Reports in the Sunday Times of Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson’s new Chelsea home brings to mind the disastrous interview I did with another advertising legend, Frank Lowe, also in Chelsea.
He was looking for someone to head up his then burgeoning international agency business and I’d been recommended.
I arrived at his elegant terraced house and was shown into the “front room”. I marvelled at the extraordinary glass dome three stories above and the enormous fireplace. It reminded me of something, but what was it? Ah, yes - Orson Welles and “Citizen Kane”.
After a wait of thirty minutes or so, Frank finally appeared. “What do you think of the house?” he enquired.
“Seems to have been designed by a megalomaniac,” I blurted.
“Yes,” he said. “I designed it.”
I wasn’t offered the job.
It was one of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” moments for both of us: he knew instantly that I was not right for him. But, before he showed, I already knew that it was not for me.
Have you had instantaneous “Blink” moments - ones where you have blurted the truth?
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