Sunday 12 October 2014

Grand plans

7 October 2014

I begin planning my Grand Tour in earnest.  So far I have had invitations to Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, Derby and Munich.  These are all from people who took pity on me and decided that having me round for an hour or so and offering me a caramel custard tart would be a small price to pay for me LEAVING THEM ALONE for the rest of the year.

The Munich invitation is particularly attractive.  However, I am not sure the Internal Governance Committee, with its new expenses policy, is going to countenance a trip to the Christmas markets, even if it does yield a bit of feedback from CIPA members and even if I do promise to bring back a large Lebkuchen heart. 

The Committee holds a meeting this afternoon.  I don’t mention Munich.    

The next gigs are in Oxford and Cardiff.  Fortunately both these places are pretty much on the M4 although with Oxford you have to be a bit creative to make that happen and it is the type of creativity that the Highways Agency is not always comfortable with.  I think Derby and Edinburgh are on the M4 too, roughly.  I do not think Munich is on the M4. 

I spend the rest of the day, when I am not browsing through my 1998 Road Atlas of Great Britain (New Improved showing Speed Cameras & Little Chefs® & Other Things You Want to Avoid at All Costs), doing proper serious CIPA stuff.  I get some papers ready for the oral proceedings course.  I plan a meeting about diversity in the IP professions.  I arrange to make a speech at an IPO-run conference for business advisors.  I very nearly start writing the speech, but get side-tracked by a gin and tonic.  I know none of these things will look as exciting on YouTube® as a country bumpkin emptying straw out of her rucksack, but they may go some way to showing I am earning my keep.  Or at least that I am not just watching the washing machine go round any more.

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