FIDDLING

I’m a fiddler and I think we should all fiddle more. Let me explain why. I’m not talking about fiddling money, of course, just fiddling. Not Fiddler on the Roof but Fiddler on the Hoof, that’s my thinking. For example, when you get stuck with urgent work you must complete but cannot think of what to do next. Some people ‘tidy up’ - that’s fiddling. Some stare out of the window and wonder what shocking disaster the world is going to perpetrate next. Some write to their distant relatives and apologize for not being in touch. Some take a walk in the woods in the hope of clearing their brains.

That is all good fiddling and there are myriad other ways of having a fiddle, too. Why should we relish doing so instead of feeling guilty about it? “Here to work, not to fiddle”. The boss’s brow tells you that is what is in his mind. If caught fiddling at work you might lose your job.? The tech companies understand fiddling. They create spaces specially for it. ‘Do nothing rooms’. Those are where a great deal is done but not under the phony guise of being busy. They allow minds to ramble. Rambling and fiddling are Sunrise Twins.?

When faced with what I was told was an intractable problem in the early 1950s, I fiddled. Cinema - the precursor to television - was a big advertising medium then. Attendance figures were a closely guarded government secret because they were the basis of a hefty tax. The advertiser knew that different cinemas had different levels of attendance but couldn’t find out what they were. As an advertising agent I was tasked with doing so - and trying to avoid prison at the same time. So I went to the cinema. Often.

I got to know the film world. I interviewed lots of film stars. I chatted up cinema managers all over the country. My fiddling paid off. I learned that the best source of cinema attendance at any one cinema was the gossip of the managers of the rival cinemas in the same district. I also learned that they were thirsty and lonely people. So, for a pint of beer and an hour of chatter they would reveal everything they knew about their rivals. All I had to be sure about was that I took them to different pubs. A most successful fiddle.

Doubt the wisdom of “putting away childish things” when we grow up. Children have a special skill for fiddling. They call it playing. The games they play are some of the most creative and productive things they ever do in their lifetimes. The scandal is that this is drilled out of them at school when it ought to be developed. One of the great lessons I learned is to let people live. Let children run about, fall over, graze their knees, get into scrapes. Let employees make mistakes and don’t beat them up when they do. These are the true lessons of life.

Who was the best fiddler I knew? One of the two Creative Directors of S H Benson, the advertising agency I worked for between 1960 and 1968. During a week on board the old Queen Mary Cunard liner I gave him a copy of Koestler’s 1,000 page book ‘The Act of Creation’. I asked him to give me a one sentence summary of it before we reached New York. Francis Harmar Brown fiddled his way across the Atlantic and told me his summary. “Creativity is the ability to perceive relationships”. Brilliant.

Next time you get a mental block or find yourself thinking through treacle or can’t face the next thing you should do - fiddle. It’s an exceptionally slow-witted mind that doesn’t come out of it in thirty minutes. And should you happen to be exceptionally slow-witted, keep fiddling.

Above all let others fiddle.

They’ll do better for you if you do.

Good morning

John Bittleston

A note about how it worked for you would be most welcome at [email protected].?