Column: Leaders, 30

SUGAR & SPITE

At the end of the day, it don’t matter about customers, really

Remember when kids used to idolise David Bowie? Me neither, but I’m pretty sure if I was a nipper today I wouldn’t have Alan Sugar posters on my wall. A recent poll placed him fourth in a list of people boys aged 8-14 look up to, a fact made immeasurably more hideous by bell-end of the millennium Jeremy Clarkson coming second.

Youngsters, don’t worship Alan Sugar. He’s a prick who espouses such lovely business ideals as ‘always piss in the face of your customers’. “At the end of the day, it don’t matter how good the tour is, really — the task is about selling a lot of tickets,” he proclaimed during the last Apprentice. “The business model is ‘go out and sell tickets, get the cash in pocket, people on the bus… and that’s it.’”

Winner Stella later went on 5 Live to announce she was looking forward to making a “healthy profit” selling IT solutions to the education sector for her bastard new boss. Charming!

Respected former Tottenham striker Jurgen Klinsmann — a “Carlos Kickaballs”, as Sugar liked to name foreign players — got it right when he called him “a man without honour” and said: “He only ever talks about money.”

Sugar was the only representative of the five big clubs in 1992 who wanted Sky (not ITV) to have television footy rights. And guess who was developing satellite dishes for the broadcaster at the time. Amstrad. Thanks, dickhead!

Before Christmas, a man was caught jerking off into Sugar’s autobiography in Crawley Library, West Sussex. The papers made him out to be a freak, but that dude’s not a perve — he’s the number 1 person this paper looks up to!

FIRED UP

At least there’s one band that shines light like a luminaire

What’s Lord Sugar got to do with music? Nothing, thankfully. But I was contemplating his evil business model in relation to Arcade Fire and London venue The Luminaire, which, aside from a few forthcoming farewell shows, has closed its doors.

The two gentlemen who run/ran The Luminaire, Andy Inglis and John Donnelly, are pals of The Stool Pigeon and among our most staunch supporters. The ink was barely dry on issue 1 when Andy got in touch to say he’d take as many papers as he could handle (20 bundles of 50 copies), making The Luminaire easily our biggest stockists.

Both Andy and John worked to a philosophy of treating punters and bands with respect. Consequently, musicians loved playing The Luminaire and music fans loved going there. But the venue failed, and that’s depressing. Wankers get to the top, it seems, and those that fight your cause don’t stand a fucking chance.

About the same time The Luminaire announced its closure, Arcade Fire played two sold-out shows at the O2 in London. I attended one as a half-fan, but now count myself among their most potty worshippers. Musically, they were astonishing, but there was greater voodoo at play that might explain why their audience comes across as being so… cultish. As far as I know, the band have never colluded with big business — sold a song to advertising, or whatever — and that’s commendable.

The point is that you can stay pure and be successful, even if that then means the only venues capable of accommodating your tribe are sponsored by frigging telecommunications companies. Doesn’t matter: Arcade Fire, your messages are being gladly received.

CROSSLEY EXAMINATION

Send me another letter and I will blow up your house

Back to the dark side now and a story that has everything — a Bond-style villain, porn, cyber terrorism and mass civil disobedience. I’m referring to the ACS:Law ‘speculative invoicing’ saga that ended recently with the boss of bent solicitors firm ACS:Law, Andrew Crossley, dropping all cases and fearing for his life.

In a nutshell, Crossley worked out that he could turn a juicy profit — perfectly legally — by demanding a settlement from people who had illegally downloaded copyrighted material. Their other option? Court. Sensible businesses, like most record labels, gave up this method of achieving compensation for file-sharing ages ago — it doesn’t solve the grander issue of piracy, of course, and it’s terrible PR.

So Crossley was mostly left with pornographers as clients, which turned out to be pretty good for business. A lot of people (about one in five, as it happens) will quickly write a cheque for £400 — whether they’re guilty of the claim or not — if it means they’ll never be sent another letter concerning Freddie’s British Granny Fuck (actual title!).

Many, however, won’t — including one man who emailed Crossley the following:  “If you send me another fucking letter, I will rape your mum against the wall, and I will blow up your house and kill you all in a terrorist attack.”

And how do we know that message was sent? Because the pro-file-sharing Anonymous/4Chan ‘hacktivist’ dudes smashed ACS:Law’s website to pieces — twice — then put a whole load of very private information online. In doing so, they created the greatest data protection leak in British internet history.

A story of our times, people!

Related: