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Before Christmas, a striking rug was featured in ES Magazine: "Keep Calm and Carry On", it read. Something about its clean typography and modest yet powerful message struck a chord. Charles Gladstone, great-great grandson of the prime minister, of Pedlars on Talbot Road, had based his now-bestselling design on a propaganda poster commissioned by the Ministry of Information in 1939, just as war with Germany became inevitable.
The poster had never been issued, and the only remaining one was unearthed in a dusty corner of a second-hand bookshop in Northumberland 60 years later, and since then has become a retro classic. It's even got its own website, www.keepcalmandcarryon.com, where you can buy hoodies, T-shirts, cufflinks, posters - City boys, chief executives and schoolchildren can all calm down. It recently starred on the cover of a hedge-funders' magazine. It's been twisted to display the Keynesian ethos of spending one's way out of trouble, "Keep Calm and Carry On Shopping".
As the Government knew then, panic never helps in a crisis. Anticipation of a recession can almost be worse than the downturn itself, as strange, illogical behaviour kicks in and fear triumphs over reason. ES's fashion editor came back from LA last week at fever pitch; normal life in California had ground to a halt. "The goody bags at the Golden Globes were a disaster," he announced: "A CD and some sunglasses, instead of a diamond-encrusted mobile phone. And half the pre-awards dinners had been cancelled."
To make matters worse, an annual shindig that once saw Prince Andrew photographed next to a topless soubrette - Andy and Patti Wong's Chinese New Year party, where the nearly famous enjoy an annual backslap - has been cancelled. Even children are being caught up in the joyless atmosphere. The mother of one girl in my daughter's class solemnly requested no presents at her birthday party but rather a £5 donation to a goat in Africa "in light of the current economic crisis".
Good news for the goat, bad news for the kid. The Ministry of Information was really on to something with that poster, and the time has come for Boris to start distributing it to boost Londoners as they face the unknown. Because life will be intolerable for all of us if even the Wongs cannot Keep Calm and Carry On partying.
* Catherine Ostler is editor of ES Magazine.
Reader views (1)
"Keep calm and carry on" is motto that works, whatever your situation; it has resonance for those struggling at work, as well as for someone dealing with a minor event at home (such as a child dropping a glass of Ribena on the sofa). It reminds those prone to self-obsession and hysteria - myself included - that worrying is usually unproductive.
- Jane, London, 21/01/2009 13:54
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