I have noticed Britons in France or Italy cringe with embarrassment, and mutter apologies to waiters when ordering a cappuccino after dinner — or at any time after noon. ‘Look, you needn’t apologise,’ I say. ‘The reason foreigners drink their coffee black isn’t because they’re sophisticated: it’s because their milk tastes like crap.’
It has always surprised me that two countries which take great pride in food can produce such dismal milk. One theory is that many Mediterranean people have not evolved the ability to digest milk after childhood. So Brits should not feel ashamed at any lack of savoir-faire; if anything, our hosts should feel uncomfortable about their failure to make any genetic headway over the past 20,000 years.
In a country which can’t digest it, there’s no point in producing good milk. And even in a globalised world, it helps to have a home market receptive to what you make. One of the great advantages enjoyed by American technology companies is not only the size of their home market but also its appetite for change. What could be better than a few hundred million people all born (or indoctrinated) with the dream (or delusion) that every aspect of life is capable of continual incremental improvement?
The only problem this causes is a kind of insane restlessness. A new iPhone seems to appear annually. The Kindle is forever taking new forms. A new iPad is due any month now. And each one will make you look at your old one (old, in this case, meaning a year or more) as if it is somehow past its best. Soon you wonder whether you can fob it off on your wife as a birthday present and go and buy the new one — even though it is superior in only trivial ways.
One solution is to buy premium British or Nordic technology. Why? Because we are rubbish at replacement cycles. And because a few British and Nordic designers have mastered that rare skill where desirability increases with age.
For a long time I never quite understood the appeal of the Aga; it seemed overkill, like building a power station in your kitchen. Then I realised why all cleverer rich people buy them. Twenty years after you have bought or inherited one, you will never find yourself looking across your kitchen and thinking, ‘Jeez, that Aga is showing its age. I really need a new one.’ Miraculously it somehow looks better than it did the day it arrived. The same goes for the Dualit toaster, the Roberts radio (now available, though you wouldn’t know it to look at them, in DAB and wi-Fi versions), Bang & Olufsen TVs and the gorgeous pieces of audio equipment made by Bowers & Wilkins (whose Zeppelin iPod dock will look as good in 2035 when you plug in your iPhone 23S as it does now).
The Mini and Range Rover both have a little of this as well. Arriving in an eight-year-old Range Rover is better than pitching up in a new one. It’s the same bizarre positive-ageing patina found on expensive men’s shoes and the better kind of luggage.
The Americans tell the joke ‘How many Brits does it take to change a light bulb?’ ‘None — we’re perfectly happy with the old one.’ And what’s wrong with that?
Strangely enough, if you want to avoid obsolescence in male clothing, you should buy American. As far as I can see, apart from the odd half-inch on a lapel, the contents of the Brooks Brothers catalogue haven’t changed appreciably since 1962. There is no danger of a Brooks Brothers Blazer 2.5S being introduced next year.
I suppose it’s a Wasp thing. It is perfectly fine to buy expensive things, but under no circumstances must they appear to be new.
Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK
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