Sunday 19 April 2015

Creative writing and life advice (and scaring the auditor)

3 March 2015

I spent most of yesterday and today writing my speech.  When you are a brilliant creative writer like me ha ha, at least a third of your writing time is spent looking out of the window in search of inspiration, and another third preparing and consuming refreshments.  And that is my excuse for only having written three pages in two days and for most of the three pages to be less interesting than the washing instructions on my underwear. 

 

4 March 2015, 11 am

We have invited the auditor to our Internal Governance Committee meeting.  The auditor said he was too busy but he sent a junior auditor instead and the junior auditor looks like he wishes he’d been too busy as well.  He wears a pained expression.  He explains anxiously, and in detail, the notes to the annex to the bit about the audit that really counts.  He does not say anything much about our actual finances. 

We suspect the auditors have absolutely no idea what CIPA does for a living and don’t like to ask.  They probably think we are some kind of self-help group for misguided old codgers. 

 

4 March 2015, 10 pm

Now I am in a hotel room writing a last-minute blog for the IPO, who have realised that it is International Women’s Day on Sunday and couldn’t think of anyone better suited to write a last-minute blog about women and IP than someone who is not much good at either but known for being a prolific keyboard-basher.

In my blog, I say that women do not have to be domestic goddesses in order to make it in the world of IP.  It is enough just to be good at IP, I say.  I feel the need to state this because it is not always immediately obvious from the stuff people write about women in the professions. 

I have a 700-word limit, so I am not able to include my Vital Advice to Women in IP Who Are Not Domestic Goddesses.  But clearly, whilst it is OK not to be a domestic goddess, there are certain social and professional situations which you then need to steer clear of.  Like, inviting people round to your place for dinner.  Like, agreeing to make birthday cakes or fancy dress costumes for your offspring (because that is what supermarkets are for).  

1 comment: