Siam

There was a wonderful little moment during my stint with Brandy Scott on the Business Breakfast last Thursday: we were talking about the US presidential candidates and their public relations and communications strategies, particularly in the light of the excruciating McCain/Letterman affair. John McCain blew Letterman out claiming that he had to fly to Washington to focus on the financial crisis and then Letterman cut live, during the McCain-less show, to the same McCain being made up for an interview he’d granted to CBS’ Katie Couric. An infuriated Letterman let rip throughout the show and, in fact, has been doing so since.

So we talked about this, about interview management and planning communications strategies on the theme of what we can learn from the US presidential candidates’ management of their communications.

At one point, the delectable Brandy asked me what I thought about Sarah Palin and my response was something along the lines of “I know! I mean, here you’ve got this mooseburger eating, hunting shooting fishing NRA-head who believes that polar bears aren’t under threat and that global warming isn’t a product of human activity and she’s come from being the mayor of some village and suddenly she’s potentially the most important person in America!”

And then Brandy, who is (unlike your correspondent) really rather good at her job, looks across the mikes at me and deadpans, “I meant her PR.”

My father once taught me the Siamese national anthem. You sing “O” then “my watan” and then “a’s Siam”. Put them together in one fluid chant and repeat. It’s the kind of thing that my father used to do to me, a traumatic childhood.

Nowadays I occasionally have cause to remember it and chant it to myself...