predicament, offered to let me stay at her
place in Hartcliffe. I graciously accepted and after a few more smokes,
we bought some to take home and left. Her boyfriend was well put out,
hardly surprisingly.
I drove Nyasha home. Hartcliffe is a dump
but Nyasha's tower block had an excellent caretaker who kept the place
looking and smelling great. I was introduced to him. Suddenly I had a
new address. Upstairs, we drank some wine (she loved cold Lambrusco, so
cheap but fun), smoked some weed and crack and made love for hours. She
was amazing. Her body was so tight you could bounce coins off it. I was
manic and therefore insatiable. The next day, we went back to our
mutual friends' flat and she regaled them all with tales of my prowess
in the bedroom. She went on and on about her amazement at how this
nearly fifty year old guy suddenly becomes this tornado between the
sheets, and several other places. It was the greatest, coolest feeling.
After all the shit of the past 18 months, I was suddenly in mutual lust
with a black goddess almost young enough to be my daughter and she's
singing my praises to all comers as a lover. I hadn't felt so good in a
long, long time.
In my mania, the here and now means so much
more than the past. Ten years of marriage seemed little in comparison
to these new and exciting opportunities that were opening up. I talked
openly to my brother and sister-in-law about how Nyasha and I could
have kids. (They were horrified.) I found a nice unfurnished flat in
the centre of Bath at $1,000 a month. I took it. I didn't even have a
bed, but thanks to the wonder of credit cards, I soon had a nice place
to live. Next step, it's time for the crash. Mid-July and it's suicidal
depression time. I stayed in bed, hugging the duvet and spending whole
nights on the line to the Samaritans.
As soon as I saw my new
Psychiatrist, he gave me a Community Psychiatric Nurse, a Crisis
Support team, a Home Support worker and a Psychologist. In a week, I
would never go more than 2 days without seeing someone. Hospitalisation
was proposed but I told them they'd have to section me again so they
concentrated the maximum possible out-patient support on me instead.
That was just over a year ago. In the last year, I have had another two
highs, each of around one month’s duration and each costing around
$18,000 in crack and cannabis expenditure. The manic phases were
getting more frequent in 2004 and early 2005. They were, on the basis
of 2002/2003, getting more powerful and less controllable. But today?
I'm on new wonder drugs called Seroquel and Citalopram and for the
first time ever, it's actually working. I've not had a manic episode
for 9 months and I'm feeling like there is a future. I've made some
good new friends, I've taken off two and a half stone, work
opportunities are exciting and tomorrow is another day...
In
August it's hot and life is good. Bath is such an amazing place to live
in. It's like living on a film set. I just bought a Sony DVD Handycam
and it's too easy in Bath. Point the camera at almost anything and it
looks good. The Weir, Pulteney Bridge, the River Avon, the canal, the
Roman Baths, Royal Victoria Park, the Royal Crescent, the Circus - it's
no wonder they made the whole city a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I
first saw Bath at the age of seven as I was being sent off to prep
school. That meant being taken away from your family and sent 70 miles
away for thirty weeks a year in this weird Catholic environment where
there were NO GIRLS. At thirteen, I went to Downside, the "Catholic
Eton", just 12 miles away from Bath where you were beaten with a cane
by monks in cassocks for minor infractions such as going to the pub. My
favourite was The Railway Inn where they had a special room for us with
a juke box. When the police were doing their occasional checks on
underage drinking, one of the officers would ring ahead so we had time
to walk across the road and sit in a field until they'd come and gone.
Even there, NO GIRLS. Until I was 18, I barely talked to a girl other
than my sister. It was so strange - half the human race was cut off
from you, to be seen but with no interaction, no communication.
Raging
hormones told you that you had to get it on but there was no one to get
it on with, except other boys, monks or masters. All these options were
chosen by a certain number of boys and this was looked at as pretty
normal. The punishment system reflected the standards of the day. Two
boys were found in bed together. They received a long talking to.
Another boy was seen kissing a local girl. He was immediately expelled.
