From Overnight Sensation to hit record

Eric Carmen, the American singer-songwriter who has died, aged 74, is best known in Britain for the 1975 hit single ‘All By Myself’.

Personally, I always considered it a bit of a dirge and never liked it.

Far better, in my view, is the lost classic he wrote and recorded with the Raspberries, the band he was in before he went solo.

Released in September 1974, ‘Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)’ is one of my all-time favourite pop songs.

Described by one critic as an ‘epic-scale production number about the thrill of hearing your song on the radio’, it was a minor hit in America and Canada but not the UK, although I remember it getting some air play.

Another critic called it a “mini-symphony packed into a five minute song" that is "overflowing with vocals, percussion, guitars, drums, saxophones, pianos, you name it”.

It’s definitely one of those tracks where they threw the kitchen sink at the production.

At one point there’s even a few bars where it sounds like the song is being played on a tinny transistor radio.

Towards the end the song appears to be fading to a gentle, piano-led conclusion before the drums come crashing back in and the rousing chorus is resumed.

Some years ago I bought Greatest, a 2005 compilation album by the Raspberries, who recorded four albums between 1971 and 1974.

Nothing on it comes close to ‘Overnight Sensation’ which captures perfectly the yearning for a chart-topping record and it’s one of the few pop songs I have never grown tired of hearing.

According to Carmen, speaking on stage during a reunion tour in 2004, the record company refused to release the song under the title ‘Hit Record’ because they felt it was “way too presumptuous” so they changed it to the “much less presumptuous” ‘Overnight Sensation’.

Ironically he did have a genuine, incontestable, hit record the following year with the maudlin ‘All By Myself’, but this is the song I’ll remember him for.

Play it LOUD!

The joy of PR

Tenuous link alert.

Reports that the Duchess of Sussex has allegedly hired a top PR guru to ‘resurrect’ her image in the UK reminds me of another PR-related story.

Six months before I got my first job - as an account exec for a PR firm in London - the company acquired a new client whose name had been tarnished and needed a reboot.

The year was 1980 and the client was an offshore oil company whose subsidiary had just completed a major project - converting a drilling rig into a production platform (or something like that).

It was the first conversion of its kind and a big deal in offshore oil circles.

Unfortunately, thanks to the complexity of the project and a series of industrial disputes, the project was a year or two behind schedule so the brief was to spin the completion as a great success rather than the embarrassment it had become.

What happened next is the stuff of nightmares for any PR exec but thankfully it happened before I joined the company so I wasn’t involved.

To cut a long story short, my colleagues-to-be had arranged a cutting-the-ribbon type event to celebrate the completion of the project.

To make matters a little more complicated, it was to take place on the Isle of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland, where the work had taken place, and because many of the invited journalists were based in London they had to be flown to Glasgow, and then on to Lewis.

Guest of honour was the Secretary of State for Energy, Hamish Gray, Conservative MP for Ross and Cromarty, and by all accounts everything went really well - apart from one small thing.

Many of the journalists developed food poisoning as a result, I believe, of something they ate at the reception.

As it happens, I don’t think it affected media coverage of the event, which was largely positive, but it taught me an early lesson that however well you prepare, and however good your organisational skills may be, there are some things that are beyond your control.

The client must have agreed because the PR company was retained and the client was one of several accounts I was given to work on when I joined the company a few months later.

Their loyalty was rewarded the following year when I pulled off a bit of a coup after I organised a photo op for a professional golfer the client had agreed to sponsor.

It took place at a golf club in Essex and the aim was to promote both the player and his new apparel that featured the client’s logo and corporate colour.

During the shoot the photographer suggested taking pictures of the golfer hitting some bunker shots.

I don’t know how many photos he took that day, but imagine my surprise (and delight) when, a month or two later, one of the photos appeared on the front cover of a leading golf magazine.

It was a pretty spectacular shot too, with the ball caught mid air in an explosion of sand. Better still, the company logo on the golfer’s corporate coloured jersey was clearly visible!

What does this have to do with the Duchess of Sussex? Nothing, probably. But if I learned anything in PR it’s this: creative ideas and a good strategic plan are all well and good, but what you also need is a fair slice of luck, and good will from third parties (the media in particular).

Without it, you’re stuffed.

Then … and now

After 25 years and 64 series, BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show is finally coming to an end.

But first, rewind to December 2023.

“Forest has just been mentioned on The Now Show,” said my wife, who was listening to the radio. “And not in a good way.”

