Tuesday 30 December 2014

The best thing about our President

1 December 2014, midnight

I lie awake being scared.  The President is losing her voice.  So I am scared that if she does not find it again by Wednesday, I may have to chair the Council meeting in her stead. 

To be fair, I am probably not the only person who is scared by this prospect.

I am not surprised the President is losing her voice.  She works harder than almost anybody I know.  While I am wandering around the country basically looking for tea parties to go to, she is out at proper serious meetings with proper serious people, explaining CIPA’s position on things I didn’t even realise had happened.  While I am jumping up and down shouting about changing stuff and new projects, she is quietly getting on and making things happen.  And while I am writing a not-so-serious diary about Biscuit Pixies and pantomimes, the President is writing letters to the Baroness IP Lady Minister and the presidents of overseas IP groups.

She also has a proper day job, which she must surely be doing in a parallel universe because there is no way she would have enough time to do it in this one.  In my parallel universe I am mostly watching washing machines go round; every now and then I turn up to the day job and meddle a bit and nick some paper clips, but although I enjoy this very much it is not exactly high-powered.

The best thing about our President is that she can act really scary when she wants Council to shut up and listen.  But if you sit her down with a drink and some CIPA members to talk to, she is nice as pie.  She is also, despite being scary on Council, a Proper Woman.  Unlike me, she can look after a handbag properly.  She can choose elegant clothes and fashionable shoes and she knows how to wear them without looking like she’s tripped over a dressing-up box.  Yet she can talk about patent law like she is Wikipedia personified, and if she did that to me in oral proceedings I would staple myself to my files in despair.   

Maybe the answer, if she still has no voice on Wednesday, is for me to sit behind the President with a script.  I can talk; she can mime and look scary.  I will try to stick to my script better than Mr Parkinson Davies did.

No comments:

Post a Comment