Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Advertising executive who co-founded Saatchi & Saatchi, known for astute campaigns for the Conservative Party and British Airways.
On the island
Eight records
it is the saddest piece of music that I know
Double Violin Concerto in D minor
Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman
played often in the home of the father of my first wife
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
story about kissing the wrong woman
Surabaya JohnnyFavourite
part of Sunday lunch ritual, Josephine's favourite
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:59Are you still intent on revenge, Maurice, or is the passage of time taking the sting away?
I didn't quite vow revenge, Sue, but I did take the view that the people who had taken control of Search and Searchy weren't people with whom I could work.
Presenter asks
4:47How much do you think that success had to do with the woman herself, Margaret Thatcher?
Well, we owe a great deal to the Conservative Party and to Mrs Thatcher because When she chose us to work for the Conservative Party when she was leader of the opposition in 1978. We were probably a little known in the UK and not at all known in the rest of the world. But by the time we had worked on her nineteen seventy nine election campaign and she had become Prime Minister, she was a hero around the world and therefore we had been blessed.
Presenter asks
10:34What were you like as a young boy? How would you describe yourself? What kind of chap were you?
A model student. Took my studies very seriously. There was the possibility of my being a brilliant cricketer, but I was struck in the um this area by a ball. While starring as the number three bat for our school team. And was carried off the field. That was the end of my cricketing career. Some people who know me now think that I never actually recovered from that blow.
The keepsakes
The book
William Shakespeare
I wanted to have this particular volume. It's an eighteen ninety seven Edition of Hamlet. And I'd like very, very much to have this particular edition with me, because I know every line break on every page in every scene.
The luxury
A virtual reality headset programmed with a virtual tour of a Sussex garden
it would be a way of having my garden with me, with the wonder of new technology.
Presenter asks
16:29What was different about Saatchi and Saatchi as a whole from, say, J. Walter Thompson? What did you do that was different?
I said at the beginning that We took the view that our company was more of an attitude and a company. And the attitude that it has, I think, was best summed up in the phrase nothing is impossible. There was a generally can do confidence about the place which was very special. Companies are a a culture more perhaps than anything else. And the mark of a great company, in my experience, is a company that Has precisely that, a very strong character that runs all through the organization and that is palpable. It's in the air.
Presenter asks
27:32Wasn't there a great temptation, when the proverbial hit the fan, to just turn your back on all this advertising business and just go and garden? You don't have to work, do you?
There was. Um and really the the main motivation for not doing that was that There were people in the company who I thought had behaved with extraordinary loyalty to me. and clients who had behaved in exactly the same way, and I thought I wanted to respond to that. And my my own personal motivation was related to the name and to the impossibility, as I saw it, of leaving behind in The Wrong Hands. A great Name. I do take some pride, although not sufficient to turn into Boasting, I hope? But I do take some pride in the fact that if you try to reflect upon What British brand names there are? Since the war. All over the world. It's a very, very short list. And it is now a brand name, and I'd like to protect it.
Presenter asks
30:09You quoted the opening line of The Go-Between earlier on, that the past is a foreign country. What about the opening line of your wife's novel? 'Damaged people are dangerous, they know they can survive.' Do you think that applies to you?
Almost certainly, yes. It applies to many people. I think it's a it's a most brilliant observation of the world. But who are you a danger to, this this damaged advertising executive? Only myself. In what way? Well, uh when we come on to talk about my book, we can discuss the many ways in which individuals are flawed. in their makeup and I'm sure many of those um apply to me.
“I didn't quite vow revenge, Sue, but I did take the view that the people who had taken control of Search and Searchy weren't people with whom I could work.”
“A model student. Took my studies very seriously. There was the possibility of my being a brilliant cricketer, but I was struck in the um this area by a ball. While starring as the number three bat for our school team. And was carried off the field. That was the end of my cricketing career. Some people who know me now think that I never actually recovered from that blow.”
“I said at the beginning that We took the view that our company was more of an attitude and a company. And the attitude that it has, I think, was best summed up in the phrase nothing is impossible. There was a generally can do confidence about the place which was very special. Companies are a a culture more perhaps than anything else. And the mark of a great company, in my experience, is a company that Has precisely that, a very strong character that runs all through the organization and that is palpable. It's in the air.”
“There was. Um and really the the main motivation for not doing that was that There were people in the company who I thought had behaved with extraordinary loyalty to me. and clients who had behaved in exactly the same way, and I thought I wanted to respond to that. And my my own personal motivation was related to the name and to the impossibility, as I saw it, of leaving behind in The Wrong Hands. A great Name. I do take some pride, although not sufficient to turn into Boasting, I hope? But I do take some pride in the fact that if you try to reflect upon What British brand names there are? Since the war. All over the world. It's a very, very short list. And it is now a brand name, and I'd like to protect it.”
“Almost certainly, yes. It applies to many people. I think it's a it's a most brilliant observation of the world. But who are you a danger to, this this damaged advertising executive? Only myself. In what way? Well, uh when we come on to talk about my book, we can discuss the many ways in which individuals are flawed. in their makeup and I'm sure many of those um apply to me.”