Posted to News on 12th Jun 2008, 00:00
Etiquette and the art of innovative manufacturing...
Lucky girl that I am, I found myself recently at an awards dinner at a very fashionable restaurant in London, chatting with some of the captains of industry over fine wines and gourmet food. It's funny how, at the least likely moments, the strangest things can occur to you. And so it was that, as everyone was ripping open their bread rolls with their bare hands, showering crumbs over the table, I wondered why it is that etiquette dismisses use of a knife as thoroughly bad form.
>Staying with strange food etiquette, why is it so wrong to cut your spaghetti when you're having a bolognese? Wrapping it around your fork never really works because there's always that trailing length you have to suck in, with the inevitable splattering of sauce down your front.
>Here's a good one: why is the standard rail gauge around most of the world 4 foot, 8.5 inches? It's such an odd number. Turns out it dates back to the Romans, whose chariots formed initial ruts, which everyone else had to then match. And the Roman chariots were built just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. You would think that somewhere down the line, someone would have revisited the issue.
>Back at the gala dinner, looking around the table I noticed that all those wearing waistcoats had left the bottom button undone. I wondered if it was true that the inability of a portly Edward VII to remain holstered within the confines of his garments really did dictate that doing up one's lower button would be a tragic fashion faux pas. And if so, why has the fashion stuck with us after all these years, when doing up all the buttons looks so much smarter?
>Many of the rules that we live by are strange and outdated. But we carry on doing these things for no better reason than that's the way we've always done them. What would happen if we took this same attitude into our working lives. Where would that leave our industrial design or our manufacturing operations, if we could never look past doing things the way they'd always been done?
>I brought this up with the various members of the party on my table, and unanimously we agreed that the need to innovate, to think a little differently, to dare to take an approach that hadn't been tried before if the rewards should merit it, were all essential to the success of British industry. But you know what, boys? Not one of them would agree to do up the bottom button on his waistcoat.
Becky Silverton, 12 June 2008
