Ludd's a Dud....

The mythical King Ludd is plagued by a greedy giant. Perhaps there's a metaphor here?

Earlier I wrote a post about Vineyard Farms’ latest batch of fake fizz and its equally fake-sounding marketing campaign for it.

Their marketing blurb for it states that:

…”Silver Reign is a reflection of our regal heritage. We invoke King Ludd's pioneering legacy to bring the unique terroir in the Garden of England to life, producing England's finest sparkling wines…”

“Our regal heritage”…?!  “We invoke King Ludd’s pioneering legacy”…?!

I read this and wondered just what fresh hell Vineyard Farms is now trying to inflict upon us.

Like many others I was inclined to think that in their unilateral renaming of large parts of the parishes of Cuxton, Halling and Luddesdown as the “Silverhand Estate”, Vineyard Farms had simply liked the vibe and gone with it. 

Many of the fields, woodlands and roads around Cuxton and Luddesdown have interesting and unusual names, names that are steeped in local history. Wrangling Lane, Cutter Ridge, Bushy Wood, Hatch Hill, Brimstone Hill, Brazenden Wood, Backenden Hill: all of these names mean something locally and would have made fitting titles for Vineyard Farms’ new estate and their brands. That would mean that Vineyard Farms would need to acknowledge the pre-existence of the local community around their new fiefdom however, something they don't seem to want to do.

After all, I can see why a moniker like “Silver Hand” might appeal to a certain type of management team. It has a remote, cold, impersonal feel to it, invoking both wealth and power. There are no warm or friendly connotations associated with the thought of the cold, metallic grasp from a powerful, wealthy, disconnected hand. It almost seems to have been adopted as a warning first and a brand second. 

In terms of historical precedent or links of the Silverhand name with the areas of Cuxton, Halling or Luddesdown however, there appeared to be none whatsoever – indeed, the most prevalent on-line reference to “Silverhand” was to a computer game character!

Johnny Silverhand "doesn't care much for the people around him as long as they are used to accomplish his goals..."

I like to think I know a little bit about local history, but the mention of a “King Ludd” rather puzzled me. It was certainly one I hadn’t come across before in my various researches in relation to Luddesdown.

Vineyard Farms themselves say that the “Silverhand” name comes from:

“…the history of the area - King Ludd, the founder of Luddesdown and many other points of interest, lost his hand in battle and had it replaced with a Silver Hand.  Hence, we have taken that inspiration and name our vineyard the Silverhand Estate….”

Stories of King Lludd Law Eriant (“Ludd of the Silver Hand”) state that he was King of the Britons from around 79BC to 18BC, and allegedly ordered the rebuilding of London's walls and towers. They go on to tell us that the city, hitherto known as Trin ovantum, thus became the city of Lud, i.e. Kaerlud. This was later corrupted to Kaerfundein, from whence came its present name. Ludd was eventually buried in London, close to Ludgate that still bears his name.

These tales arise from the History of the Kings of Britain as written by Geoffery of Monmonth (1095-1155) - a work which is now pretty much regarded as “a literary forgery containing little reliable history”!

Geoffery of Monmonth, it seems, was much more of a romanticist than a historian, many of his works being associated with mythical figures such as King Arthur. Indeed, it seems that his stories about King Ludd were derived from Welsh folklore.

The reality of local history may not be as glamorous or magical as Vineyard Farms would like it to be, although it is still fascinating nonetheless.

The dates given for the “reign of King Ludd” above coincide with a time just fifty years before the Roman invasion of Britain. The country at the time was divided into many different kingdoms ruled over by their own tribal kings, rather than a single “King of the Britons” as Ludd was claimed to be.

At the time of the Roman invasion in 43AD, Kent itself was under the rule of the four kings whom the Romans called the Cantiaci (whose capital was at Durovernum Cantiacorum, now called Canterbury) and who Julius Caesar named as Segovax, Carvilius, Cingetorix, and Taximagulus. On the news of the Roman landing, the British tribes united to fight the invaders under the command of Togodumnus and his brother Caratacus of the Catuvellauni tribe.

These British tribes were subsequently defeated at the Battle of Medway and fell back to the Thames, a wider river that was harder for the Romans to cross and easier to defend. Londinium was subsequently established as a civilian town by the Romans about four years later. Of a “King Ludd” and his founding of London, genuine histories contain not a trace…

So regarding the Silverhand Estate’s claims to a “regal heritage”, two things are completely apparent.

First and foremost, King Ludd of the Britons probably never existed. He is a figure from Welsh mythology, with links to the legend of King Arthur. He’s a myth. A legend. All that stuff linking him with London or anywhere else is just folklore. Ludd may have once been a minor Welsh tribal chieftain, but he almost certainly wasn't a King of the Britons. There is thus no real “regal heritage” or “pioneering legacy” for Vineyard Farms to trade off of.

Secondly, there is no concrete evidence to link the non-existent King Ludd with Luddesdown anyway, despite the plausibility of the name.

In terms of the origins of Luddesdown, Edward Hasted’s ancient and renowned History and Topographical Survey of the History of Kent Volume 3 tells us that:

”ADJOINING to Meopham, eastward, lies Luddesdon, commonly called Luddesdown. In the Textus Roffensis it is written Hludesdune, and in Domesday, Ledesdune. This place takes it name from the two Saxon words, leod populous, and dune collis, i.e. the peopled hill, alluding to its situation in this hilly country."

Alternatively, the name of Hludesdune, as cited in the 10^th century Textus Roffensis (Book of Rochester) translates as “Hludes Hill”: it may be that Hlude was a local chieftain of the area. “Hlude” also translates from the Anglo-Saxon as “loud” (and may be the origin of the term "hullabaloo"): perhaps the hill referred to was a meeting place.

But whichever way you slice it, there were no plagues of dwarves, no red and white dragons, no magical giants and no mythical kings in Luddesdown’s history.

Perhaps Luddesdown’s history was just far too boring, obscure and mundane for Vineyard Farms and so they simply decided to invent a more glamorous one to suit their own ends. Perhaps they just are jealous of their (and far more liked) competitor Chapel Down's genuine historical links to their own area and local community, links that they are proud to advertise. Perhaps VF felt they therefore needed to pay a historian to come up with a plausible-sounding load of mythical old cobblers in order to try and give some substance to their whimsical choice of an estate name.

(They have “form” in that respect. After all, they have just paid a top King’s Counsel to argue a legal case that the green belt/AONB planning restrictions affecting their billionaire’s £30m Xanadu can be waived aside, because it really is just the same as an agricultural tin shed, isn’t it?)

Or perhaps they've just been badly advised. After all, Vineyard Farms Ltd are largely just a bunch of business managers, advertising wonks and accountants, not historians. It would be quite amusing to think that a high-powered, multi-million pound company, and one that was looking forward to basing its entire branding strategy on having a "regal heritage", was misdirected by a preference for fantasies and legends rather than historical fact.

Whatever the reason, we should just laugh at their somewhat feeble attempts to subvert our local history to suit their own corporate marketing purposes - but thanks to things like ChatBot AI, made-up twaddle can soon become main-stream. Repeat nonsense often enough and clever-clever algorithms will pick it up and turn it into “the truth” - or at least what the lazy and credulous regard it as.

Vineyard Farms have bought up huge swathes of our local parishes and are aggressively reshaping and policing them in order to hijack their future for profit and glory.

Now, it seems, Vineyard Farms want to reshape and hi-jack our past as well.

Just my opinion of course, but could they really be any more contemptuous of the local area (and its people) than that?

Money can certainly buy you vast swathes of historic green-belt AONB farmland and enable you to industrialise it for profit. Money might buy you a favourable public inquiry result. It might even buy you a reinvented, glamorous history.

But, as the song goes, it can’t buy you love... 

Falling Flat...?

I have been wondering when we might hear from the Planning Inspectorate regarding their almost inevitable approval of the Vineyard Farms’ bid to build a billionaire’s vanity winery on the supposedly “protected” green belt area of outstanding natural beauty of Cuxton’s Upper Bush valley.

