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Some of my fondest memories as a child growing up in Essex were the family outings on foot. That’s what Sundays were for. Grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins, we’d all trek off into the woods, along the seafront or round the country lanes. We’d run on ahead, hide and jump out from the hedges, kick stones and show off how high we could leap, how strong we were climbing a tree. Looking back I wonder whether they did it to wear us kids out so we’d be quiet for the evening!

When I moved away, I kept with me that sense of freedom and curiosity that walking brings. It’s the only way to see both the big cities and the local sights wherever you are in the world. Jetting in and out, coach trips and organised tours are fine, but I’ll do that when my legs no longer carry me everywhere.

Many weekends I’d spend pounding the streets of London. Walking from park to park, then as the sun faded, enjoying the thrilling sights, smells and sounds of the nightscape. Getting off the Tube at Tower Hill then walking all along the Embankment through Westminster, up through Leicester Square and finishing at Euston. Wonderful. For contrast, getting right out of the city to really stretch my legs along the thunderous Atlantic coastline of Cornwall, feeling the salty air on my face. It’s those strenuous, bracing moments that you really feel that you are alive. Living in the moment. Stopping. Listening. Breathing in deeply and taking the time to look and relish the views.

When I had the fortune to move aboard, I kept this good habit going. My first weekend in Bangkok found me walking for 6 hours across the city (moving faster than the traffic in some quarters). A friendly construction worker saw me and cheerily offered his flask of ice cold water, seeing me caked in sweat and looking a little bedraggled.

As the months went by, I spent many happy days exploring the countryside outside of the cities. New friends, delighted that I took such an interest in their country happily took me through the fields, mountains and tiny villages. The magnificent Buddhist temples amid the dusty scrublands were grand rewards for our efforts. The sense that I was probably one of only a handful of foreigners that had sat with the families along the trail was very special.

So when it came to escaping the rat race once again back in the noughties for an early mid-life adventure, of course I went on foot. Walking from London to Moscow as part 1 would have been more than enough for most. My timing could have been better. The chilly days and nights of October/November through England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany gave way to the frozen paths of Poland in December. What was I thinking? As ever though, the worst of conditions afforded me the best of humanity. As the kindness of strangers – inviting me into their homes, giving respite and care helped me along the way to the Kremlin. Dangerous? Yes it can be. Bu there are more good than bad people in this world.

Australia brought the end to the language barrier. Walking by now more than 25 miles per day, I was embraced by the great Aussie spirit of someone ‘having a go’. Even though they are a grand sporting nation that loves to win, the Australians I met were only too happy to support this crazy Pom taking a stroll across their south east territory. The days were dry, the landscape equally so. The long miles I spent walking the lonely highways afforded me spectacular views – and suspiciously lively grass as goodness-knows-what creatures hissed and scrambled around my ankles.

Walking all the way across the United States (LA to New York) was the biggest slice of the walk. And brought me new friends for life as well as some of the most hair raising moments. Walking along the side of the super highways with monster trucks roaring along was pretty scary, but gave the perspective of the vastness of the country. And the contrast of its living standards. You don’t get that sense from 30,000 feet in the air. As I found in the Far East, it’s always the poorest homes that provide the warmest welcomes. People seeing me on TV wanted photos with me, invited me into their homes and were genuinely enthusiastic to support me. I slept on a few couches and got ferried around from start/end positions along the way.

Walking therefore to me is a spiritual experience, as well as good exercise. It gives you time to think. It expends energy that can be either keep you awake or be used to fuel more negative thoughts. When you are putting on foot in front of the other, looking ahead and even the gentlest pace to the strident – it’s using your whole body and is great for the mind and soul. Most of my walks have been alone – and I do enjoy the solitude of a long walk alone. But walking with someone who shares your passion for adventure is great! Best of all would be a dog! But that’s rarely practical on the kind of walks I do.

I was joined by my Dad over the years for the big charity walks. He walked with me from Salisbury to London at the tail end of the global stroll, covering 200 miles with me at the age of 77. I think it’s from him that I inherited the appreciation of walking for pleasure and fulfilment.

