Jose's economic epiphany

Jose turned to Tommy as another tired looking Pellegrino put his washing on the line and said

" I had an epiphany about my my will today.

I decided that it should reflect my spending so I've completely changed it.

They were sitting as the sun streamed down in the first bar in Itero de la Vega drenching themselves in Estella.

I really like the Pataka restaurant back home. I probably spend 5% of my money there every month so I have given them 5% in my will and get them to feed someone on me. Do a lucky dip for their regulars!

"Oops," she laughed as the Pellegrino dropped their clean shorts on the dirt path.

I play my golf at prestonfield and I enjoy my lunch with the lob wedge lassies on Tuesday and Friday. I spent 10% of my money there last year so I am leaving them 10% in my will to sponsor a woman who will eat, drink and be merry on me.

I suddenly realised that these were the people who matter to me. When I am gone on I will no longer be going. I have created a standing order from my estate which will pay exactly what I used to spend each month.

I am going to continue to pay my rent to the retirement home. This is 14% of my monthly expenditure and I hope it helps them to continue you to provide the excellent accommodation that I lived in.

Next up is swanys. I probably spend 16% of my monthly expenditure there. It's a great pub full of fantastic people and the odd bullet you have to dodge but nobody ever bothers me and I just sit and read my book enjoying the wine.

"That's half sorted then" laughed Tommy, "next I'm sure you'll help those university and school kids you used to teach. Or is a teacher...."

"Yes, I'm not sure yet. Hopefully by the time we get to Fromista I'll have a plan" she cackled back, enjoying the moment.

Did you meet the French lady from the fashion shop, she was amazing. There was a big climate meeting in Lille and she launched a new brand called CE. It was short for climate emergency. She had the C as a clock face with the time at 25 past one and the E interwoven with a Ziggy Stadust lightning flash. She made a fortune. She was at a board meeting, a year earlier, and the folk around the table were asking what they could do, mostly the marketing guys, to look more green. She said we could stop selling so much product and make the garments last a bit longer, like they used to. They laughed at her. She explained how lowering demand wouldn't be easy but if they stopped marketing and used the resources to make better product that lasted longer, they could re-establish the brand as a lifestyle and lifetime option. Swim upstream with higher margins. She'd spoken in the past with the designers and manufacturing about undestanding each others briefs. They had a weekend away. In that conversation she had got both to imagine that every season we would get the clothes we'd sold back to remodel and re-use. A fascinating stoy. How to still have fashion on a desert island or post apocalypse. I laughed and she agreed. They looked at how garments could be tapered, seams could be let out and in, how to benefit fom the excess material, how to move it and stitching lines that would allow such flexibility while still being operational and stunning on the models. It was a great success, so much so that every year designers got placements in the manufacturing and vice versa. "Sounds right down my street Jose", said Tommy. "What happened to the marketing guys?" "They're still there! She left that boad meeting and set up the brand from scratch and had product on the shelves in under a year. 2 months before the conference in Lille her shops and brand exploded onto the scene. Whether you were a protester on a ship or a kid going to school the logo was everywhere. French TV picked it up from Social Media. She was on the national news and became quite a cult figure. She said to me how strange it felt. She was just following her conviction of doing a little. She'd read about a dairy farmer who was using the heat generated from her cows to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. For her, disaster meant opportunity. You just had to look. It was looking back into that meeting that got her thinking. She knew she couldn't take the boad with her so she set up from scratch. So many people say less is more but so few do it. The dairy farmer has 20% less cows and makes more from tomatoes and cucumbers being so profitable out of season. I mentioned you with your solar air conditioning units and lawnmowers. How you only need lawnmowers when the sun is out and the gass is growing! Versatility in your thinking. She said the best thing about scaling back is most large operations need retrenchment. They grow unwieldly. She had so many manufacturers around the world and designers that poaching a few for this project had been a joy! She loved being able to gift the staff the company. Every employee and customer received shares and over 4 years she had diluted her own 95% down to under 50%. She wasn't naive enough to think it would remain independent but hoped it would at least continue for 10-15 years. Long enough for her to do another 10-15 caminos!

Chrissie Hynde @ Queen's Hall

Chrissie Hynde has style and that voice lends itself affectionately to her dip into the Bob Dylan back catalogue.

She couldn't resist the obvious Ray Davies song and of course Stop your Sobbing brought the house down.

We'd been listening to a laid back Chrissie like she'd come to tea ahead of new year when all of a sudden, bang, back to 1982 and what a sensation.

Chrissie's voice is so distinct that if she sings it, you immediately think it was a Pretenders song, not written a decade before them. It was a further dip back in time for the eloquent chanteuse as she delivered in French a beautiful song, I'm guessing Nat King Cole, I must look it up.

It does make me chuckle when the songs are 50 or 60 years old, does 10 years really matter.

Not to us we were on our 30th anniversary waltz and mrsjacmac was leading the dancing in our pew!

The venue was fantastic, probably less than 500 people in a socially distanced very safe Queen's Hall and how good it was to be met at the door, ushered to our seats or the bar. How short were the queues, how civilised the service and how clean the toilets were. Well done to you all.

