Branded Male

Ain't no Casanova

After reading Ian Kelly's excellent biography of Beau Brummell, the original dandy, I could hardly wait to get hold of his exploration of the life of Casanova. The hardback arrived a couple of weeks ago, sumptuously bound and rich with the promise of 18th century intrigue.

I'd known for some time that Casanova was far more than the serial seducer of legend. He was also a former priest, a writer, an actor, a gambler, a gourmand, a con-artist, an adviser to Mozart (he's said to have inspired Don Juan), a Freemason and a spy. He rose from a Venetian hovel to become a globetrotting aristocrat. With all these ingredients, his life story couldn't fail to be a winner.

Except that Kelly's book disappoints on several counts. While the biography saves us from having to read Casanova's own account of his life, which is several volumes long, it devotes far more pages to his sexual escapades than to other aspects of his personality.

We're told that he was a spy, but we find little detail about this activity, other than that he undertook a mission to Dunkirk to "report on the French fleet" for the Venetians, he was "perhaps involved in covert espionage for the French" during the Seven Years' War and that he tried to sell the secrets of English dyeing technology to both the Venetians and the French.

All this is covered in a few lines, hinting that there are other books about Casanova to be written - or perhaps speculative movie scripts.

Similarly, the author is curiously dismissive about Casanova's interest in the shadowy world of the Cabbala, suggesting that the Venetian was little more than a dilettante in this field. He also tempts us with the revelation that Casanova was a superlative food writer, while providing too few examples of this talent.

To add to these small annoyances, the book is riddled with typing errors and awkward phrases. It's as if Kelly's publisher put pressure on him to dash it off quickly, but didn't spend enough time checking the proofs.

Having said all that, the book does deliver a picaresque journey through 18th century Europe. Casanova is always on the move, and it's a pleasure to travel with him on foot, by sea, or in rickety long-distance coaches. His women are sublime and his skirmishes between the sheets never fail to raise an eyebrow. The modern world tends to think it invented sexual freedom, but Casanova would probably find our morals claustrophobic.

That, of course, is the final problem with the book. At the end of the day, Casanova is not a very likeable figure. He no doubt had a rakish charm, but it's difficult to identify with somebody who unknowingly sleeps with his teenage daughter (he had abandoned her mother long before the birth) and then, having realised his mistake, does it again. He is slippery, vain, lecherous and egotistical - far more villain than hero.

But Casanova's failings are not the author's. This is an entertaining attempt to flesh out a myth.

What's your Rosebud?

Was your life changed by a specific object or incident? The question was inspired by Pierre Assouline's book Rosebud, which I picked it up at an airport recently and thoroughly enjoyed.

Film fans will know that the title is drawn from Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane. Ruthless media mogul Charles Foster Kane is haunted by the memory of his childhood sledge, the glossy red Rosebud, which symbolises his lost innocence. Assouline wanted to find out if some of his friends and interviewees had a Rosebud in their lives. They range from the photographer Henri Cartier Bresson's treasured shooting stick - which converts into a chair when he's gazing at paintings in the Louvre - to Rudyard Kipling's Rolls Royce, The Duchess.

(I'm told that the word "rosebud" also has another, more erotic connotation, but this is not that kind of blog.)

My own Rosebud is a combination of two objects. As a young boy, I was obsessed by the roll-top desk that sat in my late grandfather's office. Even though he had died a couple of years previously, the desk remained on guard as if he was expected to return at any moment. Inside the desk was an ancient portable typewriter. On rainy Sunday afternoons, my grandmother would let me thread a sheet of paper into the machine and peck a few hesitant sentences. By the age of 12, I was a pretty confident two-finger typist (and I still type that way today).

The typewriter became fused in my mind with the back cover of a book by the writer Wilbur Smith. He wove rollicking tales of heroism set in Africa. The black and white photo showed Smith sitting at his typewriter in his study. He was wearing a safari jacket, and there was quite possibly the head of a stuffed animal on the wall behind him. This was the writer as traveller and adventurer. The picture impressed me more than any of Smith's novels.

I wrote constantly throughout my teens: anguished short stories, abandoned novels, articles for the school magazine. At the age of 19, instead of going to university, I got a job as a trainee reporter on my local newspaper. And I've been making a living with words ever since.

