brand identity: fish sauce foodie

I keep thinking about a man named Scaurus.

He lived in Pompeii, and he made fish sauce. Or garum, as it was called.

We know this, because he sold them in clay vases, stamped with his logo, and a strap line along the lines of 'the best fish sauce in Pompeii'. I can't stop thinking about him, and the idea that even then - thousands of years ago - people were thinking about brand identity in the products they bought. Even then, people were... foodies.

There was an excellent series - it just won a Bafta - by the artist Grayson Perry (another good pottery maker: he won the Turner Prize, in fact) - called In the Best Possible Taste, in which he explored the British class system, by taking each of the three classes and asking them what kind of stuff they liked. Not surprisingly, it was the Middle Class who were the most confused. They not only didn't know what they liked, but they were quite anxious about being seen as being 'classy', having good taste, and were spending a great deal of money trying to keep up with the Joneses. In fact, to be on the safe side, most just buy whatever Jamie Oliver likes. Which is ironic, because his roots are so proudly unPosh.

Anyway, this Scaurus, with the best fish sauce in town. I picture his wife, who perhaps did an early form of his PR, saying 'you've got to make a stamp on the bottom, so people can know it's you.' I bet it was in all the best homes in Pompeii.

My husband and I went to a Roman ruin, near our favourite hotel on the coast of Andalusia (more about that later: post coming up) and the entire ruin was a small town built on the beach for the factory that made fish sauce. The homes of the workers. It's possible that Scaurus's fish sauce originated there.

This hand made clay vase is made in honour - in memory of the one in the Pompeii show (you can see the original here, or at the show itself). Or you can buy the handmade vase shown here, by UK based specialist potter Andrew MacDonald, through the British Museum Gift shop. I actually heard a rather posh man, in the shop, asking someone if it can be used to hold extra virgin olive oil. And the answer is, yes, it can. Or fish sauce. That's what it was designed for: to be used.

I feel such a fondness for this man. All these years later. While all the other souls in Pompeii remain nameless, their household goods and jewels and even their bodies, left for us to see, but their names, their hopes and dreams, remain a mystery, but Scaurus and his posh fish sauce live on.

they walk amongst us

My husband and I had the privilege, yesterday morning, to attend a special press preview breakfast event: viewing the Pompeii exhibition on at the British Museum, on behalf of the British Museum shop, which is quite special, in that it's essentially non-profit: the main purpose of the shop is to raise funds for the Museum.

The exhibition itself has had such an impact on both of us. It was such a different experience from the Bowie show at the V&a, profoundly different, and it's made me realise what talent goes into putting together a show at a major museum. I urge anyone who hasn't already seen it to go, and definitely use the head phones.

You arrive and are basically walking through a large layout of a home in Pompei. One room was the most beautiful atrium like space - a kind of enclave, off the main atrium - and there were three giant frescos: beautiful paintings of birds and flowers. I think that might have been my favourite part. There's a sweet 'fresco tee shirt', which I could see wearing with printed trousers - print on print - a perfect look for spring. It's only £24.

And as you make your way around this house, you're drawn into this world, and realise these people, living in the time of Christ - yet probably, despite being Romans, blithely unaware that Christianity was about to dominate the Roman world. And despite a few technical differences - no indoor plumbing, for example - their lives, their natures, weren't all that different from our own. (And while we think mainly of Pompeii, the coastal city, Herculaneum, was even more devastated - and both cities are represented in the exhibition).

You get drawn in, and then - like watching the Titanic - you're surprised at the visceral shock you feel when it all ends so suddenly.

And yet.. people survived. A lot of people survived. Their descendants are walking amongst us. Possibly unaware that their ancestors survived.

So when I was thinking of how to illustrate my first post - and I do want to show you some of the stunning things they're selling, reproductions of the jewelry and sculptures, home items, from Pompei, as well as other areas of the museum - I thought of a trip I took, with my tribe of Italian friends, to a volcanic island called Ponza. While the Romans think of it as their Hamptons (technically, to me it's more like Fire Island, because you go there by boat), I was shocked to realise it's so close to Pompei and Herculaneum. And to think that the stunning volcanic sculptural elements that make this place such paradise, is the same force of nature that ended this world in the blink of an eye.

And then I thought of the donkey.

A few of us had hiked up and up, on an uninhabited island called Zannone, while the others stayed down on the boat, swimming. I had wished I was swimming - it was hot, and we were hiking so long in the white heat - when we reached the summit. An uninhabited ruin, on an uninhabited island.

And there was this donkey.

Luigi - our friend Guilia's husband, Eleanora's father, who went on to be the head of the EU in the Middle East - showed his diplomatic skills, by befriending the donkey.

There was something so spiritual about this living being, alone at the top of this mountain. He seemed so human. We didn't want to leave him, but we couldn't bring him with his. Perhaps he actually was God, manifest in the form of a simple donkey.

Life and Death Pompeii and Herculaneum is on at the British Museum until 29th September. Shown here - besides my photos of Ponza and Zannone - are items from the Museum Shop, like the statue of Hermes, God of Music and Travel - found at Pompeii. Made of hand-patinated bonded bronze, it is available online or of course, at the museum itself.

and let thy feet

Sergio Rossi, Sloane Street, (top), and British Museum, London

no smoking in the museum

Dotted outside the British Museum: finally, a playsuit! In this season's big colour, yellow. (Not so wild about the yellow & black thing, it's a bit bumblebee to me, what do you think?) Expected to see more of them this spring but it's been too friggin' cold & wet.

is that peaches on the left?

They're doing amazing things with metallic spandex these days. These (alleged) offspring of celebrities, having fun outside the British Museum, chose to go for the anonymous look in this season's must have catsuits in patterns like aubergine snakeskin or the ubiquitous leopard print.

It's getting harder than ever to tell these days which is a real Hogg, and which is a pale imitation.