Apart from some wishful boasts in the Daily Treehugger (a.k.a. The Guardian newspaper – who somewhat hypocritically seemed to see nothing wrong in the proposed despoiling of a green belt AONB for commercial gain), our new feudal overlords at the winery have been rather quiet since the inquiry finished some two months ago at the start of April earlier this year.

I thought perhaps their dormant webpage might have sprung into life given their optimism, but at the moment it tells us that their “sparkling future” is still “coming soon”.

One new addition is a “shop here” tab, however. Clicking on that leads you to a promo page for their latest brew, the weirdly-named “Silver Reign”. In my (admittedly somewhat jaundiced) view, it seems a rather arrogant branding, redolent of Vineyard Farms’ imperious ambitions to reign supreme over the U.K.’s wine market.

I was initially impressed with the apparent five star reviews, but this seems to be a sleight-of-(Silver?)hand, however - when you click on the review link, the reviews are just general ones related to the supplier, (“The Wine Caverns”), rather than for the wine itself.

Indeed, quickly scrolling through the most recent comments for the past few months, none of them seemed to be about “Silver Reign” at all. Perhaps it’s more of a golden shower than a “Silver Reign”, as forgettable as their last effort. Who knows?  I can’t find any independent reviews of it on-line, anyway.

The boast about “Silver Reign” being a recipient of an award from the “Effervescents Du Monde” - “an international competition between The Best Sparkling Wines In The World”, apparently - also seems somewhat overblown. Only two UK wines featured, both from the Silverhand Estate, and neither of them made it into the top 18 of the final judge’s list.

However, what really did catch my eye was the marketing blurb on the so-called “Technical Sheet”…

…”Silver Reign is a reflection of our regal heritage. We invoke King Ludd's pioneering legacy to bring the unique terroir in the Garden of England to life, producing England's finest sparkling wines…”

All this “King Ludd” stuff is, of course, total nonsense. 

Claims to a “regal heritage” merely seem to be a rather desperate marketing ploy. However, even though their own real “heritage” is quite brief to date, Vineyard Farms can still claim some genuine history, at least when it comes to its past record of desperate marketing strategies.

The “Shop Here” tab on their “Silverhand Estate web-page” doesn’t refer to its earlier produce, such as their M&S branded “Bramble Hill” (which even The Sun only rated as a 3 out of 5)…

…and particularly not their “Harlot” (yes, you read that right) branded wines.

When I first came across it last summer, I initially thought the “Harlot” brand name was a clever play on words (along the lines of the famous jibe by Margot Asquith) and that the “t” was silent, as in “Merlot”.

From the "Harlot" web page - and everybody's answer to the question is, of course, "none of the above"...

A quick look at its awful, garish web-page (and be careful – prolonged exposure to flashing lights can induce epilepsy…) soon proved me wrong, however. The intended target audience very clearly seemed to be quite narrow and not very clever (e.g. Essex Girls out for a hen-night), the sort of folk who would almost certainly pronounce the “t” in Merlot, and probably in a “Sarf-fend” accent as well. 

I thought that perhaps MDCV UK Ltd had decided to let the Monty Python team run its marketing campaign for this one...

As with all things associated with Vineyard Farms/MDCV UK Ltd, the “Harlot” webpage is a strange one. There is no actual mention of Vineyard Farms, the Silverhand Estate or even MDCV UK Ltd itself.

The bottles bear the Silverhand logo, however, and some of the marketing blurb is undoubtedly MDCV UK’s, with the usual boasting of their “plans to revolutionise the English wine market” and how they “have established the largest vineyard in the UK and will be the biggest producer of English wine by 2025, with a production of up to 5 million bottles annually”.

Other marketing slogans for “Harlot” seem quite questionable. “The perfect fizz for a boozy lunch” is one such banner. Whatever happened to “Drink Responsibly”? Should their winery get built and the tourist traffic starts funnelling down Cuxton’s little Bush Road past the local primary school, I’m sure the school-run mums and dads will appreciate the thought of Vineyard Farms’s punters and their “boozy lunches” interacting with the local traffic flow.

