The chef's blog

Groucho would approve

Ian Harrison’s (a.k.a The Baron of bakehouse communications) LinkedIn group ‘I’m not a member of any group, can I join yours?’ cadaver count goes from strength to strength. Well 8 in actual fact!

Good authority reports this places the group in the loftiest top 10% of LinkedIn Groups by membership numbers alone.

The ‘I’m not a member’ group pays homage to the great Groucho Marks’ tenet suggesting that ‘he wouldn’t want to join any club that would have him as a member’. The Baron maintains to this day that the only reason he joined The Boy Scouts (3 weeks) was to get familiar with – developed before her time - Head Girl Guide Amanda Norton.

Ian – well known recluse - has been predictably guarded on the touchy subject of membership (vis-à-vis their mental stability) as all 8 have demonstrated poor judgement in the extreme by joining and in one swoop coming a cropper at the first and most preciously guarded principle of membership – not to join!

More disturbingly still, some members have been sponsoring discussion topics (i.e. ‘Dyson – do they suck big time?’ and ‘Bob Diamond – discus using expletives of 1 syllable or less’) – thus laying waste to principle 2, expressly forbidding interactive engagement in said group.

All members have been summarily expelled forthwith. That said, there still exist fantastic opportunities for new members to exorcise the frustrations of their past by being able to bask in the honour of being expelled from a club within seconds of joining. That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.

And as if to prove you can’t keep a good thing down. In the ‘2010 5-Star LinkedIn Group Awards for Innovation in Futility and Banality’ the ‘I’m not a member of any group, can I join yours?’ narrowly missed out on the top gongs behind:

Bronze: ‘Marketing to miners – how not to keep them in the dark’ (3 members).

Silver: ‘I’ve never had a girlfriend, can I borrow yours’ group (1 member).

Gold: ‘Bankers – let’s hope they don’t choke on the caviar’ (170+ million members).