No More Ferrero Rocher

I think I've been gone from the world of diplomacy long enough now to be able to make some comments about it, without upsetting anyone still inside it. 

What I mainly want to say is this: diplomats are not inherently glamorous. What is often forgotten is that diplomats are basically civil servants, albeit civil servants with expense accounts. They do throw parties paid for by the taxpayers of their countries. They are also lucky enough to have all sorts of things in their private lives paid for by the taxpayers of their countries. But they are still just civil servants. Sadly though, very often the parties and the perks and the national days and the trays of champagne do go to their heads. 

A love of luxury is one of the signs that this may be happening. By luxury, I don't mean a love of having time and space in abundance, which is my idea of luxury. I mean a love of expensive restaurants and clothes and handbags, a love of things that, although not necessarily valuable, cost an enormous amount. This is the new kind of luxury, where price and value have been divorced. 

Luxury has,  of course, always been costly, but until quite recently the cost arose from the fact that what was being paid for was of rare and exceptional quality. For instance, I should imagine that Grinling Gibbons's -

carvings were expensive, but they were also breathtakingly beautiful (and, if you haven't seen the programme in the video above, please stop reading now, and watch it instead; it is a wonderful thing, made by the BBC, when it still made things properly.*) 

Once upon a time, the things that were called luxuries were given that designation because they were extraordinary examples of artistry and skill. Their price resulted from their quality; it was not what made them luxurious. Luxuries were recognisably special - and it was because of their specialness that they were expensive.

Somehow or other, that's all now changed. Too many of us - certainly many I met in the diplomatic world, loaded with the newfound wealth of 'allowances' - have been tricked into believing that things that are of only adequate quality can be luxuries, provided they come from a very famous company and cost a great deal.

Branding is the key to success in this field of endeavour. Cattle are branded because they look so alike that their owners need to tell which ones are theirs and the same is now true of luxuries. People pay huge sums of money for items that are not unique, that are in fact made in multiples in factories. These items can only be recognised as luxurious by the fact that they bear a logo from a corporation that has somehow managed to persuade consumers that their product has, because it comes from them and costs a fortune, some indefinable magical aspect that makes it special, (even though without the manufacturer's mark it would be impossible to spot its value). Somehow the price itself has become the sought-after quality.

This strange fact was understood too late by British whisky makers selling their product to Japan. On noticing that their sales were growing among Japanese customers, the British manufacturers decided to try to persuade the Japanese government to remove the high tariffs that made their product so expensive for Japanese consumers. They succeeded, the tariffs were removed and the absurdly high price of British whisky in Japan dropped to really quite affordable. Sales fell to almost zero. The whisky hadn't changed in any way. It tasted exactly the same as it had always done. It looked the same too. It was in every respect the same whisky that people had been buying increasing eagerly, but reducing its cost had removed the perception people had that it was a luxury. It turned out that it was only this one aspect that customers really liked.

How did this begin? Is it because we have run out of creativity? Are there no modern equivalents of Grinling Gibbons, no truly exquisite luxuries being made any more? Or is it some change in our psychology that makes us less interested in beauty and more interested in being admired for being able to pay huge sums? These are the things I wondered when I used to go to the restaurants sought out by luxury loving diplomats - charmless places with interiors so dull that they reminded me of airports, places where the staff fawned without sincerity, responding to requests for advice with recommendations of wines that had price tags no-one who genuinely cared about you would even think of suggesting,  places where your food was 'styled', which means that it was as likely to arrive in a bowl as on a flat plate surface, even when it was the kind of thing that needed to be cut up rather than spooned out *. 

I still occasionally encounter people who like such places and I still don't get their appeal. The meals are rarely very memorable - and even more rarely served with any generosity* - so where is the pleasure? Does it rest in being able to say that you went there, imagining that people will admire you for having enough money to pay the resulting huge bills?

Surely not. Who admires people merely for being extravagant? When and why did that become a thing? If I were to splash out lots of money, I would want to be rewarding real skill or talent, and I would expect to receive something astonishing and recognisably unique in return. I'd be like Paul Gallico's Mrs Harris when she goes to Paris in pursuit of the possession of one thing that is extraordinary, one thing in her life that no one else will ever have in duplicate. 

I think this is the aspect of diplomatic life I miss least (inasmuch as I miss any of it, which, to be honest, I don't): being surrounded by nice people who have fallen for false luxury, people who have been duped into believing factory-made goods - bought from corporations in which what craftsmanship exists has all been poured into the creation of the brand - are worth their price tag. There is a pathos in observing people spend their money on things that they wrongly believe are special, unable to see that they are being cunningly conned. There is a poignance in realising that the concept of 'special', of 'luxury' has been corporatised, like almost everything else.

But of course that pathos is not limited to delusional diplomats. And the aspects of diplomatic life that I don't miss are not limited to the buying habits of others in that world. It is hard to believe for anyone struggling without them, but something else I am thrilled by is being liberated from having household staff - servants, if you will. I don't think I can even begin to explain that without coming across as supremely ungrateful. Another time, maybe. 

------------------------

*Surely there is an irony, or a poignance at the very least, in the fact that the ability to make beautiful and skilful programmes about people who made things beautifully and skilfully has since been lost.

* Is this to give customers a sense of challenge, or just to provide amusement for the staff? 

* Cue Woody Allen's aunts at a restaurant: Aunt A: The food here is so dreadful; Aunt B: Yes, and the servings are so small.