Forget the eggs
Alex James leads a Slow Life
Fair trade is one of the most potent marketing catchphrases in circulation. The supermarkets are smoking it, but not inhaling. They would probably get cancer if they did. The idea of asking big businesses to play fair is, on reflection, like asking for armies not to be violent. Fair trade is still in its early stages as a concept, and the only thing you really get for your money at the moment, most of the time, is the dream, which is not really fair on the customer. I support the dream, it is a dream that will, ultimately, triumph, but the reality is disappointing.
The Fairtrade decorated eggs illustrated the nub of the situation. There were these eggs: hand-painted eggs from somewhere or other. They were amazing to look at. Painting on a curved surface is like talking while holding your breath, a remarkable achievement. Brilliant, but the wrong kind of brilliant. Who wants a decorated egg? Who wants a decorated egg? Who? Who in Witney wants to buy a decorated egg from the town hall when Woolworth’s has got chocolate ones?
Fried egg. Yep. Pickled egg. Yummy. Easter egg. Could definitely have worked. Fabergé egg. Obviously. I’d love one. Decorated egg. What? A lot of people had spent a lot of time and effort on those eggs, but I think to buy one would be like giving money to a tramp. It’s sending the wrong message to these traders. It’s not trade. It’s charity. You can’t get decorated eggs in Tesco, simply because nobody wants to buy them. Can someone not tell these people, wherever they are, to stop wasting time fiddling about painting eggs and to consider other ways of presenting them? There are definitely opportunities for the right kind of egg, but these painted eggs, they’re not going to work. Actually, forget the eggs. Send us the chickens, we’ve run right out of them.
I think people in developing countries deserve access to world markets, which is why I went along, but fooling around painting eggs isn’t very realistic in the 21st century. In order to prosper, it is necessary to understand marketing, and that’s what the little guy needs to do, in this country as well as in less prosperous ones. As soon as you’ve got something good to sell, we’ll bite your arm off.
I had a wonderful morning. I was presented with a huge bunch of roses for Mrs Neate James. What lovely people they all were. I’m on board.
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Roger Cooper
March 19th, 2008 6:24pmI write this from Bohemia, having recently driven through Switzerland and Germany from Spain. In each of these four countries I noted a huge demand for painted Easter eggs. The Russians loved them in the old days, and probably do so once again. Jacquie, the brilliant and qunitessentially English greetings card designer, has a new one just out, both stylish and amusing. So it seems to me that it's just poor old Alex James that lacks any appreciation of this ancient art-form. Chocolate eggs from Woolworth's? They wouldn't even pass the EU chocolate test, and rightly so.
Gwen Porter
March 20th, 2008 11:05pmWhere does Alex James think the art of Fabergé eggs come from? Is the the lack of a hefty price-tag the reason for his lack of respect for the centuries-old art form? No, it cannot be that, because he thinks people should judge the value of their lives by what Tesco sells…
Timothy Smith
March 21st, 2008 12:18pmWho is Alex James to judge what is good taste. Painted eggs as an art form has a long tradition in Eastern Europe, and there are obviously people who are prepared to pay good money for them. To describe this as charity is both an insult to the tradition and to the practitioners of egg painting. Thank goodness there are things that we can buy that we can't get from Tescos. Save me from that world, please.