PubAffairs Blog
Gordon says...get skilled
Lobby-Lite20 January 2008 11:11 AM
Having seen those adverts with the hands telling us that we need to take control of our futures and get skilled, I signed up for an evening course.
I was a little concerned when I called to register to find the only qualification for the course seemed to be whether or not I had a credit card. Establishing I did meant instant access. So much for all those exams my mother had told me would come in handy one day.
Never mind. I’m here to improve myself I thought. Get my brain working again. Our teacher was certainly different. She is exactly how I want to be at 60. Highly intelligent, utterly fabulous and completely scatty. She is the lady in the Jenny Joseph poem (www.inspirationline.com/EZINE/7MAR2005.htm) who wanted to wear purple and go out in the rain in her slippers. In the poem she spends her pension on brandy. Our lady spends it on vodka. Lots of vodka. She sipped from a water bottle liberally throughout the class. Conferring with my fellow students during a break proved that no-one was in any doubt that bottle was at least 50% proof. But if that’s her thing then it didn’t detract from her passion and experience.
A cross between Judy Dench and Lloyd Grossman she was intensity intensified. She did breathe during her lecture. Just not very often. It was over an hour before she finished her first sentence. I was exhausted just listening. She regularly went off on tangents, and off on tangents of those tangents, but I do think we learnt something. Even if it was just that you can fool people’s eyes, but not their sense of smell.
I shall return to class next week. Not just because I know I need to improve my skills. I want to know if she remembers what homework she gave us. Scattiness plus vodka means we might just get away with all those excuses no-one ever believed at school.
Can we fix it...
Lobby-Lite11 November 2008 2:33 PM
A great political speech not only transcends time but also time zones. It resonates with rich and poor, black and white, male and female. It should mean as much to someone in Boston, USA as Boston, Lincolnshire. And l...
Heineken don?t do party conferences. But if they did?
Lobby-Lite29 September 2008 5:38 PM
…they’d be the brains behind the Conservatives this year. In ten years of Party Conference attending I’ve never seen such a slick, logistically smooth event.
The security staff are smiling ...
Tittle and tattle at Labour Conference
Lobby-Lite21 September 2008 8:24 PM
Party conferences are surreal places. All those people who would qualify for a P (political) or M (media) list spot when you notice them once in London are suddenly everywhere – and only genuine celebs (there&rs...
Lib Dem conference - the alternative fashion week
Lobby-Lite21 September 2008 8:22 PM
Yup – you weren’t expecting to see Lib Dems and fashion in the same sentence were you? But while London Fashion Week raged in London, those politically exiled from London, swept down to Bournemouth to work...
Party conference on (but not too much)
Lobby-Lite18 September 2008 11:06 AM
I was asked last week how a lobbyist can judge whether a party conference has been successful. The girls in my office say it is the freebies I bring back. Well I’m back from Lib Dems and I don’t think the ...
2012 Manifesto
Lobby-Lite25 August 2008 1:23 PM
As the last firework faded over Beijing, the British media were still conveying a sense of shock that Team GB finished so high up the medal table. But, with the highs come the lows, and now our fickle media warn that ...
Silly season for pointless PR
Lobby-Lite12 August 2008 9:45 AM
For anyone involved in the media, August is a lost month. Apart from the middle Thursday where the papers write indignantly about dumbed down A Levels, and then fill the front pages the next day with pictures of beaut...
Survival of the fittest?
Lobby-Lite24 January 2008 6:18 PM
The Times this morning reports a story guaranteed to make gym bunnies’ blood boil. The government’s considering paying fat people to lose weight. As part of a strategy to fix the bad eating habits and sede...
Gordon says...get fit
Lobby-Lite12 January 2008 11:06 AM
So new year, new body! The regular January proclamation of the unhealthy, mince-pied up and newly tee-total. And, as Gordon says, we should do thirty minutes of exercise a day. As a result I, along with many thousands...
Gordon says...get recycling
Lobby-Lite06 January 2008 11:21 AM
As an (occasionally) dedicated public affairs consultant I’m constantly advising clients and colleagues on the latest directives and ‘suggestions’ from Government. With the New Year coming round and ...
An empty diary
Lobby-Lite05 January 2008 11:19 AM
On the desk lies a pristine looking diary, not yet stained with coffee, not yet featuring the scruffy, ripped pages indicating a forgotten notebook on far too many occasions. 2008 stares up blankly. The 2008 comms pla...
If a week is a long time in politics - where did the whole year go...
Lobby-Lite30 December 2007 9:34 PM
As my first ever post I figured it was worth a look back over 2007.
This was the year of elections real ones, non-existent ones and controversial ones. There was a ...
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