If there is a model to show how well you can do things, I mused, it's right here. There's been a lot of stuff written about covid decimating the hospitality, venue and performance industry so I will only say it was brilliant to see all the performers, staff and punters moving and grooving as we slide effortlessly back into first gear. 

First on stage were Kami and James, The Rails, combining to get us in the mood before a civilised intermission, retreat to the bar, and the effortless trip to the toilet for the prostate generation I belong to!

Thank you Chrissie

Thank you Queen's Hall

Roll on del Amitri!

Jose says Tommy turns cars the trilogy explained as Tommy gets another wee pat on the heid...."do you boys no get it yet......"

Jose turns Tommy's magical dream into a reality where even Margaret comes out of the 80's smelling of rosies.

Its the compelling tale of a little boy who always did well told by the woman who knew him best. The wonderful way Josephine takes Tommy and turns his car turning business into the engineer supremo who transforms the industrial landscape is phenomenal. 

All of the time patting the wee boy on the head and telling him well done. Jose's control of Tommy with soft brush strokes let's him roam on his long leash and still be called in for his dinner.

In the 1960's Tommy gets a job turning cars in people's driveways on the Barnton Road in Edinburgh and within 3 years he's got a van and a platoon of students working for him throughout the city, reversing cars onto main roads at 4am and reversing them back into the driveway. Its £5 a week, at its peak Tommy is turning 30,000 cars.

He designs a plate for turning them based on a skateboard prototype and with an engineering pal James from the inch in South Edinburgh, they manufacture the 'H', which quickly becomes the "ITCH" and is sold throughout the UK. A tiny turn table that can sit on your driveway and once the car drives aboard it can rotate 180 degrees. James' load bearing skills ensured that when they demoed it using a tank and Tommy's 5 year old daughter Linda, it was the star of the 1974 UK car show.

In 1975 they had scratched that itch, sold 800,000 of the H in the UK and commenced sales abroad. James and Tommy spent the rest of the year counting their money and opening up plants around the country recycling several steel and car plants that had been closing. By 1978 they had sold over 100 million worldwide, manufacturing them all in the UK. They would manufacture both wind and wave turbines, solar panels, greenhouses, lithium and cadmium batteries latterly.

Tommy was inspired by his work force. During the early days his proudest achievement included buying all his students bikes and then giving them the company vans which many used to cart gear to gigs during the early punk days which led him into the music business but that's another story.

When Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979, Tommy was invited into the inner circle and was asked to help out in the heavy industries coal and steel. He immediately went to the unions and sought their counsel. The mines had various lifespans some had 5-10 years of workable coal deposits and some had 50 years but Tommy wanted to talk about the communities and longevity. What happened when a mine closed and what could we do now to mitigate it. They hatched a plan that seemed simple. There were a number of studies suggesting that deep mines produced tremendous heat and so capitalising on that heat they approached a pal of Jimmy's, Sheila, who had been working on heat exchangers. The art of moving heat from underground to the house. Sheila identified a row of miners cottages and fed them all with hot water and heat from the mine underneath using her dark art of free heat exchangers. Within 6 months the prototype had been rolled out to three mining villages in Midlothian and each was given an Olympic outdoor pool with the water heated via the heat exchangers. 

There followed the next challenge, a city. Edinburgh was surrounded by coal fields and plenty underneath. By 1983 hot water and heating was being provided free of charge and Thatcher and the Tories received a landslide in the election. By 1987 the whole of the UK had benefitted and another landslide saw Margaret become the longest serving prime minister of the century. Her industrial policy had transformed the UK's heavy industries without a single job loss.

Tommy turned his attention to his other businesses during the 90's, led by his 3 daughters who had started them. They were all different but uniquely community based. From greenhouses, green gyms, raves in his factories and a major record label Tommy watched a the girls diversified from farming to the leisure sector. Tommy had seen leisure as key as early as 1981 when he moved all his staff to a 21 hour week at rates commensurate with the old 40 hour week. 

Edinburgh came calling again and he designed the spoke and wheel system for electric vehicles we see today. The tram model had been suggested but Tommy identified locations for park and ride and you could hire an electric scooter or car for minimal cost. All charging stations had solar and wind turbines providing the power to the latest battery technology. Electric power was now free and nobody died in the mines. The massive cycleways and bus routes constructed had used the tram template route but provided free electric bikes, cars and buses instead. The routes were seamless in allowing all forms of traffic to flow.

In 2000 he'd been invited along to parliament to discuss the Olympic bid. By this stage Tommy's free parks, pools and gyms for under 16's had caught fire. Many Olympians had started out in a TC inspired pool or gym. During the meeting there was a leak and rain poured onto the parliamentary table. Tommy leaned back and laughed. You've got your legacy right there. He had known for years the Houses of Parliament were not fit for purpose and with the 2012 Olympics coming to London there was the perfect opportunity to construct something that would become the Grandmother of all Parliaments. The Olympic Stadium and village would provide, accomodation, security, media, access and infrastructure for the 21st  not the 18th century. The politicians had a lot of trouble at first thinking 'shiny new' might not work but Tommy won the day and the  HP museum was born at Westminster. Meantime the 50,000 fans in the new debating chamber could see and hear their politicians. It was like a throw back to Athens said Tommy when asked to comment on the opening of parliament in 2013.