Advertising increases the revenue of the company whose products are being marketed. Your success or failure as a business is 90% due to your success or failure in terms of brand, brand-awareness and advertising. What you actually make or sell is almost immaterial.

Advertising also brings in revenue for advertisers, public relations consultants, printers, acting extras, designers and market researchers.

In a country like the UK which doesn’t actually make anything anymore a lot of our money is tied up in things like advertising, public relations and market research. If we start to take some of those livelihoods away, what are we left with?

However, I would ask why there has been such a long time between exhibitions!!! Surely it is the responsibility to make items such as The Klencke Atlas available for regular viewing. Even if mounting an exhibition of this book is a major undetaking, it is afterall the British Library!

It’s odd too that the atlas was “made” 120 years before the fabled First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay to settle what is now known as Sydney! It makes this exhibition all the more remarkable!

Well done to the British Library!

A decision by a judge in the Australian Federal Court, the jurisdiction for intellectual property issues in Australia, ruled that the 1980s international hit “Land from Down Under” included as a flute riff the fabled round popular among the local scouting movement, “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree”. The composer of Land from Down Under, a Men at Work band member, admitted in subsequent statements to the press, that the song used a reggae-style version of “Kookaburra” rewritten in the minor key, and opinion in Australia is divided over whether copyright was breached, and whether Larrikin Music has any real claim on royalties from any additional use of the Kookaburra riff.

It has been suggested that Larrikin is really a part of a multinational music consortium rather than merely a local or underdog music copyrighting firm, that played the hand of a small company challenging the might of music industry giant EMI.

It has also been suggested that there are many claims to the original tune of Kookaburra, and that it existed well before its Kookaburra manifestation in traditional cultures as varied as Wales and South Africa, among others.

Another interesting point of the debate is that the Australian woman who claimed local ownership of “Kookaburra” was alive when the Men at Work song was an international hit, yet she never claimed any royalties from the “Land from Down Under” composers. Issues such as the ownership of songs deemed part of a popular culture, such as the tune to “Happy Birthday”, have been used as examples of other popular songs that are deemed public and beyond any individual’s or corporation’s claim for royalties.

I know because I’ve done silly stuff. I’ve got myself into dangerous situations with my swimming exploits and other activities and had to be rescued by people ranging from passers by to the RNLI. That’s why the RNLI are my pet charity: they’re always so polite and they never tell you off for your silliness! I’ve learned over time to be a bit more sensible.

Some people, unfortunately, never learn. The most famous case in recent times is that of Mr. Eric Abbott, the proud owner of a boat called Plus VAT. Without any training in piloting a ship he used to sail around the coast of Britain using a 1997 AA Road Map. He had no navigation equipment on board Plus VAT and regularly had to call the coastguard and the RNLI either for advice or (and this happened at least 11 times) to be rescued. The occasion which finally exasperated those listening to the familiar voice of Mr. Abbott on the emergency radio was when they advised him to avoid some sandbanks and he ignored them and steered right into them!

Funny though this story is he was constantly putting the lives of others – as well as himself – in danger. And then there is the huge financial cost of all these rescues. The authorities discussed the option of forcing him to take some kind of course in navigation (he couldn’t even use a pair of compasses in his out-of-date £6.99 copy of the road map!) before allowing him to go to sea again and charging him the full cost of any rescue attempts should he fail to comply. Suddenly all of his bravado and calls to journalists to “Bring out the champagne!” and “I’m not giving up!” and so on disappeared.

I don’t wish to be a wet blanket but I do believe that people should have a healthy respect for mountains, the sea and the awesome power of Nature in general and if they are to go on potentially dangerous adventures they should do their homework thoroughly first. Or, if it can be proved that they rushed headlong into danger without doing any preliminary checks, I think it’s fair to charge them for the rescue mission. It’d be a good deterrent.

Jonty