More recently I’ve been walking with my dear friend and vlogging partner in crime Lucas. We walked from Prague to Berlin (200+ miles) last year and are about to set off on a 700-mile trek from Berlin to London.

55 days out on the open roads of Europe. And whilst there will once again be a sense of mission about it, I’ll be sure as always to enjoy the sheer joy of simply exploring new places, one step at a time.

(You can follow this new adventure at http://www.MarkandLucas.com)

Your servant,

MC

I did feel a pang of sympathy for Theresa May as her voice broke at the end of her short speech outside Number 10 on Friday.

Many have commented that she saved her tears for herself, rather than Grenfell or various other poor souls affected by tragedy or misfortune. I don’t buy that. Firstly we have no idea what her personal, private reaction to those events was. Secondly if she’d been seen weeping in public frequently, they would have criticised her for that too.

She is that kind of politician. Where the Queen is often said to have never put a foot wrong, Theresa May doesn’t seem to have ever put a foot right. Whatever the opposite of the Midas touch is, she has it.

She would have been hopelessly out of her depth as Prime Minster in the best of times. To be landed with the top job in this ferocious Brexit atmosphere was like asking a Sunday soccer official to referee the World Cup final.

She made some dreadful mistakes. The general election of 2017 was the biggest. She squandered her inherited majority and set herself on the back foot for the rest of her time in office. She was secretive, negotiating over the heads of her delegated ministers and officials. She had no alternative gear, no common touch. Her sense of duty and standards would have been virtues in another age, but her attempts to plug every hole, bridge every gap and bring everyone into line were always doomed to fail.

Theresa May is not a bad person. She just wasn’t a very good prime minister. Just how well the next person shines will show how much was down to her and how much down to the job at this febrile time.

It’s also inescapable how the focus was often made on the fact that she was a woman. Great strides have been made in our society in my lifetime. And the atmosphere is certainly different since our first female prime minister was elected, 40 years ago this month.

But anyone believing that the battles over prejudice towards women, non-white or those from less privileged backgrounds are over, is delusional. Look at the front page photo and headlines comparing Theresa May’s legs with Nicola Sturgeon’s on their first official meeting. This – in 2016!

That patriarchal structure remains. The opportunities available to those of the white, middle class and upwards, male talent pool remain the most glistening cherries in the bowl. Rather like the fashionable posters proclaiming dedication to mental health and the environment, so many organisations provide window dressing with no actual content inside.

‘Positive discrimination’ ‘all women lists’ ‘selection quotas’ are still the grown-up equivalent of free school meals vouchers. Visible measures of tokenism that burn inside the ‘lucky candidates’ who get the unwanted attention of official leg-ups. Please – don’t provide ladders. Just genuinely flatten that playing field!

Anyway – back to Theresa May. She must have had the best night’s sleep for a very long time last night. And she will get to have a swansong, welcoming President Trump on his state visit (saving her successor that awkward gig) as well as the D-Day commemorations. If you begrudge her those last few moments in the final spotlight, then you show how much you truly understand the meanness of spirit she has been accused of.

She will go down as a footnote prime minister. Her odd attempt to affiliate herself with the Cameron-Osborne years which she’d previously wanted to distance herself from was an unworthy move by someone trying to carve out a better legacy.

But her tears showed how much it had meant to her. She tried and failed. And she knew that she had failed. The vicar’s daughter torn betwixt her ambition and her rectitude fell between the two stools, achieving neither. She could have pre-recorded the message and released it. But she stepped out and in a rare moment of openness let the world see there was a beating heart in the ‘Maybot’. Too little and alas, much too late.

There will be time enough to speculate about the next PM and the coming weeks promise much for the Westminster watchers. The European election results due out tonight will provide a steer for the direction of our politics generally, along with our friends on the continent.

And I’ll no doubt have one or two things to say along the way…

Your servant,

MC

[PS – my personal experience of Theresa May was actually a bright memory. She kindly sent my Dad a 90th birthday greeting last year. Of course she didn’t sit and type it herself, but it was personalised to him and hand signed. Thanks for that TM]

“The customer is always right”. How quaint. I’m not sure it was ever sincere, but it did at least point to the idea that service and product providers had an awareness of the source of their prosperity.

