What I love about this rose from Canorgue is that it has a full-mouthed body as well as finesse. Too much rose is thin sugared water but this is a real wine that has survived intact for not being drunk for two years. Indeed, this may have loosened the wine a little and the pinkness seems to shimmer with an edge of gold in the glass.

We bought it last year at the Chateau on a rainy November’s day when any romance that Provence has was lost in the mist. La Canorgue had its fame increased by appearing in ‘A Good Year’ that dreadful film adaptation of Peter Mayle’s book of the same name. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe I remember watching ten minutes of it and then turning off the TV. So my slurred advice is for La Canorgue to stick to the wine and not its role as a film location to boost its fame. (But perhaps this is something out of their control.)

The other wines are rightly highly regarded; the vineyard is organic and the wine-making is done with the minimum of artificial intervention. And somehow you can taste that in the wine.

I’ve just been enjoying a hard cheddar-like cheese they make with a blue vein that adds a sliver of piquancy to the taste. Recently, their Single Gloucester won a clutch of awards including Supreme Champion at the Three Counties Show – though I find Single Gloucester as a type a little on the bland side. I prefer their cheddar range.

Godsells of course can be found at Stroud Farmers Market, where it has had to travel some 4 miles. From where we live, the distance is shorter still as the cheese is made in Leonard Stanley. My Rudders History of Gloucester highlights that King Edward II granted a charter for a market to be held; but people have inhabited here since the middle Stone Age. The woods above would have provided fuel and a place where pigs could have grazed; and the river Fome would have provided the water for early agriculture.

This beautifully ugly goats cheese is as mild as its surface suggests astringancy and pugnancy. Slice it as thinly as possible and eat with cherries.

Prezzo al Kg: 19.10 Euro

So it’s worth reminding ourselves what CDP stood for, and I quote from the book, ‘Inside Collett DickensonPearce’ – the official autobiography of the agency:

‘John Pierce felt there was a crying need for an agency that could produce unusually effective advertising, which would produce results for clients who did not have a fortune to spend. He reckoned that the bulk of advertising, while often based on sound strategy was terminally dull, and thereby not as effective as it could be. John thought there was an opportunity for advertising that was inspirational, entertaining and most of all noticeable.’

It is worth remembering those words to heart but adding one other: relevant. In fact most of CDP’s output was relevant but once in a while it would be inspirational, entertaining and noticeable…but irrelevant. Then it would fail. A case in point. Back in 1985, Unilever launched in test market a new detergent and, with a lot of fanfare, handed the advertising to CDP. They launched with a 60 sec TV commercial featuring fairies and falling petals. Beautiful to look at. Completely different to any advertising in the laundry category but irrelevant to Mum’s facing the daily grind of laundry. (And this also reminds me why TBWA’s Disruption theory is not a strategy I would much follow.)

The detergent failed. It didn’t progress beyond its test market.

So my plea:  just remember relevance.

One star starts at 50% and 5 stars means 90% or more – and these are indicated on the lantern.

In the UK, Europe or US it might be possible to add an organic rating as well.

Japan is the number 1 market for luxury goods (though it won’t be too long before China takes this position) and it is still building temples where shoppers can worship the god that is LVMH, Chloe, Harry Winston’s and the innumerable niche brands that seem only to be found here.

Tokyo Midtown is the latest Panthenon and the sheer beauty and elegance of the shopping experience is unlikely to be surpassed anywhere, anytime. Shoppers cannnot fail to be inspired by what they see; they are seduced by the spectacle, the service and the quality of the experience.

If anyone ever wants to see how all the hot buttons of successful retailing can be brought to life and perfectly executed they must visit Tokyo.

