Although I ended up in ended up in Denmark the other day when trying to take my wife on a surprise visit to her relatives in Sweden ( note to self : Stockholm, not Copenhagen, is the capital of Sweden ) geography has always been one of my strong points. So it was particularly disheartening to hear the following story of my son Bob in the car back from school discussing with his friend Ed, ( David Cameron’s godson as it happens ) the mock Common Entrance geography exam they had taken that afternoon.
“Ed, what is the capital of Russia by the way?”
“Don’t know Bob, sorry”
“Oh well, I wrote Roulette. Not sure it’s right but it’s the only Russian word I know.”
WRONG. In so many ways. And you can be virtually certain that he failed to spell Roulette correctly. To think that only this week someone was asking me for my views on the Cambridge school Bob attends and I used the word “academic”.
Despair. In addition I have had to do some pretty undignified begging this week to try to make sure absolutely all the companies attending our Shinka Forum here in London next week – what? I hadn’t told you about this? – have a good full schedule. I suppose I might have suggested there would be a reward for those stepping up to the plate and taking meetings with the more esoteric offerings, but really I meant that if we want a broad range of companies to continue to make the trip to the UK it’s in all our interests to give them each an effusive welcome. It is not always possible to predict how one’s email message will be received. What on earth did the person who sent this response think I was up to?
Nervous overtones of the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles here – nonetheless I am happy to meet with *************. Is this a 1on1?
PS. Talking of corporates......Christmas......can you believe my wife rang me today to ask if I would be happy to be given two teak benches for the garden as my Christmas present. To be honest, I would have been outraged if not for the fact that Sophie’s Christmas stocking has begun to fill up already. For escorting a corporate to a client meeting I was handed a parcel, beautifully wrapped in the company colours, containing, I was told, a lovely, natural dyed, allergy free, place mat. No doubt with the corporate logo inscribed.
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