Can a desk, a typewriter and a second-hand paperback inspire an entire career? I'm inclined to think so.

What's your Rosebud?

Branded Male: the book

Well, folks, the book that inspired this blog will shortly be hitting the shops. Branded Male: Marketing to Men is published by Kogan Page and is yours for a song, should you decide to help support the Tungate household. Otherwise, your local library may decide to stock a copy.

One of the most gratifying things about writing a book is that it generates a slew of articles. These can be in review form (scary, because reviewers feel almost honour-bound to slate you) or in the more controllable form of articles written by the author, based on the book. Into that category fits the piece that appeared this week in Marketing magazine (UK). Enjoy it here.

And if after reading it you decide that you absolutely can't live without the book, click here to order a copy.

Keeping up with Jones' rules

Like any healthy person, I've always hated rules. School had far too many of them, and I avoided university partly because I suspected that it would mean even more of them. Of course, the newspaper where I ended up working had plenty of rules of its own: most of them unwritten, which made life even more tricky.

Male fashion is hamstrung by rules, too. Men's magazines persist in telling us what colour belt we should wear with our shoes, what constitutes a shocking sock, how high we should hitch our trousers, and the correct way of buttoning a suit. This kind of thing brings me out in a rash.

Why, then, did I buy a book called Mr Jones' Rules for the Modern Man? (It's written by Dylan Jones, who is, naturally, the editor of British GQ.) Partly, I think, because what repels  me also fascinates me. I can't help wanting to know what the rules are, and whether I'm unknowingly breaking them. This time, however, I was pleasantly surprised. In the chapter about Style & Fashion, Mr Jones lays down a few sartorial regulations that sound fit to be busted - "no brogues after dark" being one of them - but by and large his rules are practical and easy to follow. In fact, they are not "rules" at all, but words of advice. (Perhaps "Advice for the Modern Man" didn't sound manly enough?)

For instance, I was amused to read that in hotels built before 1890, when the elevator was invented, it's best to ask for a room on the ground floor. These are invariably the plushest, because the wealthy did not wish to climb stairs. And it's probably true that by carrying an empty glass around at a party, you can look as though you fit in while remaining sober. Plus, Mr Jones' guide to deciphering the financial pages of newspapers is genuinely useful.

The drawback of such a book - particularly for the author - is that Mr Jones is inevitably required to give you the impression that he knows everything about everything. This is clearly impossible, so many of his rules are merely personal guidelines. By following his advice to the letter, you would not become the consummate modern man, but simply a pale imitation of Mr Jones himself.

I see absolutely no reason to follow his list of tunes to play at a dinner party, for example (Tony Hatch? Enigma? Give us a break!) And did we really need to know that when he is staying overnight at a private home, and is forced to use the toilet at an unsociable hour, he limits the noise by sitting down to pee?

I've met the dapper Mr Jones a couple of times in person. But after reading that passage, I don't think I'll ever look at him in the same light again. Here's an extra rule: never give too much away.

One lump or two?

A witty line from the book Le Portrait, Pierre Assouline's exceptional novel about the Rothschild banking dynasty:  "A true gentleman is a man who uses sugar tongs even when he is alone."

Win a copy of my book

What is thick, heavy, and provides immense satisfaction? Yes, it's the hardback edition of your book, new and glossy, delivered to your door in a cardboard box with ten or more copies nestling in bubble wrap.
The first copies of my new book, ADLAND: A Global History of Advertising, arrived here yesterday morning. I'm lucky enough to have had three books published, but I still can't get over the unreality of seeing my name on a book cover. For somebody who started writing as a child, dreamed about being a journalist through adolescence and has been working in that trade for 20 years, it's a sort of affirmation. I keep wanting to rub by eyes with my knuckles, in case it's an illusion. Of course, after the initial buzz comes the anxiety. Will it sell as well as the last one? What will the critics say? Does anybody actually care? (Truthfully, though, these concerns are blotted out by the overwhelming thought: "Shit, I've written a book! Look everyone, I've written a bloody book!!")
Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to let you have your say. Want to win a copy of ADLAND? Just name your favourite ad of all time, with a couple of sentences explaining your choice. Don't forget to include your address. The wittiest, strangest or most unexpected entry will win a copy of the book.  Signed by the author, natch. You have until the end of September.