It was part of a monologue by “smug ex-smoker” Jessica Fostekew that was prompted by the news that New Zealand’s incoming coalition government intended to repeal the previous government’s generational smoking ban.

According to Fostekew:

“New Zealand's new government has shocked the world this week by repealing Jacinda Ardern's epic new smoking ban, despite the fact that smoking kills more people than anything else in New Zealand ...

“The new law would have come into force next year and would have banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. And they've unbanned it! How rock 'n' roll is that ...?"

She continued:

“Making smoking easier again does feel like a bizarrely regressive thing to do. All out bans can be impractical and in some cases tough to enforce. I don't fancy being the police officer whose job it would be to arrest illegal smokers in the act, but at least they'd be quite easy to beat in a chase …

“It begs the question, who could possibly have been against this ban? We spoke to Forest, the UK's smokers' rights group, largely funded by the tobacco industry. And their spokesperson said, "We think ... [noise of persistent coughing] ... we think smoking is delicious."

You can read the full transcript here. I concluded the post (Killing comedy) with these observations:

While the depiction of a fictional Forest spokesman was amusing (I did smile), it was also completely predictable.

Equally predictable was a comedian on The Now Show aligning herself with our anti-smoking Establishment that includes both the BBC and all mainstream political parties, not to mention our 'Conservative' government.

Mainstream comedians were once mocked for being conservative (or even Conservative). Then came left wing 'alternative' comedians led by Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle who were seemingly anti-Establishment.

Many of today's 'progressive' comedians like to think they follow in the footsteps of those 'alternative' comedians, but there's nothing radical about them at all.

As far as smoking is concerned, someone like Jessica Fostekew not only supports and parrots the Establishment line, she appears happy to foster and promote anti-smoking propaganda, not even for laughs but as genuine 'information'.

As for "Jacinda's mighty ban", how rock 'n' roll is that?

The point is, Fostekew is clearly not alone. I don't doubt for one second that her view – even allowing for the fact that this was a 'comedy' sketch – is also held by most of those working for The Now Show, and of course the wider BBC.

It isn't an accident that she was given a platform to promote "Jacinda's mighty ban" and mock opponents of a generational ban.

However, any comedy programme with an ounce of self-respect would surely want to put the boot into the prohibitionists and overweening regulators, or the middle-class do-gooders who can't wait to dictate how others live their lives.

But no. The Now Show and their guests are the Establishment, and completely predictable. How (un)funny is that?

Three months later the long-running comedy show is being taken off air.

Was it something I wrote?!

Election fever? Chancellor postpones vape levy until October 2026

Well, that was a surprise.

Having let it be known for weeks that he was going to introduce a levy on vaping products to discourage children and never smokers from taking up the habit, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, did indeed introduce a vape tax in today's Budget statement.

The unexpected twist was that the measure won't be introduced until October 2026, by which time the Tories are very unlikely to be in government!

Meanwhile, having also floated the idea of a further "one-off" tax hike on tobacco in order to maintain the difference in cost between tobacco and vaping products, Hunt announced that the additional tax would be introduced at the same time as the vape levy.

If you're confused I don't blame you because following the Chancellor's announcement the BBC News website immediately reported that 'Hunt has introduced a new levy on vaping' and 'There will also be a one-off increase in tobacco duty', implying it would happen immediately because there was no mention of the critical date, October 2026.

Moreover, what no-one has reported is that there are no other changes to excise duty on tobacco in today's Budget - including the annual escalator (inflation plus two per cent) - so tobacco duty has effectively been frozen, for now at least.

Why this should be the case is a bit of a mystery, but I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that previous hikes in tobacco duty were reported to have increased the rate of inflation, and that's the last thing the Government wants or needs ahead of a general election.

I should add that I don’t for one second think that a future Labour government will repeal Hunt’s vaping levy. If anything, they might impose even harsher duties on tobacco and vapes.

Either way, Forest's response is reported by Asian Trader here – Hunt announces extra tax on vaping from 2026.

We’ve also been quoted by the Press Association, the Independent, Daily Mirror, London Evening Standard, and several more.

Update: The Sun is reporting that 'The price of cigarettes is set to rise to an eye-watering £16 following a one-off increase of £2 per 100 cigarettes or 50 grams of tobacco'.

Don't know where they got those figures from but I assume they are referring to the 'one-off increase' scheduled for October 2026. We’ll see.

Update: The figures above were obtained from Spring Budget 2024 Policy Costings (page 26). And, yes, they do refer to the October 2026 increase.

