Tuesday 26 May 2015

A Very Important Lunch (or: the Battle of the Turnip Balls)

22 April 2015, 1 pm

I am at lunch with the Very Important Man who has the ear of Government when it comes to professional business services.  But it is OK because there are other patent attorneys there, as well as the Pee and the EyePeePee and the Chief Eggsek, so I do not have to say much and when I do there are plenty of people to kick me under the table.

It is a posh lunch.  The Very Important Man has a remote control at his side to summon in the next course whenever he gets bored with my conversation.  When we run out of courses he will summon Security.

We tell him about what we see on the horizon for the UK’s IP professions.  I am glad that we have just put together our Magnificent Manifesto, because this shows that we actually have been up in the crow’s nest with our telescopes recently rather than mumbling grumpily below deck like we used to.

During the discussions, I engage in a private battle with the posh lunch.  This raises one or two questions in my mind.  How, in polite company, are you supposed to handle turnip balls?  What kind of person has time to fashion perfect spheres out of flavourless root vegetables?  And what happens to the rest of the turnip?  Are the nation’s food banks overflowing with turnip ball peripheries?  These are first world questions, I know, but right now I could do with some answers.  I do not want to launch a turnip ball into the lap of the Very Important Man just when the others are telling him that the IP profession is crucial to the economy.

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