or How to Do PR by Nigel Wonnacott
Secrets and Sin is a dark and salacious memoire, spanning a career of more than 20 years in motor industry and 11 in maritime comms.
Told in 23 chapters and 70,000 words, it tells tales of the launch trip from hell, how not to behave with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, trashing a rotten bastard's reputation and worst practice in broadcast interviews.
Separating each story are tips, tricks and cheats that AI can’t teach. It may help the PR person of the future. Or anyone who wishes to surface their inner Malcolm Tucker.
Image: detail from Calais Pier
by J M W Turner, National Gallery, London
From motor to maritime
Cars on carpets
Cars on carpets
Cars on carpets
In 2024 Bentley, Mercedes, and Jaguar Land Rover were absent, but you could still pay to see a whole load of cars on carpets in the exhibition halls at the Porte de Versailles in Paris, that could be spotted for free zooming around the Arc de Triomphe, just a short traffic jam from the venue. Plus ça change.
Fat hacks
Cars on carpets
Cars on carpets
If a portly motoring editor turns on the racism taps over dinner at a launch, the PR is perfectly entitled to put her foot down. She might also suggest that a request for free travel from an aging Travel Writers Guild member, with no credible outlet, would land a little better if it came with less of an attitude problem.
The France Show
Cars on carpets
The France Show
The highlight of the event was a can-can show running every 30 minutes. The audience at each performance consisted of horrible old gammons gazing at dancers wearing grimaces, while trying to get a glimpse of their knickers. It was as classy as a peep show and as sexy as an elephant in fishnets rubbing its arse up against a concrete bollard.
You can't ride a bullet train with your gun on safety.
Ekranoplans
Fear of becoming obsolete
Fear of becoming obsolete
Flying ferries were a succulent dish on a Yo Sushi conveyor with huge potential for rich coverage. However, other diners had their eyes on the prize. Delay or prevarication meant every chance the dish would pass us by, only to be greedily snaffled by someone else. Worse still, it might be quietly removed from the conveyer entirely.
Fear of becoming obsolete
Fear of becoming obsolete
Fear of becoming obsolete
I watched in wonder as a few prompts on Chat GPT delivered results on screen like the vide-printer that used to deliver football scores at 4.50pm on a Saturday, but turbo-charged. I’m a quick writer, but this was Usain Bolt to my Zola Budd (in contemporary time: Zola Budd is approaching 60)
Rome
Fear of becoming obsolete
Rome
Shortly after the bus set off from the hotel, my boss stood up to make a speech over the PA.
I was not impressed, but then again I wouldn’t have been had he matched the oratory skills of Cicero, such was my loathing for the man.
Dark arts, tricks and treats
Lagerfeld was given a hero’s welcome when he flew to Goodwood in 2012. German colleagues swooned as the cadaverous, monochrome, cartoon character crept around the factory. He took some photographs; they were piss poor.
A year or so later, announcing production of the company’s new coupe model, it occurred to me that our press pack was inaccurate: it was not the first time a Wraith had advanced slowly down the Rolls-Royce assembly line.
Blaggers and bloggers
No one knows their way around blags and blagging like car writers, but you can’t really blame them. Decades of pampering in the soft, fat hands of car company PR teams trained a legion of the entitled.
The left end of the IQ curve
There is a big difference between a clever disrupter and a disruptive idiot. The latter with whom I worked at another company - mercifully, briefly - was on another level of stupid.
Writing and fighting
Watching the drama unfold, I couldn’t help feeling I was in a comfy chair. I could sit back and open up the popcorn. Or I could get up and put the boot in a little more. Obviously, I went for the latter.
Protect and Survive quotes
BILLY GRAINGER (to FIONA on nuclear war v global warming)
GENERAL JONES (Oval Missile Attack Conference - 1979 )
GENERAL JONES (Oval Missile Attack Conference - 1979 )
And your Armageddon Fi? Vineyards in Kent and sun tans in Glasgow? Doesn’t sound too bad to me.
GENERAL JONES (Oval Missile Attack Conference - 1979 )
GENERAL JONES (Oval Missile Attack Conference - 1979 )
GENERAL JONES (Oval Missile Attack Conference - 1979 )
Are you shitting me Jim? Ain’t it enough we got the Soviets? Now its IBM and the Casio Cassette Corporation starting world war 3?
STANISLAV PETROV (Missile Monitoring Station in Moscow - 1983)
GENERAL JONES (Oval Missile Attack Conference - 1979 )
STANISLAV PETROV (Missile Monitoring Station in Moscow - 1983)
What you see -- these missiles -- they are the ghosts of a terrible future. We must not allow ourselves to be lured, as Rusalka lures men to the lake.
About
A foot soldier in retreat, I stumble alongside a battered battalion of fellow human resources in their 50s. Our collective aim is to get in under the wire of early retirement - before the army of algorithms get us.
Covid was the first wave; AI the barrage that brought us to our knees. The middle-aged pen pusher in fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO). We are no longer economically viable. We are the past.
Before I go gentle into that good night, I present the book(end) to my career. For while the future is digital, analogue has a place. And perhaps the voice of experience should not be lost entirely.
Twenty years in the motor industry and more than ten in maritime, the (near) finale is 70,000 words written without support from any form of omnipresent, electronic bastard.
All rights reserved. No scraping content for your bloodly LLMs.
Blue Foot Productions
This is not a thing. But it might be at some point in the future :-)