Another liberal conservative bites the dust

I was sorry to hear that former government minister Paul Scully is to stand down as an MP at the forthcoming election.

Minister for London from February 2020, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy from October 2022, he was surprisingly sacked from both roles in November last year.

That came a few months after he failed to be selected as the Conservative candidate for London mayor. Remarkably, given his ministerial role at the time, he didn’t even make the shortlist.

I’m biased, but on the few occasions our paths have crossed, I have found him to be extremely pleasant and approachable.

He first came to our attention at the Conservative party conference in 2011 where we hosted a comedy night at the Comedy Store in Manchester.

It prompted the former Sutton councillor to tweet:

Forest fringe at the comedy store is possibly the best ever I have attended at conference. Smokers showing antis how to do #nudge. #cpc11

Elected to Parliament in 2015 as the MP for Sutton and Cheam, he was therefore an obvious choice when we needed someone to speak at our 2016 fringe event in Birmingham.

With 500 guests squeezed in to a Birmingham night club it was very noisy and our two guest speakers - Paul and LBC broadcaster Iain Dale - struggled to be heard.

Nevertheless they handled the situation with aplomb and, by coincidence, Iain even interviewed Paul on his programme last night.

The last time I saw Paul in person, but not to speak to, was at a Conservative Muslim Forum event to mark the coronation of King Charles last year.

As I wrote at the time:

I’m not entirely sure what Paul Scully’s connection with the CMF was, but I was interested to hear him say he was running for Mayor of London.

If selected as the Tory candidate the odds will be strongly against him winning, but he would run a very good campaign, I'm sure, and I wish him well.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be, and we are now set to lose one of the relatively few liberal conservatives in the House.

What a shame.

Name games

According to The Times today:

A vaping levy has been denounced by free-marketeers, smokers’ rights lobbyists and the vaping industry but, unusually, welcomed by both public health campaigners and the tobacco industry.

The ‘smokers’ rights lobbyists’ referred to are Forest but for some reason (lack of space, I’ve been told) our actual quote (solicited by the paper) was omitted.

For the record, it read:

"If the government is serious about promoting e-cigarettes as a substantially less harmful alternative to combustible tobacco, a levy on vapes will send completely the wrong message to consumers.

"Vaping products are already subject to VAT. Imposing even a small levy will simply add to the confusion that exists in many smokers' minds about the risks of vaping.

"Worse, if the government hikes tobacco duty again to maintain the difference in price between tobacco and vapes, that will inevitably drive more smokers to the black market.

"Both measures would therefore be counterproductive and an unnecessary own goal."

Oddly enough, the day after Rishi Sunak announced he intended to introduce a generational tobacco sales ban, The Times ran a story headlined 'Smoking ban plan burns Big Tobacco'.

According to that report:

The tobacco industry and associated lobby groups denounced the government’s plan, warning that it would benefit the illicit market.

‘Associated lobby groups’ was another oblique reference to Forest and it followed a 5-10 minute conversation I had with one of the paper’s journalists that I assumed was on the record.

Despite that, Forest wasn’t mentioned by name, nor was anything I said quoted directly in the piece.

Now, five months later, it’s happened again which begs the question: why the aversion to mentioning Forest by name?

It can’t just be a lack of space, can it?

Let's make some noise

Thanks to political blogger Guido Fawkes for shining a light on the murkier aspects of the Government consultation on the generational tobacco ban.

Following the announcement by the prime minister in October that he wanted to raise the age of sale of tobacco by one year every year, the Government launched an eight-week consultation, with a closing date of December 6.

In my experience, most government consultations are scheduled for three, or sometimes four, months.

Likewise, the subsequent reports tend to be published three months after the closing date, although it can sometimes take much longer (eleven months in the case of the plain packaging consultation).

In this instance, the Government's response was published less than eight weeks after the closing date, and that period included the two-week Christmas period, so it's probably fair to say it was produced in half the time it normally takes.

Either way, the consultation attracted nearly 28,000 legitimate responses, and to no-one's surprise:

The large majority of responses supported the government proposal to create a smokefree generation. Respondents were mostly in favour of the proposed measures to tackle youth vaping, particularly restricting point of sale displays and restricting packaging.

Interestingly, however, the report failed to provide a list of respondents (notably the 896 organisations that responded to the consultation), despite the fact that this has been standard practice for most if not every government consultation Forest has ever contributed to.

The reason it's important is that we suspect that many of the organisations and NGOs that responded to the consultation will be public sector bodies or have links to the public health industry.

Of even greater concern, though, was the extraordinary revelation that the Government had chosen not to consider the views of the 307 respondents with disclosed links to the tobacco industry 'when determining our policy response' due to the 'vested interests' of the industry.

As you can imagine, retail groups with legitimate links to the tobacco industry are up in arms at the admission that their views on the proposed generational tobacco ban have not been considered, despite the fact that it could have a significant impact on their businesses.

Ditto the proposed ban on disposable vapes, for which views were also sought.

Meanwhile we're outraged that the views of law-abiding consumers have also been sidelined in this unprecedented fashion.

Forest has been contributing to government consultations for decades and this is the first time any government (including devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales) has told us that our views have not even been considered, let alone acted upon.

To get some answers from government, Conservative MP arl McCartney submitted several written parliamentary questions.

Far from addressing his legitimate concerns, the Government (via the DHSC and health minister Andrea Leadsom) simply doubled down and is refusing to publish the names of the organisations that responded to the consultation. 

This includes organisations with disclosed links to the tobacco industry, so it's impossible to know for sure which groups have had their views disregarded by ministers and civil servants.

Not only is the lack of transparency breathtaking, but using the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) as the excuse for ignoring the views of legitimate stakeholders is both pathetic and and fundamentally undemocratic.

Furthermore, with retail crime at an all-time high, the Government has – incredibly – chosen to disregard the views of retail organisations just because they have links with the tobacco industry whose products they buy and sell.

It's one thing to ignore the views of the tobacco industry (although I believe that's wrong too), but disregarding the views of other organisations with a legitimate interest in the proposed legislation is scandalous and should be challenged in court.

One more thing: public consultations are usually designed to generate feedback on a particular proposal, following which the Government considers and then decides its next move.

In this instance, as Rishi Sunak made clear at the Conservative conference in October, and again when the new coalition government in New Zealand announced that it intended to repeal the generational ban legislation introduced by the previous (Labour) government, he had obviously made up his mind to introduce a generational ban long before the consultation closing date, and months before the report was published, so the whole process has been a complete sham from start to finish.

Anyway, now you can see what we're up against, I hope you will write to your MP and make even more noise.

See: Sunak's smoke and mirrors ban

Now I’m 65

Hard to believe, I know, but I’m 65 today.

The funny thing is, it only seems like yesterday that I was ‘celebrating’ my 60th birthday.

I wasn’t too fussed, if I’m honest, but my wife decided to mark the occasion by booking an evening, with an overnight stay, at a Michelin star restaurant at a secret location in rural Lincolnshire.

That much I knew in advance. What I didn’t know is that she had also arranged for two of our oldest friends to join us, which was an unexpected surprise.

It was only the second Michelin star restaurant we had ever been to (the first was in Cambridge), but since then we’ve developed a bit of a taste for them (no pun intended).

I don’t have a favourite because they’ve all been very different, but the one I remember most, partly because of its size, was Menu Gordon Jones, a tiny (and pleasantly informal) restaurant in Bath.

It was fully booked yet the eponymous chef not only did all the cooking, he also greeted guests at the door on arrival, and visited our tables to explain several of the seven courses on the menu.

That level of service, albeit in a very small restaurant, is pretty impressive, but I don’t envy the restaurateurs who have to maintain such a high standard every day to justify their Michelin star/s.

Anyway, for my 65th birthday today we’re driving to Norfolk where we will be staying at a Michelin star restaurant in Old Hunstanton.

En route I will reflect upon the fact that it’s not that long ago that men retired at 65 (when they could collect their state pension), with women retiring at 60.

Previous generations were sent on their way with a gold watch, but I can remember when the average age for men was 72 so the ‘golden’ years of retirement were relatively short, and something that people looked forward to after a hard working life.

More recently there was a period when my generation talked of being able to retire early, and I have a several friends who did just that.

One was 50 when he retired, and another was just 40, although it would be more accurate to describe him as semi-retired because he soon got bored and found work as a non-executive director with various companies.

Another friend retired from the civil service at 55 but he too found the days without work rather long so he took up dog-walking.

Today, if they live to their eighties or nineties, people who retire in their fifties or even sixties face the prospect of 20 or 30 years without work, which is why so many people, instead of retiring early, are voluntarily working longer, although money may also be a factor.

In my case I have no imminent plans to retire because I enjoy my job. Also, while it can be challenging, it’s not physically demanding so I reckon I’ve got a few more years in me before I embark on that round-the-world cruise.