No l,ogo

I have just finished reading the book "No Logo" by Naomi Klein. This book explained "the brand idea" very well. I now understand why the Beckhams wanted to become a global brand. This is the triumph of marketing over manafacturing. I am not sure that I needed to understand what the Beckham thing was about, but now things are cleraer now. The trouble with this type of book is that it can be used for both good and evil. A younger version of myself would be appalled by the brand idea. I am still depressed by the whol.e thing. But the evil part of me thinks "umm, maybe I can use this too". Perhaps a physics collaboration could be viewed as a "brand". The senior people could just market the results. The computing and research could be outsourced to other counteries and people on temporary contracts. On reflection, some senior people already treat a collaboratiion as a brand, so as usually my good (but evil) idea has been scooped already. During my holiday I read William Gibson's book called "pattern recognition". This is now my favourite Gibson book. It has a heroine who is allergic to brands. On amaazon, it would make a natural partner to "No logo". (Poor old Naomi, I can see start to write the email now: dear craig, I think there are a couple of things you didn't understand about my book, let us start on page 1..) I think I have some of the same allergies. Certainly, I my evild black heart starts to beat to the tune of physical horror, when I get close to a Laura Ashly shop. I believe the closest shop is in Chester -- this is just about tolerable. Anyway the book is all about modern marketing techniques. They even have people who job it is to tell strangers about new products, such as a recent film, in bars or cafes. I do this for free. What a rip off.