The word paedophile had none of the power it has today. A
friend of mine, aged 14, had an affair with our English teacher, aged
50. Some boys were jealous. Others simply accepted it. It was looked
upon as an inevitable part of school life.
There was one monk
who would sit in the same place every day after breakfast when all the
550 boys at the school would have to pass him in the Great Hall as they
walked from the dining room to their classes. Each day he would select
a boy and call him over to invite him for coffee and biscuits that
evening. The subject of conversation was well known to everybody. The
killer question that hung in the air until he pounced was, "Tell me, ,
do you masturbate?"
What followed was a long enquiry into the
detailed specifics of when, how and with whom you had performed this
evil act. The same evil act that the monk was obviously doing
throughout the conversation with his hands hidden beneath his cassock.
Downside
was much healthier than my prep school, All Hallows. All the teachers
there were lay, though a Downside monk would come over to say Mass
several times a week. A French teacher had a novel way of marking
people's work. He would have us up one by one and he would run through
the work, his hand on our buttocks with the fingers foraging away
around our testicles. For each howler of a mistake, he would give a
hard pinch on the buttocks. All people worried about was the pinch -
the wandering fingers, slipping inside the short trousers and tickling
your testicles in front of a whole class, were just looked upon as
eccentricity. Several of the others had a real love of painful physical
abuse of 7 to 13 year old boys.
The headmaster was pretty
brutal. He could draw blood with a bamboo cane and once beat a friend
of mine, the son of the then Chairman of HSBC in Hong Kong, every day
for a whole term. He was on report card which meant a stroke for each
bad mark. The Founder and former Headmaster carried on teaching Ancient
Greek into his eighties and had his own unique method of punishment -
with a slipper on the naked bottom while lying across his lap. Even we
found this a little odd for seven year old boys. But no one really
questioned it. I lost my virginity in 1967 when a very large 12 year
old boy thrust his dick in my arse. I was 10 at the time. It hurt like
hell.
Sex and drugs and rock and roll.
And
money, without which the rest is not going to happen. That's the story
of my life. My virginity, the flower of my bottom, may have been taken
early but I did not lose my virginity with a woman until I was 19 years
old. What wasted years those were... sigh.
Still, I've been
making up for it ever since. my first was with me at the University of
Exeter. She was pretty, blond and with a lovely smile. I think she must
have done most of the pulling because, in those days, I was terrible at
reading signals and completely incompetent when it came to making a
move. The sex was unadventurous but scored well on enthusiasm and
longevity. It's rather embarassing to admit but I have no idea of what
her name was. I don't have a memory, I have a BlackBerry.
The
summers of 1976 and 1977 were spent in Paris, living in a
semi-permanent tent with a 1 foot thick foam rubber kingsize mattress
inside. In the beautiful garden of the Chatenay-Malabry youth hostel,
(the only one in France to be owned by the local community and not by
the Youth Hostel Association) we would while away the days, smoking
weed, chillums of hash, lines of white pharmaceutical heroin, cocaine,
and loads of prescription drugs.
Two guys who used to hang
around the hostel kind of adopted me. They loved my voice and the songs
I played, they loved my innocence and enthusiasm for drugs and sex.
They were both called Patrick, which is also my second name, and they
made a good living from breaking into pharmaceutical wholesalers and
selling it all back on the street. They carried around the newspaper
clippings "Armed drug gang caught" and they laughed about it.
These
are the kind of guys who would get on with everybody in prison. They
did their stretch and carried on. So there are these two armed
hoodlums, around 28 years old, who adopt me, a gawky 19 year old Public
Schoolboy from a privileged background who had no experience of street
life but who LOVED his drugs. They wouldn't take my money when I asked
if I could buy some grass, or heroin, or hash. They just gave it to me.
So I started buying off other people and they got quite narked about
it. They were immensely generous, (albeit that everything was the
result of stolen drugs) and they took me to all kinds of cool
underworld spots. The hostel was run by Philip, another former English
Public Schoolboy (he went to Marlborough - we used to play them at
rugger).