The easy stuff is just that: buying a few organic vegetables or the odd energy-efficient bulb isn’t that taxing but a 2007 Chain Store Age survey of US consumers, found that only 25 percent claim to have bought any green product other than organic foods or that light bulb. Work done in the UK with a major retailer showed even more confusion: those who claimed to be never green were actually buying some green products whilst a goodly % of claimed rabid organics actually spent more on non-organic produce. (Hence, never believe claimed behaviour.)

e-retailing is good for the climate. It is better that it is one lorry/truck distributing produce rather than 100s of cars. Ultimately, once volumes reach a certain critical mass, groceries can be stored in a highly energy-efficient warehouse and not taken from in-store; all sorts of ancilliary costs can be eliminated. Stores are not that green. Think refrigeration, chilling, the amount of petro-plastics being used, lighting and so on. Much of it having to operate 24/7/365.

But how green is blogging?

My take on this is that most of the survey participants must be avid watchers of Top Gear as this programme is obsessive about promoting the merits of Aston Martin and Harley Davidson. Frankly, any panel that comes up with Harley Davidson and Aston Martin as the top 2 coolest brands in the UK needs some time in [Steve McQueen's] cooler themselves.

So excluding the ‘toys for boys’ category, what are the top 10 coolest brands or stuff in the UK? Which would definitely get the ‘wow’ response from your next door neighbours? (If they noticed because the epitome of cool is, of course, understatement.)

-  any work by Tracey Emin

-  organic vegetable-patch

- talking of neighbours, having Charles Saatchi as one

- membership to the South Bank Centre…a bar with a view to die for, an interior to match and few if any members who watch Top Gear..

- camera obscura

- Blue Peter badge

- a bespoke tree house

- Toyota Landcruiser – for the seriously country

- a polo horse to provide manure for the organic veggie patch

- a beech wood where to off-set carbon footprints and cultivate truffles. Eco-decadence is the term.

Alongside religion came art. And the religion of art is driven by power and money – always has been because art patronage has been inextricably bound up with the power of the Church – that in turn has bestowed power on its exclusive patrons. For perhaps one moment in the 20th century, as noted by the great German cultural critic Walter Benjamin in the 1930s, with the advent of art’s reproducibility in books, in postcards [and now digitally] the experience of art could be freed from place and ritual and instead brought under the gaze and control of a mass audience, leading to a shattering of its aura of distance and untouchability. ‘For the first time in world history,’ Benjamin wrote, ‘mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.’

So sad that he has been proved wrong. Just as the Medici’s absolved their sins by commissioning art, the ritual of art, the absolving of capitalistic sins, is now practised not in places of worship but in the commercial gallery, the media and the auction room.

I’ll stick my hand up straight-away and say that I didn’t like Gorilla: a great – nay inspired – execution but not a great ad. Why? Because it was clear it had no strategic basis, little chance of being campaignable nor was it riven with a fundamental, ownable consumer insight. This was only reinforced when I heard Fallon (CDM’s ad agency) - at the UK Media 360 conference – say that Cadbury’s Dairy Milk’s equity can be summed up as joy. Now may be they have just tapped into a hitherto hidden consumer insight but personally I have never ever heard any consumer talk about the joy of eating chocolate. There are much deeper and richer associations.

At the same conference, a chart was put up that showed what happened to sales. When the ad went on air there was a sharp hike upwards. Great. When the ad was taken off air, sales seemed to return to their previous level. In other words, there was an immediate ad response but no sign of any longer-term affect. The advertising wasn’t reinforcing saliency; it was pulling in new users but they didn’t stay.

This was reflected in more detailed figures that I saw (albeit from a single grocery retailer). Yes, sales went up immediately the ad aired but they declined to their previous level just as quickly after the ad was taken off. Moreover, there were previous and similar spikes but these were associated with the old advertising and not Gorrilla. It seemed that Gorrilla was no more effective than the previous advertising. In fact, as the earlier spikes were associated with print advertising, it might be argued that the TV was less efficient.

So I wasn’t surprised when I read in Marketing (24th September 2008) that CDM ‘has lost market share to arch-rival Galaxy.’

And as for the Gorilla follow-up, as Thumper says in Bambi, ‘If you can’t say something nice… don’t say nothing at all.’