On today’s menu: Einstein, Capers and Vung Tau

>> Plus an unexpected bonus from John Caples

Do you know anything about physics?

Nor do I.

But Einstein, who did, clearly understood almost everything.

Insanity, he said, was doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

So if you are a slave of habit maybe you will end up unsuccessful - and mad.

But I try to sample as many new things as possible.

About 12 years ago I went on a trip to the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily.

I never had a more glorious holiday. We had ice-cream for breakfast. The restaurants were superb. It was the first time I had been taken at breakneck speed on the back of a motorcycle. I was 72.

(I liked it so much that I repeated the experience behind a lady on a motor scooter in a monsoon rain in Vung Tau, Vietnam four years ago. Far more frightening, as traffic rules there are suggestions, not instructions.)

On Lipari, one of the Aeolian islands, a man was selling capers, near the church. Lipari is famous for capers.

His approach was unique. My Italian is almost non-existent, but my partner translated it.

"I am not asking you to buy these capers. I just think you should know how good they are."

Charm personified!

But I am not telling you this because I want to sell anything: just to tell you something I wish had happened to me - but didn't.

It came about when my friend Daniel Levis revealed the other day that he had interviewed John Caples.

Caples wrote perhaps the most famous advertisement ever - headed “They laughed when I sat down at the piano”.

I have lost count of how many times I’ve seen that ripped off.

But Caples was also the first, best champion of scientific testing (too often ignored now when everyone is so eager to get rich quick that many end up broke.)

Here's the interview.

You will learn a lot from it, I hope.

Did I get your hopes up about me not asking to buy anything? If you liked that story, here’s a link to my autobiography.

Best,

Drayton