Have you Herd?
If you haven’t already done so, buy a copy of Mark Earl’s Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour By Harnessing Our True Nature
It sounds sinister, but there’s not much harnessing in it and lots of exciting ideas about what it is to be human. Mark’s thesis is that we’re basically group animals, like chimps, and that ideas and fashions spread not as a direct result of some ad campaign, but because of our instinctive desire to mimic each other.
This is tremendously cheering. It means all those threatening, cajoling ads — inside mags, blocking the letterbox, thrust at you in the street — will come to nothing. However urgent the blurb, it’s not going to sway anyone at all. Hooray!
But then, if Mark’s right, reading this, isn’t going to persuade you to buy his book either. Tant pis.
Start wearing purple! Gogol Bordello are playing at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 8th December and I thoroughly recommend you get an earful of their crazy Ukrainian gypsy madness. Lead singer, Eugene Hutz, is a straight cross between Borat and Joe Strummer in his punk prime. Hearing is believing.
Here, this’ll cheer you up:
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