Unfortunately, attempting to check the MDCV UK web-site for details on their “Harlot” brand brings up all sorts of hacker warnings. It seems their obsession with security doesn’t extend to IT…

It is clear that the brand line is very much an MDCV product though, but one that they seem to want to keep separate from their other premium lines, as if its parent company was somewhat ashamed of it and didn’t want to be seen with it in public.

It was Rupert Murdoch (anglicising a famous H.L. Mencken quote) who said that “No-one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the English public”. It's clear that the MDCV UK team behind the “Harlot” brand agree with him.

The rest of the UK wine market doesn’t. Some critics were decidedly sniffy about its “fake fizz” method of manufacture and the “provocative" marketing campaign.

Obnoxiousness as a brand attribute...?

Others suggest that the English wine market to date has been all about building a reputable quality brand at premium prices, and that a bunch of johnny-come-lately arrivistes looking to drag that brand downmarket really isn’t a smart move for anyone in the long term

So why am I digging up last year’s history now? Well, I was reminded of it when I bumped into a young acquaintance of mine and her friends at the Moot tap room the other week, and who had come along to sample the ales on offer.

Whilst their “designated driver” seemed perfectly happy to drink the coffee, the others were trying halves of the various brews. I made an inane comment about “shouldn’t you all be drinking Prosecco?” and quite rightly copped some abuse, good-natured though it was. 

It seemed that this particular group of twenty-somethings really didn’t care much for “Prosecco culture” and its connotations, and so I thought it would be a good time to raise their awareness of MDCV’s premier products, the “Harlot” range (examples of which were indeed available to sample at the Moot bar).

After the initial incredulity and laughter, out came the iPhones or whatever for verification and then the data searching. Within about 30 seconds, they had found a lot of the references I used in this post and some more besides.

Their verdict on the “provocative” advertising...?

One of VF's "Harlot" lovers "having fun"...

“Yuk”. “Tacky”. “Naff”. “Insulting to women”. “Condescending” were the more printable ones. There followed a very amusing discussion about the naming of a male-oriented product along the same lines, with suggestions such as “Gigolo”, “Himbo” and “Manslut” as potential brands (again, just the more printable ones).

From there, things went downhill, morally speaking. If Vineyard Farms really wanted to shock and “be provocative”, then why not call their wine no I won’t type that here.

All of which brings me to my point. Just what are MDCV UK/“The Silverhand Estate” trying to achieve? Are they looking to “shock” in their quest (on all fronts) to be “different”? Believe me, I have recently learned first-hand that Gen Z are pretty much unshockable. They are also well-informed, incredulous and funny.

As one of my new acquaintances suggested in a more serious aside, the “Harlot” campaign seemed rather childish and outdated. It was like an attention-seeking toddler trying to upset its middle-class mummy by shouting “Knickers! Bum! Willy! Poo!” All this clapped-out “Refuse To Conform” shtick is a totem from my old generation, not their young one.

Another suggested that these days, only a woman could get away with devising an advertising campaign that seemed to demean women. The result? Four young women who now won’t touch the Silverhand/MDCV brand with a barge pole and who may be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of “brand poisoning”.

MDCV UK don’t seem to be playing a very clever game at the moment. What’s worse is that they seem oblivious to the long-term consequences for themselves as well as for everybody else.

Their behaviour has blighted the lives of the residents of the little hamlet of Upper Bush. The residents' powerful account of this on the opening day of the public inquiry for the Vineyard Farms billionaire’s vanity winery must have surely made an impression on the planning inspector.

Vineyard Farms’ distant attitude throughout the winery planning process has also pissed off many of their three thousand neighbours in Cuxton. Can they really, long-term, survive the hostility of so many alienated local people, many of whom will now be actively watching their every move?

And now in addition, their brash, boastful and just plain weird marketing seems to have pissed off both some of the UK wine trade and their potential customers. 

So won’t we all just laugh and laugh if, perchance, they have managed to piss off the Planning Inspectorate as well?