Advertisement

How to make fools of a crowd

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0

I don't know, maybe I'm nuts, but when I was asked to give a little chat to a group of female professionals the other night, in spite of extremely cold feet, I leapt right in and said I'd be happy to.

I am, as a rule, reluctant to give 'chats'. I'm into 'intercourse', quite frankly. I like to roll the conversation around on the floor a little, exchange some juicy stories and hope the person with whom I'm conversing is having as much fun as I am. The fact is, this column is the closest I'll ever get to a one-way conversation and it's only because I don't have your phone number.

My problem with giving speeches is that I don't think I have anything all that interesting to say . . . ahem . . . this is where you're supposed to leap in, protesting that the column on clearing out my children's toy box provided enough intellectually stimulating material to keep a room full of professionals mesmerised for at least . . . You get my point: the types of things that keep you and I happy for 700 words or so, are not necessarily speech material.

But when Cathy informed me the theme of my evening's chat was April Fools and Bloopers, I figured I was on terra firma. I have no shortage of material when it comes to feeling like the April, May, June, July (etc) Fool.

I got the ball rolling by reciting a laundry list of embarrassing moments in radio, including the time I got hiccups while doing a report with an echo effect on my microphone. It was like childbirth - agonising, undignified and seemingly endless. By the time one hiccup faded, the next one began.

I dug back to my disco days and the night I glided out of the ladies' room past the row of polyester-clad dudes, with one end of a roll of toilet paper attached to the heel of my 13-centimetre Elton John-esque platform shoe.

I realised this only after I made my way on to the dance floor, having left a battalion of medallion-wearing fellows laughing hysterically and pointing at my 10-metre tail of pink bathroom tissue.

Advertisement
Select Voice
Choose your listening speed
Get through articles 2-3x faster
1.1x
220 WPM
Slow
Normal
Fast
1.1x