There might be a question mark for the second year running over many of our favourite live televised events. In this final post of the Fifty Shades theme our guest author, David Kightley, goes in search of simply anybody who has gone for gold in their chosen fields…
In the gardening world, Carol Klein speaks with authority having won six gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show. In 2016 she was voted the nation’s favourite TV gardener pushing Monty Don and his canine friends into second place. In 2018 Carol received the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest accolade in the British gardening world. Only 63 medals may be held at any one time, in recognition of the duration in years of Queen Victoria’s reign.
That’s as maybe, but Alan Titchmarsh must surely have struck gold as a TV gardener, author, poet and broadcaster. Having written more than forty gardening books and a dozen novels he hosted the live television coverage of Chelsea for thirty years. He too is one of the select 63. He even has a wax statue at Madame Tussauds and in some people’s book he will always be considered to be the golden boy of gardening!
From the world of sport, Sir Andy Murray (aka the King of Queen’s) defeated Novak Djokovic in the 2012 US Open Final, becoming the first British man since 1936 to win a Grand Slam singles title. He is also the first British man to win multiple Wimbledon singles titles since Fred Perry (1934,1935 and 1936) by winning the tournament in 2013 and 2016. Murray is the men’s singles 2012 (London) and 2016 (Rio) Olympic gold medallist, making him the only tennis player to have won two Olympic singles titles. Impressive as that might sound; the famous Queen’s Club in London provided Sir Andy with a record five singles titles bringing him more success than any other tournament!
In 2014 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Stirling. He owns the five star Cromlix Hotel near Dunblane featuring a Chez Roux restaurant and private tennis court. Were Wimbledon to be played behind closed doors or even much reduced numbers, the champagne can stay on ice but the usual crop of 28,000 kilos of strawberries will have to fill punnets elsewhere!
In another season of unparalleled dominance seven-times F1 World Champion Sir Lewis Hamilton reinforced his ascent to being the greatest F1 driver of all time, and not even coronavirus could dampen his determination and drive to succeed and then resolve to push on in 2021 to clock up the handful of race wins required to get that magical total of 100! BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2020, his message: “To all the kids out there, dream the impossible” is an inspiration to anyone going for gold!
In the world of popular music, Sting (aka Gordon Sumner) composed Fields of Gold in 1992. Not his greatest hit, but after being covered by Eva Cassidy and Katie Melua it went on to become one of his most famous songs. He owns a wine and olives estate in Tuscany, a modern beach house in Malibu and a house in the Lake District. Back in 1997 Sting played an 18-song setlist at Glastonbury, but we’ll never know what Diana Ross had in store for us last year in the coveted legends slot or that of the bookies favourites for this year the Spice Girls!
Some artists preceded Sting with a built-in gold tag in their song titles or even their name: Californian Andrew Gold (his birth name) struck gold in the late 70s with Lonely Boy and Never let her slip away but sadly he slipped away much too early in 2011 aged just 59. The smart-suited top-ten regulars Spandau Ballet fronted by Tony Hadley literally struck gold with Gold in 1983!
The extraordinary music created for the Bond films worked particularly well for Shirley Bassey with Goldfinger (not such an odd job after all), GoldenEye for Tina Turner and The Man with a Golden Gun for Lulu!
Currently, single records are awarded Gold status when they achieve sales of 400,000. For albums, 100,000 units are required to achieve a Gold certification. For downloads, a track getting 100,000 paid streams across the various online music & video platforms will be counted as 1,000 sales by the charts and included in the final sales total, whereas 600,000 free streams are needed to generate the same 1,000 sales. With vinyl records outselling CDs in 2020, for the first time in forty years, perhaps we should all rummage in our lofts for a rare pressing with a gold price tag!
The author warmly salutes everybody else who succeeded in going for gold in their chosen field, enjoys the trappings of their success, but didn’t get a mention in this post!
We may not have showcased fifty shades of gold, but at DSD we’ll help you choose from any colour under the sun to suit and promote your line of business. Why not let us help you to kick-start your business aspirations in readiness for the post-COVID economic recovery and finish up as an award winner in your chosen field.
Be inspired to transform your branding and go for gold. If you would like our founder Dan to personally design a new logo or add a sprinkling of gold dust to your existing brand give him a call right now on 01245 465324.
You can read previous posts on colour use here: Fifty shades of Green and why colour choice is so important.
