Almost a year ago, we spent a happy evening poring over the Canberra Continuing Education Institute's brochure, with its enticing array of courses to improve our lives. The one that particularly caught our eye (we pass it round and put it in a glass with the dentures every night before we turn the light out) was the one conducted by a person called Kevin Norton, entitled 'Social Chit Chat' ('ever wondered how some people mingle with ease, saying the right thing at the right time to people they hardly know?', Oh yes, yes, yes - would I be sitting here staring at a computer screen, if I'd ever unlocked the art of conversation? No, of course not.)
Anyway, Canberra does not merely offer its citizens this enticing opportunity. No, indeed - Canberra has also introduced the idea to the wider world. I mean why else would Alain de Botton, with that hideously sensitive looking shiny bald pate of his - an invitation to disastrous interaction with our fierce unrelenting sunshine, (shhh, don't tell them the climate's changed and we don't have fierce unrelenting sunshine any more, or you'll ruin the tourist industry) - have dared to venture all the way to the Antipodes if it wasn't to make sure that, (having taken inspiration from Kevin Norton - or possibly stolen his brilliant innovation - and established a course for Londoners called "How to Have Better Conversations"), he had in fact implemented (to use the kind of lingo that is all the rage with trainers) his master's strategy properly?
Once again (I'm sure if you look on Wikipedia you'll find another thrilling example, although nothing comes to mind immediately) the nation's capital has broken new ground, charged forth to new horizons and demonstrated to the entire international community exactly how things should be done.
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