Just as people often have a tendency to want to blurt out exactly what’s on their mind, so do companies seem to want to tell you, in their slogans and straplines, exactly what they want you to know about them, and in the least poetic, least inspiring, most pedestrian language possible. The unfortunate result of this bad habit is a surfeit of boring offical utterances like “The world’s local bank” (which at least has an idea in it) or “The simple plumbing solution” (simple and solution are always in extremely heavy rotation; I wish I held shares in those two words!).

The missing ingredient, in a word, is musicality — just, quite plainly, the way the words sound. Rhythm. Cadence. Tone. Timbre. Vibrato. Phrasing. When it comes to a slogan, these things matter not as much but MORE than the content. They are the forgotten criteria of sloganeering.

In his book You Are The Message, Roger Ailes gives an anecdote about Mark Twain which illustrates my point. Twain, trying to get dressed one morning, pulled out three shirts in a row that were short a button:

Twain flew into a rage, swearing like a stevedore. When he was through, he was startled to see his wife standing at the door, fuming in her own way at his intemperance. Carefully, slowly, and without a trace of emotion, she repeated every obscene word just uttered by her husband….When she was through, she stood impassive and silent, hoping her display would shame Twain. Instead, with a twinkle in his eye, he puffed his cigar and said, “My dear, you have the words, but you don’t have the music.”

There you go: it’s what you say and the way that you say it.

Ignalina's reactor building

I know Ignalina nuclear power plant is scheduled to close at the end of this year. And rationally I know that managing two atomic reactors — even if they are almost identical to the vintage Soviet RBMK-1000s at the heart of the Chernobyl hiccup — and keeping an aquarium have nothing to do with each other.

Still, I think if you want to be trusted to run a large nuclear facility, you should clearly be seen to be able to run that small fishtank in your lobby.

Ignalina's visitors' centre fish tank

In other news, America’s National Mall in Washington, D.C. is falling into disrepair.

The restored Königsberg Cathedral

One hundred and fifty euros for a Russian visa. Nearly six hours waiting to cross the border at Sovetsk/Tilsit. And 134km from there to the city of Kaliningrad/Königsberg.

Königsberg Cathedral is the jewel of what precious little is left here of German architecture — the site the official tourist brochure says to visit first and foremost.

When we got there, at 1pm on a summer Sunday, it was closed of course.

Because it was the weekend.

Lesson: if you want to keep your customers, you MIGHT consider keeping your customers’ hours.

That said, we are really enjoying walking around this one-of-a-kind city, nourished by good, cheap beer (and no open container laws) and the legendary Belomorkanal pinch-filter cigarettes at 6 rubles (that’s almost 11 whole English pence) a pack.

These ads strike me as odd — and of limited effectiveness — because even if true, they’re not credible.

I have worked with Poland, I have been to Poland, and I live in London with about a zillion Poles. Over the last five years, I’ve had a few rather excellent Polish meals (the best of them involving chanterelle mushrooms). It’s hearty peasant stuff loaded with dill — fine if you’re in the mood, and you might be in the mood. But I would not say — and I have never heard anybody suggest, until these ads — that Polish food is one of the world’s great cuisines. No shame in this, but a fact’s a fact.

Now let’s suppose this fact is not a fact, and actually, Polish cuisine these days really is something special. Am I going to believe an ad that tells me something that directly contradicts my own perception, even if it is a misperception?

I might, but only if its conveyed to me with more artistry than this ad musters. Use a third party endorsement: tell me Jamie Oliver’s latest book is about Polish food, or that Warsaw has just gotten its sixth Michelin-starred restaurant. Or give me some facts that relate to a narrative I can tell myself about the Pole’s love of fine food — that even city-dwelling Poles can identify edible wild mushrooms, or that it was Poles who originally taught Belgians to make chocolate hundreds of years ago, or that there’s a new Polish fast-but-good-food chain specialising in gourmet pierogies (like a Polish version of Ping Pong, if you’re familiar with that establishment in Britain).

A last possible way of heading off a misperception is to acknowledge it outright, respect its presence heartily, and then declare it false or outdated. Say, in effect, “you’re not crazy to think this — no, no, not at all — but there is more to this story, you see.”

And consider not being earnest about it. Humour, and not taking yourself too seriously, is a sign of self-esteem and self-acceptance, which are attractive traits possessed by credible messengers; I feel like an amusing and fact-based ad that portrays Poles as eschewing borscht in favour of better, higher-brow stuff nowadays, might be more readily accepted than this straight, slick, and ultimately very standard CNN fare.

I guess it sounds like it would be an appealing marketing claim.

But it’s not. Period.

In fact, I’ll buy dinner for anybody who convinces me that he or she spent actual money (denominated in any currency) on a flight to a LAND OF CONTRASTS qua LAND OF CONTRASTS.

At the same time, I found a link to a talk I gave in Budapest in 2006 at a conference on national identity. The organisers posted the whole PowerPoint, including amusing — and instructive? let us hope so… — slides about marketing claims for places: “An introduction to robust national branding (including a case study about Poland)”.

My stump speech has progressed since then, but the fundamentals are well-described:

“The task,” I say, “is to work out what is special and interesting about Hungary and then convey that — visually, verbally, experientally — so that people understand Hungary and are attracted to it”.

That’s as good a definition of the process of place branding as any.

There I go again about logos....

Julija and I stagger stocking-footed off the party boat docked along the Quai des États-Unis and find our shoes in the bin, and, podiatrically and psychologically relieved (had I seriously thought somebody might steal a pair of Johnston & Murphy crepe-soled saddle bucks? here?) put them back on.

Hailing an unlicenced taxi — a nice car (an Audi or something) driven by a young man who claims credibly to be up from Italy, just for the weekend, to make a couple extra bucks — we got ourselves to the Billionaire Club in the Fairmont Hotel.

I’m through drinking, but Julija wants her usual. “A rum and Coke,” I request at the bar. “Fifteen euros,” I hear, and I hand across a 50 euro note. I turn and deliver the drink and turn back to get my change.

None is forthcoming.

I make a gesture of expectancy. “Yes, it was 50,” says the barman, this time with unmistakable annunciation. Too dumbstruck to respond, and knowing full well that if any woman is worth a gilded Cuba Libre it’s my irreplaceable Julija, I consciously choose the laugh option over the cry one. “Sip this one slowly, baby.”

On the plane back to London Tuesday morning I’m talking to Guillaume, a 20-something born Monegasque, in the seat next to me. “You know I paid 50 euros for a rum and Coke at the Billionaire on Friday night. I’d never seen such a thing in my life.” “Well, at Jimmy’z the cocktails are 64 euros a piece. And they’re not very good. But last year they were 78.”

And so it seems the recession has reared its ugly head even in Monaco, whose residential real estate is officially the world’s most expensive. Anyway, I’m thinking from now on in my travels maybe I’ll track a rum and Coke index…a challenge, or a counterpart, to The Economist‘s Big Mac index. Would it turn my bar tab into a business expense?