There are two principles that make this real:

• The accessibility of the person giving the service – can you actually talk to them?
• The individuality of the service provided – do they listen and respond to what you actually want?

Let’s talk about accessibility. Can you actually talk to someone? Well in these days of online 24/7 “service” there is of course no need to talk to anyone. You can find answers to most questions on our website. Which means we can employ fewer people, which cuts costs and boosts profits. As long as enough people stay with it, we’ll keep reducing the chances of ever having to actually deal with you.

OK – those pesky people that still want to talk to someone. We’ll give them a telephone number. And dozens of options. Press [1] for this, press [2] for that, press [3] for the other and press [4] for a myriad of yet more options. They actually pay people to create “decision trees” that cover almost every eventuality to send callers through to pre-recorded ‘answers’. I say almost, because even the greediest company has to leave that final option for the determined person that had held on for 20 minutes plus – to finally speak with someone.

And who do they get? Some sap thousands of miles away. Sitting with a script at a cost of 20% of their UK counterpart. It’s easy to justify in cost terms, which overrides any consideration of the customer experience, as well as passing the burden of complaints over to the offshore workers to get it in the ear.

The public sector isn’t much better. I went as usual to Charles Dickens Festival in Rochester recently. I had my change ready for the car park. This of course is because they replaced staff many years ago with machines to take your money and issue tickets. Well – they discovered that you still have to pay someone a wage to go and empty the machines. So instead, you now have to register for the app and pay online.

Fine for me, as I punched in the details. But the bewildered look on the faces of senior citizens who stood with their coins next to the three ‘out of service’ ticket machines spoke volumes. Intriguingly enough, Medway Council were still able to employ wardens to issue penalty notices…

The point is – put as much distance as you can between you and your customers. If you can, remove the accessibility altogether. Make is so hard for them to contact you, that they just give up. And if you are a sole provider of a service and they can’t go anywhere else, well you’ve got it made. As long as the numbers stack up with profit, that’s all you need.

Next – individuality of service. If accessibility has loosened the ties, then this is where customer service has been completely killed off. We are in fact, not customers. We are consumers. We are to be plugged into a churning mush of outputs that are designed to meet our lowest expectations and be grateful.

The consumer is expected to adapt their taste and wishes to what is on offer. Not what they want. One sadly silly instance I recall was watching a Burger King ad in America. A very macho voice was growling You’re the boss, You’re in charge – because you could choose whether to have onions in your burger. I felt so empowered.

The rigidity of service and products – and the accompany script for the staff to use to sell them – charts the course of decision-making to what the company wants you to buy. It is never about what you may actually want. Some might say t’was ever thus. But I’m not so sure.

I hear people nervously working in sales continually using the word ‘obviously’. Listen out next time you go to buy something. It’s a pejorative word that is designed to shut down any dissent. When they say ‘obviously’ they mean that this is not open for discussion. I will not offer any variation. I have my script and I am sticking to it. You will not win. You will take what you are offered and be grateful. Obviously.

When I call people out on this, their eyes narrow. They look at me as a blatant trouble maker. How dare I challenge their right to sell me what they want me to buy instead of what I actually want. Their training has taught them how to manage sales and ‘difficult’ customers and they become very tetchy if I do not play along. Good. I’m spending my money and I expect some individual consideration.

So – what’s to be done? Shall we lie down and accept the inevitable victory of the providers versus the brow-beaten consumers? Or shall we make a fight of it and score the occasional victory ourselves?

I am an optimist. I see hope where others often see none. Personally, I do as much business as I can with small companies. Those that know their livelihood really does depend on that person walking back through the door again. Those who know they have to fight to gain a customer and keep them. Being local helps. Both from the point of view of accessibility (see above) but also that you will knock on their door if you are not completely happy.

For some things, we have no alternative than to use the big corporates, or public service providers. That my friends is where we must fight the good fight for those occasional victories. There is a distinct joy in finding a rebel in the big chain, corporate or council who with a nod and a wink, will bend or ignore the script to give a great service.

On which note, there may be some life in customer service yet. And as a customer, I’m usually right…

[PS – I’m no Luddite. The genius of the internet and the devices that bring it to us are awesome! Like everything, it’s how you choose to use it that matters…]