The first night I arrived in the hostel, I had been
working for nine months as a bank clerk. My father had made it clear
that if I did a year in a "safe" job like banking, accountancy or
insurance, then he would ensure I lacked for nothing in my three years
at University. He was true to his word, as always.
I did the
bank job (soooooo boring... snooze) until May and then I grabbed my
backpack and guitar and went to live in Paris. My first night there, I
arrived at the Chatenay-Malabry hostel and was welcomed by Philip. As
soon as he saw that I had a guitar, he invited me into his private den.
You could barely see how many people were there because of the pall of
hash and heroin smoke emanating from various bongs, chillums, pipes,
spliffs, off foil and breathed out in clouds. There were a number of
six and twelve string guitars around, as well as some bongos. We made
music till dawn.
When I woke up later that morning, my guitar
had been stolen. Philip very kindly lent me his Epiphone 12 string so I
could busk for a few days to test the water. Would I go down well in
the Metro? I was aware from other people at the hostel that there was a
big differential between top earners and bottom feeders. One German guy
who really had the worst voice I've ever heard - he couldn't hit a
note, forget carrying a tune - would sometimes stop singing and simply
tune and retune his guitar for a couple of hours. His takings went
up...
I spent some time looking for a good pitch. Finally, I
found it. 30 metres from the Metro, beyond the ticket gates for the RER
suburban railway. So the Metro cops, who could be a real pain if they
were in a bad mood, couldn't get you. No jurisdiction. And I hardly
ever saw an RER cop. Business was brisk. $150 in 3 hours, and that was
in 1976 when it was worth a lot. I found I could do even better if I
employed a hatter, in particular a very attractive Swede model who
glowed with a healthy tan and had a smile women could just die for.
Know your market. The biggest givers were middle-aged women. With Sven
there, they couldn't wait to flirt and impress him with their
generosity. Once when I was playing solo, a rather short and fat woman
in her 30's stopped and listened to a few songs and then invited me
back to her place for sex. We christened every piece of furniture in
her flat. Then I left before her husband came home...
I
hitched down to Laredo on the north coast of Spain to see a friend and
I bought a new guitar and hard case in San Sebastian. Then back to
Paris where I spent the hottest summer on record, the Summer of '76,
lazing away the hours playing petanque, smoking hash, and snorting the
pharmaceutical heroin - but only two weeks on the heroin followed by
two weeks off. That's how we avoided getting a habit. The sun blazed
down on the nearly naked, nubile, female bodies soaking up a tan, shiny
from the sun cream and glowing with health. There was a endless supply
of new girls arriving every day at the hostel. Singing definitely
helped you pull. As did the privacy of a large tent, especially one
with a custom cut, exceptionally deep foam block the size of a kingsize
bed. Randy California and Ed Cassidy's Spirit: Spirit of '76 boomed out
of the boombox. Still my favourite album. Imagine being Hendrix's
guitarist when you're 15. No wonder he's the best. It was heaven, we
were young and all was right with the world. There was no AIDS and sex
was bareback. Life at the hostel was one long party. Some of the best
days of my life...
Today is good. My Godson Stef has become a
star urban copywriter and we're going to work together a lot in future
which is going to be so cool. That makes me The Godfather, my favourite
suite of movies.
Just had a lovely email from Fiona, my first
love and wife, 14 years after we last spoke. She's terribly successful
with a huge house in Dorchester-on-Thames. In the late 80s, we used to
go to this very expensive hotel there and rent a motor cruiser on the
river. Ice-packed Champagne and a large mirror for the coke and we
usewd to have such a laugh with Caroline, Henry and the gang. We've
mostly survived. Charlie (Earl of) Craven used to shoot in the rifle
club with me at school, but he didn't make it - overdose, after several
years of depressing drug shock horror revelations in the News of the
World. But most of us have survived, a little the worse for wear but
still heading on...
So now I'm going back again I've got to get to her somehow All the people we used to know, They're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, Some are carpenter's wives Don't how it all got started, Don't know what they do with their lives. But me, I'm still on the road Heading for another joint. We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point Of view. Tangled up in blue
