Two excellent, funny Cary Grant jokes.
>> Plus an awful warning about getting old.
First, let’s get your awful warning over.
As you get old half the people don't know who or what you’re talking about - and the rest think you’re an outdated nit-wit
But I hope a sprinkling of you remember Cary Grant - the smoothest film star ever, and one of the wittiest.
Only his co-star Mae West, who wrote her own scripts, was funnier.
I still recall with joy her line in She Done Him Wrong “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”
Grant began as an acrobat and juggler. I have a soft spot for him because he was born in Bristol where I live.
In sunnier times I drank on the terrace of a pub next to the hotel he stayed in when visiting his aged mother.
The view of the most beautiful bridge in Britain is something else.
The Clifton Suspension Bridge
He once received a telegram asking “How old Cary Grant”
You paid for telegrams by the word so you used as few words as possible.
He replied “Cary Grant fine how you?”
He was so popular that he once said “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”
Nowadays everyone wants to be a copywriter, but when I started no one even knew what it was. I’m not sure many know even now.
The job has been segmented into different tasks. “Content writers” is the newest. This mystifies me - how the hell can you write anything without content?
Others write blogs for people so boring they can't write their own. Many specialise exclusively in one business, which would bore me to tears.
That’s because I have a rare speciality which I encourage my colleagues to pursue.
We specialise in EVERYTHING.
Ogilvy said two qualities of a good copywriter are insatiable curiosity and skill at the art of nit-picking.
The more things you know the better your ideas.
I wouldn't say my heart leaps when a strange new product comes across my path, but certainly a small smile creeps in.
At last! The chance to learn something new.
And I fear I am a complete pain. You only have to say something for me to wonder if I can disagree. And I am insatiably curious about the oddest things.
So if you have something interesting to sell I can usually sell it - especially if I never heard of it before.
Here's a few things I’ve sold over the years.
- Playground equipment
- Model London Buses
- Property investment
- Wiglets (not Piglets) but also...
- Peppa Pig comics
- Astoundingly costly dental equipment
- The world's most expensive cruises
- Seed cleaning machinery
- Winston Churchill's History of the Second World War
- TV sets
- Soap
- The Queen's Silver Jubilee Medallion
- Airplanes
- Complex measuring equipment
- Swimming pools
- Bodybuilding equipment
- Cheese
- Car radios
- Legal information
- A Finnish political party
- Franchises
- Newsletters
- Record your own hit song.
- A hairdressing school
- Gardening services
- Carpet cleaning fluid
- Plates
- Bicycles
- Cars
- Charities of many kinds
- Movies
- Striped shirts
- Hotels
- Sausages
- TV programmes
I'll remember more after I've sent this out...
But meanwhile:
Have you something odd to intrigue me?
Something that isn’t selling as well as it should?
Drop me a line, see if we can help you.
Best,
Drayton
P.S. Know anyone who'd appreciate my Bird Droppings? Tell them to sign up to my mailing list here. - https://dg250.infusionsoft.app/app/form/signup
Editor, Rude Awakening from Paradigm Press | Content and Copywriter for Macro, Stocks, Bonds, and Commodities.
4 年It's a sad day in every man's life when he realizes nothing he can do will make him look like Cary Grant. My favorite Grant story: "Grant says, 'I'm terribly sorry, I forgot my ticket. May I get in please?' The ticket lady doesn't look up. She says, 'Name?' He goes 'Cary Grant.' Now she looks up, and she says, 'You don't look like Cary Grant.' And quick as a wink he goes, 'I know. Nobody does.'"